Zenia dying?

[Slyguy00]

Thanks for the input guys. My tank is about 4 months old now, water perimeters are all within specified range. (ph=8.2 nitrates/trites=0 or very low amonia=0 KH=170 Calcium=420 phosphates=0) I havnt added anything for about a month now. Like I said everything else appears to be happy and healthy except my bubble coral and the one of the 2 xenias that are attatched to it. I attached a pic of the bubble coral. The ones that died off had a brownish slime where the bubble would have been but has since disolved. The other xenia on the same coral pulses like crazy

[tang daddy]

What is alk and mg?

One word of advice, next time a coral is dying or you see brown slime, remove the coral out of your tank and with a old toothbrush clean the brown slime off it, if the heads are dying on the branching bubble whatever is causing it to melt could spread to the other heads.

[Slyguy00]

Well i could be wrong, but i thought KH is the same as alk? And if it is it is at 170 KH. As far as mag goes i dont have a mag tester yet. Just the hagen master test set. Is that something maybe I should look into?

[tang daddy]

I only measure alk so I don't know what 170 kh would equal, and mg to me is very important. Basically the basic 3 I test for alk,ca and mg. but more importantly watch your coral closely especially clean the brown slime off outside your tank so it doesn't spread.

[Slyguy00]

Thanks for the input tang. What should I watch for? It appears the "dying" xenia has some like yellowish stuff starting to form on it and its like its almost starting to separate the xenia. If it does come down to me removing this coral how would I go about detatching the healthy xenia from the rest of it?

[tang daddy]

I don't know about the yellow stuff on the dying Xenia, you can use coral cutters to shear off the dying Xenia or if you want to remove the good Xenia the same thing, cut the skeleton not the coral to remove it. If I were you I'd remove the dying Xenia and try to carefully clean the rest of the coral with a tooth brush. Especially if you see the brown slime.

[Proteus]

170 ppm is 9.5 dkh