[mkenochm]

I can keep soft corals alive no problem but all of my hard corals seem to die. What am I doing Wrong??? I have a 125 long tank with metal halide lighting all my water paremeters are perfect I am adding iodide strontium and calcium and coral food. What is going wrong any ideas. The only problem I am having with my tank is temp flux (from the halides) of about 5 degrees from morning to night. Open to all suggestions.

Thanks

[RyanG]

Can you list your water parameters?

Also SPS corals are very picky when it comes to placement in the aquarium, I personally think that is the hardest part overall in keeping SPS corals.

[mtfabel]

5 degrees is quite a bit for SPS but they can manage if its the right 5 degrees. I know that sounds weird. If it goes from 78 to 83 then its bad but if it goes from 80 to 85 its not as bad. Now you're sitting there thinking thats still 5 degrees either way. There hae been studies done that say that corals can handle higher tempetures if the low temp is a little warmer. I had the exact same problem and after I read that, I turned my heaters up to 80 degrees and still had the 5 degree fluctuations but had no more problems with my SPS. On the same token I have added a fan since I made the first correction I just talked about. The fan allowed me to keep it within 2 degrees in a days time. Its still better to avoid that much swing if you can.

[mkenochm]

Thanks
I'll try turning up the normal temp. I just added a fan yesterday and it only fluxed from 77.4 to 80.8 today so that did help. I'll bump it up to 80 and see if that does the trick. I have a sunflower pot that is slowly dying off maybe that will save it and I just got in the mail today some blastos and candy cane frags, hopefully I can keep them. Done soft corals for years but never had luck with these hard ones.
Thanks again for the info.