AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Just got back from a 10 day vacation and something is happening to some of my corals. Tank is a 90 gallon. I had someone come by a few times to check chematry and dose as needed. I am not sure if this is bleaching or necrosis. I am thinking the latter. Please give any input you may have. A couple of my SPS Look fine while others(below) are not. My frogspawn and hammer are also looking bad, especially the hammer. My oregon tort, shortcake coral and octospawn are looking fine. Below are my numbers and some pics. The phosphate is most likely my issue but i am unsure of the number i am getting. I am using an API phosphate test kit so it goes from 0 straight to .25 and i am having trouble judging the color. I will be buying a better test kit tomorrow. As well as probably ordering a phosphate reactor. Nitrate = 0. I only have one small clown in the tank. Po4 = .25 Ca = 410 Kh = 9.2 Mg = 1260 Temp fluctuates between 81-82 Green Montipora The base of this coral. Pink Stag Purple monti You can kind of see it on this acro. At the base of the branches. Below are pics of the frogspawn and hammer which are both looking strange. The hammer looks "sick" almost like it is wilting and not fully extending. the branches of my enchinata has channged from green to brown. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 How long have you had the tank? Corals? Lights? Any changes in equipment or new tank additions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Also, what type of lights and light cycle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Your alk, calcium, and magnesium is lower than I like to keep things at. Phosphate and temp, a little higher than I like to keeps things at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Water change frequency? Dosing? Type of filtering? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 (edited) Tank is 1.5 years old. 2 Reef Radiance DM-165m. 6 inches above the water for 9 hours a day. The 4 large sps colonies are new. 2 are pictured above. The other 2 are fine. They were all dipped in Revive. I do water 15% water changes every 2-3 weeks. Setiing up dosers soon. Sump with fuge. Octopus skimmer. While the numbwrs are not ideal, should they be causing this? Edited January 5, 2016 by AUFishGuy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 If it is a water quality issue, quick fix would be 10-15% water changes for the next 3 days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 No carbon or resins? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Do you feed your coral? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 No carbon or resins. I do feed but not often and didnt do so before the vacation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzaguy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Ever considered your corals might be starving? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzaguy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 And your numbers are not bad. Po4 a little high but I've seen worse. Need an accurate test for that. One fish there's no waste Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 Ever considered your corals might be starving? Honestly no. I only feed coral frenzy and dont do it regularly. My understandibg was that it was a boost for SPS but that they lived primarily on light and Ca, Kh snd Mg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 I suspect, it's a water quality issue. Do the water changes...feed the coral. Then I recommend: 1. 10-12% weekly water changes with high quality mix 2. Up your magnesium, I target 1350 3. Consider maintaining higher alk and calcium, I target 10-12, and 450 4. Consider dosing iodine and strontium/molybdenum 5. Recomend using chemi-pure blue carbon/resin 6. Feed your corals with high quality coral food 7. Temp may be a little high. I target 78-79 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzaguy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 IMO you need more of a bio load and feed more. That would be my best guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 Could this be caused by too much or too little light? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzaguy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Doesn't look like you have a ton of coral. You shouldn't have to dose anything as long as you do regular water changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pizzaguy January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Remember the k.I.s.s. method. Don't make it more complicated then it needs to be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arking_mark January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Not sure I agree with pizzaguy on that last point. I used to have the same position, just regular water changes (I do 12% a week) should be all you need. However, on my 34gal reef tank, I was having difficulty maintaining corals. They would look great for several weeks and then just sort of fade or look sickly. After a lot a research and trial and error, I found that my parameters (mag, alk, calcium) were actually on the low side of recommended...especially the magnesium. So I started playing with dosing to up my levels as the water changes were just not able to keep them up. Since then, no issues...everything colored back up and looks great. One other thing to note is that I also carbon dose (vinegar) to reduce nitrates/phosphates and out compete the algae. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmerek2 January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 I had trouble keeping SPS when I was manually dosing alk. Alk dumped in directly affects PH and shocks SPS rapidly. Also most of the time when I have sps problem i link it to an alkalinity swing or big 3 problem. The LPS looks fine to me SPS appears to be Slow tissue narcrosis STN from bottom up same way they looked when I have alk problems. I have also heard that echinata does not like to be dipped in revive. Coral starvation is always a possibility but not quite as likely based on my limited experience Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epleeds January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 What type of flow do you have? If the sps are new and they don't have enough flow, they will slowly fade away. Another thing is your all levels. Are you sure your test kit is accurate? And in reference to the ALK, how much does it change in between dosing? For SPS, the ALK has to be 100% stable or bad things start to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 What type of flow do you have? If the sps are new and they don't have enough flow, they will slowly fade away. Another thing is your all levels. Are you sure your test kit is accurate? And in reference to the ALK, how much does it change in between dosing? For SPS, the ALK has to be 100% stable or bad things start to happen. Flow could be better, i am adding another wavemaker tonight. But the purple monti has been in the tank for over 2 months and has been thriving. I looked at it this morning and it is fading fast Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epleeds January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Recheck you ALK levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marinap January 5, 2016 Share January 5, 2016 Looks like alk dipped when you were away. Measure daily and adjust accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AUFishGuy January 5, 2016 Author Share January 5, 2016 Looks like alk dipped when you were away. Measure daily and adjust accordingly. Can they recover or si what is white dead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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