dying coral

My tank (40g breeder) has been up and running now, with lights, fish and coral for about 4 weeks. I have been monitoring my parameters and went through a mini cycle about a week ago and have stayed consistently at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and about 5 nitrate. I moved my two birdsnests up onto the rocks (from the sandbed) wednesday of last week. Both had been doing really good, with all of their polyps out and good color on their stems. I got home from work last night and noticed a good portion of my green birdsnest's flesh was gone towards the base. I woke up this morning to my green birdsnest missing almost all of its flesh. Now all that remains is the very tips, which keep getting covered in a little bit of cyano. All of my corals are doing great, if not improving even more over the past few days.

I made sure that its location was nowhere near any fish resting spots or powerheads. It was at mid-level in my tank with medium flow under 2 150w MH with 2 36w T5 actinics.

Any suggestions as to what could have happened? What I can do to avoid this in the future?

 

Is it still helpful if only a few mm of the coral are left? There is a tiny portion toward the tip of each branch that still has some polyps out. I wouldn't know how to frag those so small without stripping the tissue with my fingers.

 

The sad part is, this one originally came from him /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/sad.gif I got this one along with a few others from him before I had the 40g

 

Thanks. I'm trying my best. I seem to do well with everything else so far. My duncan is STILL extremely pissed at me from the change in lighting. I've had him in a shady spot now for a few days and he's coming out a little more. He got so angry from the MH I think it'll be a slow and long recovery, so any tips there would be great. Other than that, the only problems I have had was this green birdsnest. Even my zoo's who were close to dead from being run over by that brown goop have come back to life. My pinkish ones are bigger and happier than ever, the green ones I had thought were completely gone but I threw in the frag anyway and vwalaa, five new heads have shown up. I got a TINY little pink birdsnest frag for free once, maybe 1/2 and inch long and not mounted to anything. Mounted that to my rock last week and its already growing! New branches with little white tips everywhere /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif And I have a new head on my pink/turquoise trumpet /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/biggrin.gif Teehee, now i'm rambling. Reefing can get so exciting!! haha

 

Yes, I tried to put them in the calmest place in the tank and its in the shadow of one of the rocks. Should I wait a little longer before feeding? I was told that at this point, the energy it takes to eat and digest some food could be more energy than he has. Could this be possible? Would it be ok/not harmful to wait a while longer?

 

I'll try feeding him tonight. I'm going to get some rods food reef formula and try that out. Oh, and btw, Petland has Rods food now! WOOT!! And I'll be sure to pm you Matt, thanks!

 

So far, he's been holding stead since the last time I posted. He still has about five to 10 little polyps out now. I'm trying to keep the cyano from growing on him but I don't want to be too rough in chance of damaging the remaining tissue.