New corals all randomly dyinf

[Jennduhh]

Hey all,

I recently ordered some corals from Top Shelf, as well as a leather coral from a LFS & I'm not having very good luck with them.
I had some zooanthids in the tank prior that are all doing great, as well as a star polyp that's doing good.

Once I acclimated the corals & settled them where I wanted them in the tank, I checked the water parameters & turned the lights out to let them settle. The next day, everything was open and looked great & happy, aside from one spot.

When I ordered from Top Shelf (TS from here), I ordered a birds nest, anacropora, a Duncan, and a psammocora. Everything looked visibly healthy upon arrival. The anacropora had gotten broken on a few limbs, but nothing large enough that I was worried about it dying. Fast forward to the next day: I notice the base of the anac seems to be lightening in color. Not quite bleached, but quite a bit lighter than it began. Being that it had gotten damaged, I moved it to the quarantine tank to try to nurse it back to health, but when I got home from work yesterday it had completely bleached & was totally gone.

So be it. Down one, sucks, but not the end of the world. Then today happens. I woke up for work & turned the tank lights on, as always. The leather is bent at the base and laying on its side, as it has been for about 48 hours. I've seen them do this before & then be perfectly fine, so im not too worried. My clowns are happy, the duncan is waving in the wind, the star polyps are bright & fluttering & all seems okay. The anac is totally gone, but the birds nest is glowing brightly, as well, happy as can be.

I've been at work for about 6 hours now & my hubby just sent a picture to let me know my birds nest has apparently died.
When I say it was perfect this morning, I mean it looked exactly like the website picture, bright purple & green polyps glowing. 6 hours later it looks like this.

What is happening? Am I missing something/doing something wrong?

 

[Tamberav]

How old is the tank? The rock looks very sterile, dry rock?

Any coralline algae growing? This is generally a good indicator that SPS can do well but not all tanks grow it.

Birdsnest are forgiving for lighting and nutrients but not so much alk swings or stability.

My guess is the tank isn’t ready. Also wondering how you tried to QT the other? SPS don’t like sterile QT tanks either.

 

[Jennduhh]

How old is the tank? The rock looks very sterile, dry rock?

Any coralline algae growing? This is generally a good indicator that SPS can do well but not all tanks grow it.

Birdsnest are forgiving for lighting and nutrients but not so much alk swings or stability.

My guess is the tank isn’t ready. Also wondering how you tried to QT the other? SPS don’t like sterile QT tanks either.

LSS: everything came from an established tank that was approximately 6 years old (popped a leak) including water, sand, rock, filtration, some inhabitants and the powerhead. The only new items in the tank are the newest corals & one rock.
It has all been in this tank approx. 6 mos.

Coralline is growing on the live rock, powerhead & the filter head.

The only dry rock is the one that the birdsnest is sitting on. It was added to have a spot foe the birdsnest. All other rock in the tank is live.

As for the qt, I have another quite smaller tank that is fully established & used to house the baby shrimp when they're born lol.

I checked the alk & other params last night & everything was well within reason except calcium is a tad on the low side at 420ppm.

 

[NonstopSoda]

Flow and lights? Also if you could list the parameters that would be great.

 

[Jennduhh]

How old is the tank? The rock looks very sterile, dry rock?

Any coralline algae growing? This is generally a good indicator that SPS can do well but not all tanks grow it.

Birdsnest are forgiving for lighting and nutrients but not so much alk swings or stability.

My guess is the tank isn’t ready. Also wondering how you tried to QT the other? SPS don’t like sterile QT tanks either.

Oh, to add, I found a post on here that said the temp may have the birds nest "upset", so I had my husband check the temp since I'm at work & it's sitting at about 87°, so I'm taking a wild guess that that may be what's happening.

 

[NonstopSoda]

Oh, to add, I found a post on here that said the temp may have the birds nest "upset", so I had my husband check the temp since I'm at work & it's sitting at about 87°, so I'm taking a wild guess that that may be what's happening.

That would probably be it! I hope once the temp goes down everything looks better! Be careful making too big a temp swing cause that would be bad for most things in the tank as well.

 

[Jennduhh]

Flow and lights? Also if you could list the parameters that would be great.

I'm at work atm, so I don't have current params, but will update tonight when I get off.
The lights are the base lights that come with the biocube tank. Everything I read initially said they were enough for the corals I had gotten, but im starting to believe that's not the case. I'm actually looking into how to fit new lighting into that lid right now.

 

[Jennduhh]

That would probably be it! I hope once the temp goes down everything looks better! Be careful making too big a temp swing cause that would be bad for most things in the tank as well.

As of right now, I had him open the back of the lid to help release some of the heat. Fingers crossed

I do know I need to still make some other changes, either way. Lighting & calcium dosing to start.

 

[NonstopSoda]

I'm at work atm, so I don't have current params, but will update tonight when I get off.
The lights are the base lights that come with the biocube tank. Everything I read initially said they were enough for the corals I had gotten, but im starting to believe that's not the case. I'm actually looking into how to fit new lighting into that lid right now.

The base lights are definitely not good enough for SPS I would recommend upgrading the lights if you want to keep SPS and LPS

 

[Tamberav]

Oh, to add, I found a post on here that said the temp may have the birds nest "upset", so I had my husband check the temp since I'm at work & it's sitting at about 87°, so I'm taking a wild guess that that may be what's happening.

When my central air broke during a heat wave. I lost almost all SPS and some LPS, lost no softies. My tank peaked at 92.

I have ran soft coral tanks at mid 80s but never tried sps, I do think it is potentially the problem.

Base lights as in the leds?

Your sps corals wouldn’t just suddenly die from that but may not do well long term, the base would be bare from shadowing perhaps under those leds.

You can google Banasophia's biocube with is a good example of a healthy reef under the stock leds.

 

[bobnicaragua]

I start to get real worried about my acros around 83-84 degrees. A fan blowing across the top of the tank or even in the sump will help.