To steal from Victoria: What is up with my LPS?

[JCAB]

I have a 100 gallon with skimmer. Run carbon in a bag in my filter sock (will be purchasing a double reactor tomorrow). My parameters for ammonia are 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20 (do small water changes weekly, and that's about as high as it gets) calcium around 360-80, alkalinity around 8 (I use BRS sodium bicarbonate,and get it to around 10, but can't keep it there) and am going to start using kalkwasser in the ATO to try to increase calcium and stabilize alk. My euphyllia is doing great as are my Duncan's. however, I have a scoly that is receding and not expanding, a wellso that is losing color and receding and a wellso that is also not expanding. Have had multiple acans and favia bleach. Some mushrooms are doing great, others are not. I'm running ecoxotic panorama pros. I've tried putting bleaching coral in shade and that hasn't done anything. I used dr gs in the past, but if it was affecting the corals, I think it would effect the euphyllia since the tend to grab things more. Have not really seen the scoly feed. All of the corals that are not doing well are on the sandbed. Besides calling the SPCA and reporting me, can someone help the corals?! Thanks in advance!

[victoly]

Magnesium my friend. What is yours ?

[JCAB]

No clue. I'll have it checked tomorrow. I do have the magnesium supplement, though. I need to invest in a reef test kit.

[victoly]

Salifert is the best IMO. I suspect your mg is low.

[+etannert]

+1 mag.

Also, most people in the RC LPS forum think that meaty corals like brains, scolys and acans do best with direct feeding on a regular basis. Your nitrates are high enough that none of your coral should be starving, but in my limited experience feeding is key when you're trying to help those corals recover. It takes not too long to do damage to a brain and it takes them awhile to rebound. I think moving them out of direct light was good; get your Mag in range and start feeding them, then just be patient.

There's a really cool thread on RC in the LPS forum called "Rescue Corals." Gives you a lot of hope for corals being able to rebound. (In my case, a little too much hope sometimes...)

[jestep]

Is your temperature stable? The bleaching in the shade would make me think your temp could be too high or is swinging too much. Also, see if you can get someone to test your PO4 with a Hanna or good PO4 test.

[Timfish]

What are your phosphates? They should be at .030 to .1 ppm. Some corals are tolerant of readings below .030 but you will see bleaching with others.

[+brian.srock]

Are you feeding coral food daily? I don't spot feed though, just squirt some into the water column daily. I would also move your corals up off the sandbed. Move them about halfway up and let them be.

[JCAB]

I feed dried cyclopeeze a couple of times a week. Going to check magnesium and phosphates. Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[Neon Reefer]

IMO if your Mg were low enough to affect your LPS corals, i suspect you would not be able to keep your Ca at or above 380 ppm. And in my experience Acans are very resiliant to different light levels. I have them in areas of only 100 PAR in my tank and as high as 300PAR and though they may fade or darken dependant on where they are placed i have never had any bleach out. Scolys are moderate light as well Lack of nutrition would affect growth rate far more than bleaching as well. Most of your water params seem acceptable for LPS although 20ppm Nitrates is a little high. Temperature could be an issue if you have large swings on the upside of 80 F. However this statement "alkalinity around 8 (I use BRS sodium bicarbonate,and get it to around 10, but can't keep it there)" makes me think that ALK is the issue. It usually is w/ any stony coral. If it is dropping a significant amount of times and you are raising it quickly to compensate quite frequently then this is most likely the cause of bleaching, receding ,ect... of any LPS. Moving them around in and out of light just stresses them more and comnplicates the issue. Always stabalize ALL your water params first before making any other changes. IMHO

[JCAB]

Thanks Neon. I'll keep track of temperature and alkalinity as well. The hood has two large openings in the back and I keep it partly open and have a ceiling fan going. Additionally, the house is kept at 76-77, but maybe when all the lights are on, the water gets too warm. Hoping that once I start the kalkwasser, the alkalinity will be more stable.

Edited August 21, 2013 by JCAB

[jestep]

What lighting do you have? Temp is really standing out to me as far as the symptoms go.

[bige]

I had the same thing. Took my tank down and started over. All lps healed. I had a 100+ head acan that refused to lose. It was down to 4 heads. Noes it back to at least 100 heads again. I think my problem was phosphates. Even though they were at 0.

[JCAB]

I have ecoxotic panorama pros. 9 total modules. They're not great as a few have already burned out. Have 2 blues, 3 blue/white and 3 rgbs that I run as magenta or a white/blue combo (all of the burnouts add up to about 1 module, therefore only listing 8). It's a 5ft tank, so pretty shallow. Ecoxotic recommended 3 blues and 3blue/white.

[Neon Reefer]

Didn't catch if those are 12" or 18" modules. But 9 watts x 12" = ~ 72 watts x ~2.5 to convert to MH standards or ~180 watts of MH lighting. If these assumptions are correct then you would be way short of needs for an LPS 100 gal tank. You would really need almost twice that. Even figureing 18" modules you would still be a little short. You are probably in the < 2 Lumens per gal by old measuring standards. Maybe you can borrow George Monets Jr. PAR meter to check out your lighting. If you are below 2 lumens per gal then your lightinmg will not sustain LPS in the long run.

[JCAB]

I'll check on the lights. Before setting it up, I called ecoxotic and they said 6 was enough for sps, so we will see. Also, someone from an lfs helped me with them and he thought 6 would be enough as well. They are 12inch.

Edited August 22, 2013 by JCAB

[JCAB]

Quick update. Some of the corals are starting to show improvement. I added a dual BRS reactor and starting dosing Kalk. I'm also running the lights a little longer. I'm still trying to keep the alkalinity more constant, but am hopefully doing a better job of it. At the recommendation of Aquatek, I also added lugols' solution. I wish I had done one thing at a time to get a better understanding of which helped more and hopefully avoid this in the future (and help someone else avoid this issue). Thanks to everyone for helping, I really appreciate it.

[victoly]

be super, super careful with lugols. it very quickly increases the ORP of your tank, in addition to the clarity. low light corals may not be prepared for the sudden increase in PAR.

[JCAB]

Thanks, Ian. I'll be sure to dose on the low end.