Please Help!!!

[Lewyj]

HELP! We bought the contents of a 10g reef. Move it along with its filter, lighting, substrate, corals, couple fish to a 40g tank. Had to add two bags of Arag-Alive water packed Oolite sand to give it enough but used all of the old sand from the 10 as well. The star ployps have never opened back up, the bubble coral is barely out, lost both pieces of acro we brought, button polyps are the onmy thing that is opening and they are only doing so about half way. I have a 150W HQI MH with 2-32W Actnic PC's over the tank. No nitrite, pH 8.2, salinity 1.022, temp 72-80, 400ppm CA, No nitrate, ammonia is .5 (adding Prime for that-due to coral loss). but I cannot for the life of me figure out why everything won't open. Oh, clam is doing great! Have two powerheads (one of which rotates around) so I think there is plenty of water movement. Any help at all is appreciated!

[JPagliai]

If I had to guess, I'd say your tank is going through a cycling period. Even though you've added all the contents of the old tank, the new tank is 4 times the size of the old one. I'm guessing it has all new filtration too? What kind of lighting was on the old tank? If you switched from PC to that 150 halide, that my be contributing. Star polyps don't like to be messed with, so I'm not surprised that they're not opening. The good news is that they can stay closed up for more than a week before they die off, though. They're pretty tough. If you have the option, give that bubble to a friend to babysit while your tank stablizes.

[Lewyj]

it is the same filter and same light fixture that was on the 10. He had a huge filter for the ten and i think its plenty big for this one.

[JPagliai]

That's good. Still, the tank received a lot of new water and sand. The trace of ammonia might be from the dying coral, but it may be from the tank cycling. When I switched from 45 to 75, I had a slight spike in ammonia, too. How long has everything been in the new tank?

[EdKruzel]

The temperature swing is too much for such a small tank, 78-82 is more acceptable. Place a heater in the tank and set it for about 79-80 to help keep the tank more stable.

Using the old sand was the problem and also what caused the spike. Never use the old sand bed; a cup off of the top one inch layer may be used to help seed the new bed, but never more than that. Sand is a marvelous filter that collects waste and if deep enough can convert it to free form nitrogen which escapes into the air as a harmless gas (makes up the majority of our atmosphere), however when this process is disturbed, the changing components or excess nutrients are released causing a toxic soup.

Continue the use of Prime along with a cultured bacteria additive and a few (every other day) small water changes until the water is pristine and stable. (1-2 weeks). I'd also recommend an efficient skimmer and activated carbon.