Help Corals won't open

[Markieb]

I have a bare bottom 75 gallon that has been up with fish for years. The same fish (Coral beauty, Tang, Clowns, Six Line Wrasse, and Beta) have all been happy for years.) I decided to try my hand at coral. My readings (Ammonia,nitrite,etc...) are all good with the exception of nitrate which is running near 80. I realize this is high and am considering a live sand bed to reduce. I have read that corals will not tolerate high nitrates over and extended period. I tried a mushroom colony and it seems to be very happy. Then I went with a leather. He almost melted down in 2 days. He is a little happier now than the first couple of days. I then tried some type of Xena and they have decided they will not open at all. Just looks like I bought a bumpy rock. Will the high nitrate keep some corals from opening up at all, and others can tolerate it? Again I realize I need to get the nitrate down and am doing so by water changes. But will this alone keep some coral from opening at all and others to appear great? I am trying to understand if need to look at something other than nitrate to analyze why the mushroom is great but the others are so very sad. Your thoughts?

[Dakini]

Mushrooms are pretty tough, but then so are leathers. What is you pH coming in at? Are you reading calcium too? If it were my tank I'd look at getting an refugium going with caulerpa to eat up the high nitrate reading. 80 ppp is very high, I'd also be doing frequent water changes, bi-weekly. Do you have much live rock? Watch out for overfeeding too, that can raise your nitrates.

HTH

[Doug]

Hi Markieb,

While I do not recommend high nitrates and suggest that you lower them I have seen tanks with very high nitrates that have had corals that were doing fine.

When you say that the leather corals melted did it look like a film or skin that was coming off of it or was it turning white and melting off? Leather corals are sometimes slow to acclimate to new tanks and can take anywhere from a few days up to a month before they open fully.

As far as xenia goes, it can also take a while to adjust to a new tank. Xenia for some is very easy to keep and grows quickly but for others it seems to die if they look at it wrong.

One thing that might help is if you can tell us what kind of lighting you are using and give us more info about your whole tank setup.

HTH

Doug