Dying lps coral but not sps

[arkareefo]

So i have had this 60litrs nano tank for about 6months now. I have two birds nest coral frag, one funghia, few zoas, ome chalice and one hammer. Fishes only 3.

Initially my params were:-
Dkh-8-9
Calcium-420
Nitrate- 0 (negligible)
Salinity - 30ppm

All corals were growing healthy and hammer was splitting and opening quite well. The chalice was spreading.

Then i had to go for an event for 3days and my roommate fed the tank. I also dose 5ml of all for reef everyday so i asked him to do so too. An easy measurement with that cap.

When i come back i see my tank cloudy a bit and green. My friend here over fed the tank. There was food piles all over the tank. I tried to siphon out as much i could. Hence my nitrate spiked to 20. Since then disaster started.

My chalice started becoming white slowly. I thought it might be the hermit walking over it and scratching it. But eventually it became all white. Before that, the xenia also started to kind of degenrate. Like getting smaller and smaller and now it has almost vanished. Note that the chalice was totally fine even the week before and was growing good.

Recently my hammer has closed up. Its base has shrunk. My sps are doing fine. Though not growing as before but they are opening up just fine. Also the zoas. I did see a patch of coralline that has stopped spreading. My tank has some nuisance algaes now.

I did a water change yesterday to raise the salinity to 36.

My current params are:
Cal-485
Alk-8
Nitrate-15
Salinity- 35ppm

I can not address the issue properly if i dont know the cause of it.

My lights should not be the issue i thought since the corals were doing just fine with it before. I reduced the reds now to control algae.

i even thought that maybe there is some parasitic amphipod that is eating up corals starting from the xenia.

What can it be? Can it be the all for reef? Can it be the red sea coral AB+ which i feed the corals? I dont usually let it sit in room temperature for long after bringing it out of refrigerator. I am just guessing blindly with our a proper advice.

I added images where you will see some old pics of my corals healthy and the new ones showing them dying.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

My guess would be that the corals are reacting to the nutrient spike from the overfeeding (I'd imagine a sudden, huge spike in nutrients would have quite the impact on the microbiome of the tank), though some critter in your tank could be going after the corals too.

That said, I'm definitely not an expert on this topic, so hopefully we'll get a few more opinions in here for you - bump.

 

[arkareefo]

Now what the heck is that?

 

[Lavey29]

How old is your tank?

 

[arkareefo]

How old is your tank?

Its 5months old now.

For the maturity purpose I have also been adding tropic marin nitri biotic to support the biological filtration.

 

[LPS Bum]

My guess is the sudden rise then sudden fall of nutrients has thrown them off. All corals, even easier ones, appreciate stability, and this isn’t stability.

It’s why I partition out all daily feeding before I go away. That way my tank sitter can’t over feed.

A series of 25% water changes spread out over the course of a week should help you rebalance things.

 

[Northern Flicker]

Gotta get those nitrates up.

I would also be curious about the lighting - it can be very difficult to keep both SPS and LPS happy in a small tank, where flow and light intensity are fairly consistent in all of the growing areas.

Euphyllia prefer much lower intensity flow and lighting compared to that Teal Birdsnest.

 

[arkareefo]

My guess is the sudden rise then sudden fall of nutrients has thrown them off. All corals, even easier ones, appreciate stability, and this isn’t stability.

It’s why I partition out all daily feeding before I go away. That way my tank sitter can’t over feed.

A series of 25% water changes spread out over the course of a week should help you rebalance things.

Thank you @LPS Bum . I should strat with it. would not dose anything meanwhile right? Also please have a look at the picture below. do you think its too bad?

 

[sharkbait-uhaha]

Automatic feeder and single dosing pump would have prevented this, if in fact it’s the overfeeding/overdosing from friend.
But yes water changes 10/20% every 24hrs should help bring everything back into balance

 

[LPS Bum]

Thank you @LPS Bum . I should strat with it. would not dose anything meanwhile right? Also please have a look at the picture below. do you think its too bad?

Euphylias typically respond well to iodine dips, so I would suggest you try one here. I use Seachem ReefDip, but any high quality brand of iodine will be fine. I like to mix up the dip (tank water and iodine) so it’s pretty dark but not opaque (you can still see the coral in the dipping container).

Gently blow off any necrotic tissue with a pipette. A 15 min dip is usually sufficient. Rinse in clean tank water for 30-60 seconds when done. You can also cut off any heads that are dying to help prevent the spread of infection.

And do those partial 25% water changes every few days until you change out the full amount of system volume.

 

[Lavey29]

In your initial post you show 0 nitrates. No phosphate listed. This means your corals are starving to death. They decline from the inside out over weeks or months. When you combine this with the over feeding stress event of dirty environment the coral decline becomes more prevelant and visible. Particularly euphyllia are difficult in a new tank especially if they were being starved before you went out of town.

 

[arkareefo]

Automatic feeder and single dosing pump would have prevented this, if in fact it’s the overfeeding/overdosing from friend.
But yes water changes 10/20% every 24hrs should help bring everything back into balance

I would agree with you on that. A lot to learn from mistakes.

 

[arkareefo]

In your initial post you show 0 nitrates. No phosphate listed. This means your corals are starving to death. They decline from the inside out over weeks or months. When you combine this with the over feeding stress event of dirty environment the coral decline becomes more prevelant and visible. Particularly euphyllia are difficult in a new tank especially if they were being starved before you went out of town.

yes i had very less nitrate. Maybe .05 or 0.1 but now it has increased to 0.15. I am having a hard time to figure out which should be the ideal parameter for nitrate and phosphate so that i can manage my strategy here. Let them increase or make them decrease?

 

[Lavey29]

yes i had very less nitrate. Maybe .05 or 0.1 but now it has increased to 0.15. I am having a hard time to figure out which should be the ideal parameter for nitrate and phosphate so that i can manage my strategy here. Let them increase or make them decrease?

If you have LPS you need nitrates at 10 to 20 not 0.15 (this is basically 0) and phosphate around .1 or your corals are starving to death.