Hard corals dying

[AquaticFart]

Can changing light on a 12 nano from 32 to 64 kill soft and hard corals? I do a 2 gallon/week water change. This too much? I feed daily/flake. And frozen weekly. How much is too much? Should the food be eaten within a certain time? I have slight ammonia and nitrate levels. Calcium is fine. I have 2 clownfish,1shrimp,and a goby. The corals and anemone seem to be under a lot of stress. Ammonia is at .25-.50 and nitrate is sllight at .25. Does anybody have a suggestion?

[clown fanatic]

well 1st of all i dont think that 32 or 64 watts is near enough light for SPS or you "hard corals". ammonia should be at 0 and nitrate should be VERY low if not undetectable. 12 gallons is awful small for an anemone and it will outgrow that tank. how much LR do you have in your tank?

[skipm]

First WELCOME to ReefCentral
It sounds like your tank is going through a cycle for some reason, how old is the system? How long have the fish, shrimp and corals been in the tank? Changing lights can have an effect on the corals but it shouldn't have an effect on your chemistry like that. Also you should feed what the fish can consume in about 5 minutes, you can go 2 or 3 minutes if you want to feed twice a day but that s not necessary. Give us a little more information if you can, there is definately something going on that is causing a cycle in your tank. Skip

[AquaticFart]

I may be overfeeding then. Thats the only thing I can think of. What should the corals be fed if anything? I have mushrooms,yellow polyps,bubble anemone,, and a trachy brain coral which was beautiful and now is bleaching I think. I have lost frogspawn,leather, and a plate coral recently because of this problem. Temp is 79. So what is a good food for the fish and corals? Can you recommend a schedule for all? There is about 13lb of LR in the unit.

[AquaticFart]

How many gallons per hour should my pump be? And How many gallons per week should I change? Right now my pump is moving 294GPH. The fish are fine with this. And have no problem swimming. I see no dead spots on LR. Is the current maybe too much?

[jedininja]

Forst off, how long have you had this setup? How did you cycle the tank? An estabished tank should never have any signs of ammonia. With any ammonia, that is the cause of your problems, not the lighting.

[AquaticFart]

Nanos been up 14 months. Only changes made are 32 to 64 lighting. I found my heater unplugged!!!!!! Temp was 72. This kill corals? I have been overfeeding. Do I have to use any supplements? Can I continue using MarineSnow once a week? I use Instant Ocean. And sometimes add Coral Vite. About once a month.

[jedininja]

wow, very wierd that you are getting ammonia after 14 months... quick drops in temp can definatly kill corals and other things.

PLus how much are you feeding? and have you taekn your water to a LFS to get tested to make sure your ammonia readings are correct?

[ratimpulse]

Well i disagree with 36 watts of pc lighting and the corals high montipora corals wouldnt grow really fast but they wouldn't die either. This is coming directly from a marine bio at that pet place, And from 2 other marine biologists. I plan on keeping one small frag of montipora, kenya tree (small) and polyps, all will start out small and if they go extremlly big i will frag them and sell/put them in my 55 gallon.