HELP ON LPS!!!

[Poet2dagger27689]

My inventory list is kinda long but here is the gist of whats happening...all my lps corals are closing and wont come out even at night or for light nor for food. The fox coral then the frogspawn then the torch in a 2 week period. they are alive but they wont come out know. nothing happened that I know of and now nothing will open. if they died my ammonia would start to spike and there is no sign of die off. I have kept close eyes on them so I am sure my coral beauty isn't the prob cause I have never seen him nip at anything but the mysis shrimp that he adorse.I have also...deep breathe

1 long knose butterfly fish
1 Coral beauty
2 firefish bobies
1 bi color seudo chromis
1 ocellaris clown for some reason
1 sleeper goby
1 pearly jawfish
1 yellow tang
1 small unkown fish that doesn't do much
1 chili cactus coral that is fine but weeps
6 small hermits
6 turbo snails
2 feather dusters
3 very small curly anemones
2 large emerald hermits
1 stag horn hermit (stays in radius of only like 5 in)
small polyp colony
1 fox coral (1st not to open)
1 open brain doing really well
1 large torch 3rd to close
1 med branching frogspawn
2 leathers
pencil sea urchin
1 medusa LPS
3 sand sifting sea stars
1 pumping xenia still open and budding
all LPS at least 6 in apart 220w of power compact
did really well for a long time then just started to close.
tried direct feeding but didn't help tried moving them.
My system is a 100g protien with fuge and a 180 bio wheel penguin filter
all in yes a small 55 gal. the stats are perfect no ammonia spikes that I have seen and I feed everything well. a mixture of my own filter and lps food that works wonders. I also have 1 electric scallop doing fine in the back. feed mysis and blend for everyone and they all get along except the seudo that bullys the sleeper goby or sand sifting. Ran out of ideas. every and anything from pros would be nice. thanks.

as much info as possible please!!!! desperate if you can't tell already

[NaCl_H2O]

I would suspect some chemical warefare is going on with your leathers & chili and the more delicate LPS are loosing. Are you running carbon?

[GaryP]

What you have sounds familiar to a situation I had in my soft coral tank. I finally diagnosed the problem as being from toxins produced by leather corals. The solution was larger water changes, aggressive skimming, and continuous carbon filtration. Everyone is going fine now.

[hobogato]

what about nitrites? nitrates?

I ask because my LPS started to do this the other day because I did some work on my sump and my tank got pretty cloudy - for about 2 hours, my nitrates were barely detectable (usually not detectable), and then my nitrates ran a little higher than usual (I know, they are supposed to be zero but mine never are - hence the work on the sump/fuge) for a couple of days. Once those two were back down to normal, then my LPS were fine. I don't know much about the long nose bfly, but bfly's have been known to pick on softies. just a guess!

[Poet2dagger27689]

all tests are fine and ammonia is almost non existent but I did think about the warfare things I just wasnt sure whoe the culprit was. I wasn't aware of the dangers of the leather. looks so harmless until it stirkes. I use doubeled the amount of carbon and I some other things too. Do you suggest removing the leathers to see if that helps? I have another tank for predators. what are your thoughts?

I really love my leathers but if they are attacking then I can put them in another tank. any other way to get rid of the chemicals. maybe a list would help.

1. more carbon
2. skimmer on high
3. .....

[GaryP]

Just leave the leathers alone and learn how to keep them. I change out the carbon about once a week for a powered carbon filter.

My open brain was started to decay and I could see bare skeleton. After making the change it regenerated and you can't tell there was ever a problem now.

[Richard]

all tests are fine


Not to be picky but that actually doesn't mean anything to me. What did you test and what were the numbers?



ammonia is almost non existent


Anything above zero is too much.

[Poet2dagger27689]

well nothing is ever perfectly 0.0000 I run a very tight and sensative test 2 to make sure and nothing seems to be off. everything is as it should be. Everything listed is all I have but I just got in a huge 100gph skimmer with a 600gph pump. So as for skimming....Check
Carbon. well I use double the amount on my skilter and leave the penguin along by using somthing else thats white...Cant remember but I will start putting black carbon into my penguin again. I didn't at first because my nitrates were so high that it changed a color not even on the freakin tab. I thought my test was bad but it wasn't it was worse at the shop. Nitrates were off the chart so I needed to up the bacteria so I did some fiddeling around with things and replaced the black carbon with somthing that would harvest more bacteria. I guess now I can run black carbon again since my bacteria is up. My open brain is doing great it is really bulbous and loves to eat. He is doing fine along with my medusa. I will make an effort to take out the leather toxins but if I can't I will just move them to my predator tank. Oh and one more thing I have lots of flow for my tank yet I still have detrious dust on the rock when I moved things the other day. I can't seem to get enough flow where it needs to be. I made a graph and have it going in 2 large circles that are overlapping almost like a figure eight. I used cubes for supliments the last week or so and things seem fine but I will start liquid sups. as soon as I can afford it. Thanks for all the help anymore ideas please post.