Need help something eating my corals!!!

[CT_10]

I'm new to this forum or any fish/coral forum and i need your guys help !!
so i have a 60gal tank its been setup give or take for about a year. i have 2 clowns 1 diamond goby 1 blue hippo tang 1 yellow tang 1 snowflake eel 1 cleaner shrimp 1 mandarine goby and a cleanup crew...
Yes I've had some corals die on me but recently something has been eating my corals. how do i know this ?
well one night i got up to check on my dog that was barking and i decided to see how my tanked looked
at night with all the lights off, something caught my eye, my hammer coral was closed up and i could
see some type of animal/bug inside it. did some research, asked my LFS and we botch came up empty
and today i woke up went to look and my hammer is still closed. i went ahead and dipped it in some Coral RX and sure enough some weird looking bug came out of it and the same ones were found on my aussie hammer,bubble coral before they too died.. if anyone could help me out on to how to get rid of these or something i would highly appreciate it. I'm tired of losing my corals to these little nasty bugs !!!

 

[713zoafarmer]

those are actually amphipods and copepods they are actually good for your system, means you have a mature tank. Don't think that's what is killing or eating your coral.

 

[Jhuneke]

Looks like just a harmless ( although beefy) Amphipod.. they don't eat coral, at least not to my knowledge /exp. They may irritate them though causing them to close up..My tank and fuge are loaded with them.

 

[CT_10]

thats what I've read but they are the only things found on my dying corals ex. my green hammer it was healthy and fully opened a day ago and today closed up and some skeleton showing, like said before dipped the hammer in corals RX and like 3 of those came out of it along with like 5 little tiny ones... could they be eating my hammer for some weird reason ??

those are actually amphipods and copepods they are actually good for your system, means you have a mature tank. Don't think that's what is killing or eating your coral.

 

[713zoafarmer]

nope no chance they only eat algea and detritus. Have you tested your water?? Ammonia, phospates, ect.

 

[CT_10]

is there a way for them to not "irritate" the life out of my coral I've lost couple nice ones and these are the only things found when dipped or taken out to examine the skeleton

 

[CT_10]

calcium
440ppm

dkh
7-8

phospahtes
0

nitrates
0ppm

 

[peter]

Im certain those wont eat your corals, or everyone here wouldnt have any corals. Like what eber said, have you tested your parameters?

 

[peter]

Check your temp and salinity, those always get overlooked

 

[BeanMachine]

Check your temp and salinity, those always get overlooked

How stable is your alkalinity? I've had issues with euphylias when your not on top of that.

 

[713zoafarmer]

Ammonia is a big one too I lost one of my torches because I had an ammonia spike from one day to another then gone the next

 

[peter]

How stable is your alkalinity? I've had issues with euphylias when your not on top of that.

My alk isnt to stable but usually around 7, theyre growing like crazy. I think they like high alk, thats probably why my alk gets depleted so fast.

 

[CT_10]

temp
73

salinity
1.025

ph
8.2

lights are on and here you can see where skeleton is starting to show

 

[BeanMachine]

do you does alkalinity and is your temp always 73?

 

[CT_10]

no haven't dosed alk.
and for the most part yea the temp is stable it might drop a bit at night but
thats when the heater turns on.
another thing i don't get is why is this hammer irritated but not the one right next to it
and i too have a aussie gold torch frog spawn zoos and they all are fully opened and happy
excpet this green hammer : (

 

[713zoafarmer]

I think your temp is a bit low also

 

[BeanMachine]

You should start monitoring your alkalinity I think that may be your issue. It comes a point where water changes won't replenish those elements as fast as they are used by the corals... especially once the tank starts getting full. Trust me been there done that I'm a true lazy reefer.

Hate to say it but once those hammers start to recede like that they are goners within a few days.

 

[oredith]

brown jelly disease

don't know if that's what's causing it, but like the hobbit said, once it starts, it tends to go downhill pretty fast.

my torch melted away in about an hour .. >_<

 

[CT_10]

i do like 25-30% water change every other week
i use red sea coral plus salt along with RODI water
hate hearing that my coral is going to die .. I've litteraly stopped buying frags cause of this
its been over 4 months and all the nice pieces tent to die..
at this point i just want to sell everyhting
hate seing corals die
:suicide::goodnight:

 

[BeanMachine]

Measure your alk every day for the next two weeks to see how much your tank is consuming. Then use the calculator to figure out what your dosage should be per day.