Zoas and hammer coral not looking good

[Theluckyman]

Hey everyone,

so i got a hammer coral and some zoanthids the other day from a local saltwater store. they looked great at the store but when i got home and added them to my 24 gallon nano-cube after acclimated them and they aren't opening very much. one zoanthid is opened 70-80% open, the other maybe is 55-65% open and the hammer is kinda open but the tentacles are very tin and don't have the hammer shape to them. where the branch part meets the tentacle is brown/black now and wasnt like that before.. i can add pictures but im not sure how to do that... any ideas what could be the problem? all i have in my nano-cube is one clown, one damsel, two red and two blue legged hermits.. i also have a very small patch maybe 1 inch by 1 inch of gsp on my rock that is doing very good and is coloured nicely.. its been 3 days since i added them. any ideas what it might be?

[Webmanny]

First question you will get from the most experienced guys here are:

• What are your parameters?
• How old is your tank?
• What other corals do you have in the tank?
• What kind of light do you use?
• Did you place them all the way at the bottom for light acclimation?
• etc., etc., etc...

It is kind of hard to suggest anything without all these answers and maybe even a picture or two.

[Theluckyman]

Originally Posted by Webmanny

First question you will get from the most experienced guys here are:

• What are your parameters?
• How old is your tank?
• What other corals do you have in the tank?
• What kind of light do you use?
• Did you place them all the way at the bottom for light acclimation?
• etc., etc., etc...

It is kind of hard to suggest anything without all these answers and maybe even a picture or two.

water temp is at 78, silin is 1.025 nitrates 0, nitrites 0 and everything else is where it needs to be.. the tank is 6 years old but i picked it up from someone who was the first owner and bought it for her dying father.. she had corals and stuff over the years and traded them all in at the lsp and i got from her was 1 clown fish, and a damsel. no coral or anything else in the tank. the light i have on it is a marineland reef capable led lights. they are 10,000k whites and 460nm blue leds. each buld is 1w and total of 27 watts. i am getting a par 38 bulb that is dimmable because the marineland led lights are lent to me from my lps till i get the new lights. i started them all at the very bottom.

[Kyle918]

Originally Posted by Theluckyman

water temp is at 78, silin is 1.025 nitrates 0, nitrites 0 and everything else is where it needs to be.. the tank is 6 years old but i picked it up from someone who was the first owner and bought it for her dying father.. she had corals and stuff over the years and traded them all in at the lsp and i got from her was 1 clown fish, and a damsel. no coral or anything else in the tank. the light i have on it is a marineland reef capable led lights. they are 10,000k whites and 460nm blue leds. each buld is 1w and total of 27 watts. i am getting a par 38 bulb that is dimmable because the marineland led lights are lent to me from my lps till i get the new lights. i started them all at the very bottom.

My hammer took about a week to feel comfortable enough to inflate. Took about 2 weeks to fully inflate. I moved it twice in my DT and each time I moved it, it took a few days to fully inflate once again. LPS coral also need a little nitrate to thrive. Running at zero nitrates is pushing more towards a ULNS, which isn't an ideal envirement for most LPS and soft corals.

I've actually run into a similar problem more recently. I have a 75 gallon tank with sump and have 6 different species of various LPS and soft coral. I had 2 fish in there for about 7 months. The system ran with zero nitrates and probably zero phosphates (I don't have a test kit for that yet) and I've noticed one of my large colonies of zoas actually receading pretty heavily over the last 2 months. I have since added one more fish and increased feeding over the last 2 weeks and have seen the zoa colony improving. About 8-10 heads out of the two dozen or so original heads have shown activity and are opening once again.

I have 2 additional fish in QT so hopefully the increased fish load and increased feeding will help raise the nutrient levels to better suit my soft and LPS corals.

[Pegadi]

Can you show some pictures?