Acropora sticks losing color over time

[Ksmmike]

Hi all,
I have a 120 gallon, 4 foot wide tank, 2 feet deep and wide. I have 2 Eco-Tech XRW 15 Pro lights mounted about 8 inches above the tank. My acro sticks sit about 6-10 inches below the top level depending on where they are mounted across the tank. I have Tunze powerheads at each end and run them pretty high. One runs intermittent about 8 seconds on and off and the other only slows down but never stops churning water.

After about 4 months in the tank, a few of my acros have started to fade in color. Some that I have put in during the past month or so, seem fine. All the acans, leptos, chalices, hammers, torches ect have held colors. It's only a few of the acros. They are still growing, slowly but everything in the tank seems to be growing. The tank is about 10 months old. I started with dry rock, though it cured in a tub for 90 days before I put it in the tank, so the rock has been wet for about a year now.

I do water changes every 7-10 days of about 15%. Parameters might be too clean, not sure. 0 nitrates and .01 phosphates last I checked yesterday. Temp is constant at 77 degrees and salinity is 1.025.
Alk is 7.9-8.0 depending on the day. I use Reef Crystals salt. Calcium runs from 480-500.

My lights are set for Coral Lab SPS AB+ at 60% and run from 12:15 to 10:30pm. I don't alter from the template much, other than I let it ramp up for 30 min and ramp down for about 45 min at the end of the night.

Should I run the lights at 100% and not 60%? The colors pop a bit more when the lights go more blue at the end of the night, but you can tell they are fading over time. It wasn't a fast fade, like in a 2 weeks, its been so gradual that it was hard to tell until it became obvious. The blues are now faded and even greens are a soft green, even though the one is growing pretty well. The stylos and birdsnest have kept their color and are growing pretty well too.

Any suggestions? Could it be they need more light? I think the parameters are pretty good and consistent. I have coraline growing on the rocks and back glass.

thanks
Mike

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

your corals are fading because they are starving..

0 nitrates and .01 phosphates, all living things need building blocks for carbohydrate production and they are not getting them in your case.

I would suggest feeding fish more and also feeding reef roids or something similar.

 

[Ksmmike]

Thanks Brian, I do feed them reef roids and or reef chilli once a week. I'll make it more.

 

[dwest]

Thanks Brian, I do feed them reef roids and or reef chilli once a week. I'll make it more.

Agree, too clean.

 

[TheHarold]

4 feet and 2 XR15s, at 60%? That might also be it. If they are getting darker turn up the percentage

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

keep us posted!! (which hardly ever happens). But that is where real information is gleaned... through the follow up.

good luck!

 

[Ksmmike]

4 feet and 2 XR15s, at 60%? That might also be it. If they are getting darker turn up the percentage

They are getting lighter not darker. And I will keep everyone posted as to what I do and the outcome. I fed them twice the normal dose of reef chili tonight. I know one dose wont do it,
but I'll feed them every other day for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

I cant feed my fish too much more because right now I only have 4 fish. I've been battling ich recently
and don't want to add any more fish until I can get the 4 I have out and treat them and leave the tank fallow for 80 days. I cant seem to catch the suckers without taking out all the rock
and I really don't want to do that. Fish traps haven't worked, nor has trying to catch them late at night after they have settled in. I have one wrasse who sleeps in the sand anyway.

Im kinda ticked off about the ich because I had Qt'd all my fish so I'm really not sure how it got in there unless it came in with a coral or snail. Even that, I usually take the coral off the plugs if possible and dip them too. So it's just frustrating. I know welcome to reefing I have a biocube too and not one lick of trouble. No ich ever, corals grow and keep color, (not acros) with the biocube light. But I do have hammers, torch, mushrooms, zoas, chalices that keep their color and have grown well in the biocube. Go figure.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I disagree on being too "clean". 0 ppm no3 might not be a true 0 ppm. Depending on test kits used and no3 uptake by corals, algae and bacteria. If you have fish in the tank and feed them well your corals should be getring enough nitrogen. You can feed a coral food and or amino acids for the corals. Imo its your lighting. 2 XR-15s is not enough for a 4ft 120g tank. For sps and lps 3-4 XR-30s is needed for good coverage.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I disagree on being too "clean". 0 ppm no3 might not be a true 0 ppm. Depending on test kits used and no3 uptake by corals, algae and bacteria. If you have fish in the tank and feed them well your corals should be getring enough nitrogen. You can feed a coral food and or amino acids for the corals. Imo its your lighting. 2 XR-15s is not enough for a 4ft 120g tank. For sps and lps 3-4 XR-30s is needed for good coverage.

while you "could" have nutrients in your tank... and you likely do at times, but obviously not ALL the time or they would show up in the tests.

Also, lack of light will not typically cause your corals to start to fade though..

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I feel you on the ich bro. I am in the middle of going fallow on my 300. You want pain? try getting 9 anthias out of a 300 gallon sps tank.

I QT'd all my fish as well and cut the bases off. I believe i got the ich from some acan colonies that were growing on cultured rock.

anyways, I also learned that not having a hannah cooper tester was foolish. I used the cupramine dosage and when I got the copper tester, one QT was too low and one way REALLY high. So my earlier qt may have been at ineffective dosage.

shrimps, snails, whatever go in a bowl with a heater for two weeks. I also dunk them in a fresh salt mix before going in the tank.

biocube with 2 T5 bulbs and powerhead for all my new frags. It is a pain and not fun at all but it is worth in when your DT is completely past and disease free.

flat worms, acro eating spiders, non of that nonsense is getting in my DT. Stupid amounts of money at risk...and heart ache.

Besides, QT can actually.prolong the excitement of putting a piece of coral in your tank!

 

[Sherman]

Up your NO3 to around 5 ppm and see how is the repond

 

[dave57]

Agree with above post no3 @5-10 check for bugs too

 

[Ksmmike]

I feel you on the ich bro. I am in the middle of going fallow on my 300. You want pain? try getting 9 anthias out of a 300 gallon sps tank.

I QT'd all my fish as well and cut the bases off. I believe i got the ich from some acan colonies that were growing on cultured rock.

anyways, I also learned that not having a hannah cooper tester was foolish. I used the cupramine dosage and when I got the copper tester, one QT was too low and one way REALLY high. So my earlier qt may have been at ineffective dosage.

Yeah, testing for copper seems to be hard without a reliable test kit. It's another thing that could have gone wrong, in not banging the QT tank with enough Cupramine. I use Prazi Pro too and try to follow what HumbleFish laid out here. I had a tang that I tried not to overdue it with copper, so that's the only other thing I think could have gone wrong if not coming in on a frag or snail. That's a good idea to keep the snails in a cup for a few weeks. I didn't want to set up a whole tank for snails. I don't add them often anyway.

Again, there's only 4 fish in my biocube, 2 clowns a goby and a pygmy angel and never an issue and I didn't QT any of them or any corals. With my large tank I went the extra and still got ich. sighs.

 

[Ksmmike]

Agree with above post no3 @5-10 check for bugs too

I check for pests all the time at night. I've never seen anything and I do dip all my corals. I also try to remove them all from plugs. I use pieces of sand dollars to mount my frags. It makes for a much more natural look than plugs. My acans and leptos are all sitting on coral fossils that I picked up on the beach. Again a more natural look. But the fossils were bleached, sat in the sun for weeks and then in a cycled tub with growing bacteria for 2 months before going into the main display. So I know that no pests came in from them or any rock since I started with dry rock.

My biocube for sure has some pests. I pull out bristle worms and other things on occasion, but the main display I took far more precaution with pests.

If I did have any pests, I would think my wrasse would find it. It's a female leopard and she is constantly cruising and picking at the rocks for pods and anything else she can find.

 

[Ksmmike]

Up your NO3 to around 5 ppm and see how is the repond

thanks, I'll give it a shot. I don't want to go too crazy since I went on vacation and came home to a tank full of green hair algae. I might have overdone it with
running carbon and GFO to eliminate the GHA. I stopped the carbon and GFO a few days ago. That might bump up the nitrates and phos too.

 

[Ksmmike]

I disagree on being too "clean". 0 ppm no3 might not be a true 0 ppm. Depending on test kits used and no3 uptake by corals, algae and bacteria. If you have fish in the tank and feed them well your corals should be getring enough nitrogen. You can feed a coral food and or amino acids for the corals. Imo its your lighting. 2 XR-15s is not enough for a 4ft 120g tank. For sps and lps 3-4 XR-30s is needed for good coverage.

Ecotech said that the 2 XR-15s would be enough. Who knows. I'm going to bump up the intensity some and see if that helps. Thanks for the advice. It's hard to know what is enough and what's not enough for anything from lights to nutrients. I try to be stable since that's what everyone I think can agree on, assuming you're within a decent range.
I guess I need to rent or find someone with a par meter to really know whats going on with the lights.

 

[jda]

Testing at zero nitrate is no problem. A lot of tanks are like this. You are not truly at zero - just a range where we have no good test kits. Mine consistently tests "clear" on Salifert, but I have about .1 in IC testing.

Number on a test kit is fools gold. Throughput is where the money is made - high import and export to match.

I also agree with the lights. EcoTech is full is shyte... they are just looking to sell products. Everybody that I know that believed them (and AI) has since added more and wished that they did from the start. My recommendation would be to add 4 T5s in an AquaticLife, or the like.

Nitrate and Phosphate are not nutrients, but people think of them as such. They are building blocks of life that are necessary but do not "feed" coral. Coral are fed from the sugars created by the zoox... so the light is what feeds your corals. Some people really stress about the building blocks and have lackluster lighting, but it they changed their paradigm just a bit to where nutrients came from light (which is more accurate), then they might invest more heavily in them.

FWIW - my tank has .1n and between .005 and .01 P and tons of Metal Halide and everything is beautiful and grows like crazy. I dose nothing and do not feed the tank, just the fish. My corals are well fed with lots of what I consider the best quality light.

 

[Larry L]

Ecotech said that the 2 XR-15s would be enough. Who knows. I'm going to bump up the intensity some and see if that helps.

Two of those lights might or might not be enough for a four foot tank, I have two over a three foot tank and it works great. But in any case if you're running them at 60% it should certainly be enough light for the corals that are directly under the lights, or close by, especially if they are only 6" below water surface. So if those nearby corals are doing relatively better than the ones further away, then that might mean the lights are the problem (but turning up the intensity still might not get enough light to the ones further away due to lack of coverage, and it might burn the ones directly under). But if all of the corals are struggling equally, even the ones directly under, that would make me think it's more likely to be a lack of nutrients problem (which I think it probably is).

 

[Ksmmike]

I also agree with the lights. EcoTech is full is shyte... they are just looking to sell products. Everybody that I know that believed them (and AI) has since added more and wished that they did from the start. My recommendation would be to add 4 T5s in an AquaticLife, or the like.

FWIW - my tank has .1n and between .005 and .01 P and tons of Metal Halide and everything is beautiful and grows like crazy. I dose nothing and do not feed the tank, just the fish. My corals are well fed with lots of what I consider the best quality light.

Thanks Jda,
You don't use LED's at all? I was watching a video from WWC and they use a combo of Ecotechs and T5 for their main display tanks. I've seen them in person, hard to argue with their success.
I was just looking at Aquatic Life's site. More money.. sighs I need to sell a whole lot more of my novels to pay for this stuff.

thanks again
Mike

 

[Ksmmike]

Two of those lights might or might not be enough for a four foot tank, I have two over a three foot tank and it works great. But in any case if you're running them at 60% it should certainly be enough light for the corals that are directly under the lights, or close by, especially if they are only 6" below water surface. So if those nearby corals are doing relatively better than the ones further away, then that might mean the lights are the problem (but turning up the intensity still might not get enough light to the ones further away due to lack of coverage, and it might burn the ones directly under). But if all of the corals are struggling equally, even the ones directly under, that would make me think it's more likely to be a lack of nutrients problem (which I think it probably is).

Thanks Larry,
A few of the acros are holding their color and are encrusting. It's only some of them that were my original ones that I bought in April of this past year that are starting to lose color. I lost a few due to bleaching, but that happened early on. I haven't lost one due to bleaching in months. It doesn't seem to matter which ones are directly under the lights and which ones aren't. It seems to be more of an age issue. They are all still growing, but slowly. One not directly under the light was growing the fastest. I wont say from who, but it also seems that acros I got from one source didn't make it, and others from another site, have done well. All my acans from AquaSd have thrived. I haven't bought any acros from them yet, but I might in the future. I know acros are tough, especially in a new tank, so I'm taking that into consideration too. Like I said, the more recent acros I have purchased never bleached like some early ones. So I think I'm heading in the right direction, but need to tweak it some. It might be the lighting, I'm researching it more. Some old school reefers swear by elevated phosphates and nitrates and some like it close to zero. I know, I know, each tank is different, but keep it consistent.