At my wits end with acros

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I can see that, but white(bleaching ) with my understanding isn't this caused by too much light and browning needed more light

We can all guess but the only way your going to know for sure is to check with a par meter. Do you have a local lfs or club that can loan you one for a day?

I use an Apogee but there are others like the seneye that are lower in cost.

That is the one major downfall of leds. You can tweak them so much but your not really getting anywhere without knowing what is actually happening in your tank.

Or you can do what I did and ditch the controllable led's. I could never leave them alone. Always making changes until I said ok it's time to reevaluate what my corals actually need verses me just playing with light settings endlessly ha. I ran metal halides back in the day so I decided to switch over to kessils/t5 because they are both set to the spectrum your corals need to thrive. Of course I have Orphek OR2 120's being delivered today. Hoping to replace the t5's and be done with bulb changes forever.

If you look at most online retailers setups you quickly realize that most have shallow tanks under led's. The reason is they can get much greater par that way. Then once you get home and place it in your tank you have probably cut their par in half. Imagine living off half the calories a day you currently take in. Now your body will adjust eventually just like the corals but you/it won't be too happy.

Bottom line is you need a par meter, ha!
 
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Chaswood tested the Par on his Hydras using the AB+ schedule. The discussion is here...

 
the only other thing i can think off is i vodka dose, would that have anything to do with it?
 
Might be your PAR, high alk and the fact you're carbon dosing. I'd stop carbon dosing and bring that alk down to 7.0-7.5 dkh; I'd rather have lower alk than higher alk.
 
I'm starting to think that dosing anything other than alk, calc and magnesium just creates more problems than they fix. Every time I try and dose something I end up setting back the progress on my tank by a couple of months. As long as you get the parameters in check it all seems to work itself out on its own.
 
pi
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some pics hopefully will help
 
The garf bonzi was all green tips and now white with only green encrusting.. the other acro as you can see in the pic has bleaching at the base and some at the branching
 
Thanks for the pics. I would describe that as going pale. Would you say it has been gradual or quick?

Never a bad idea to know your PAR for sure, but I am going propose that you reduce the carbon dosing to let your nitrate rise a bit. A test of 2 is within testing error of zero. If I saw some algae in those pics somewhere I would lose conviction on this recommendation, but I don't see any. Got some algae?

You've obviously done some homework here given your params and setup, so just slowly let nutrients creep up and see what you get. A month from now take another pic of those acros and see if they are responding.

You could also stay the course on carbon, and add some fish that graze and poop a lot. Tang, algae blenny... that way if some algae starts forming they will manage it for you.
 
The garf bonzi was all green tips and now white with only green encrusting.. the other acro as you can see in the pic has bleaching at the base and some at the branching
Bleaching usually happens at the tips, not the bases. If it’s the base of the piece bleaching, it is probably a flow issue. The bonsai looks fine to me imo. I’ve never seen a green bonsai. They are all usually a dark purple with green polyps. The one in the first pics is not “bleaching” at the base. That is tissue recession.
 
Thanks for the pics. I would describe that as going pale. Would you say it has been gradual or quick?

Never a bad idea to know your PAR for sure, but I am going propose that you reduce the carbon dosing to let your nitrate rise a bit. A test of 2 is within testing error of zero. If I saw some algae in those pics somewhere I would lose conviction on this recommendation, but I don't see any. Got some algae?

You've obviously done some homework here given your params and setup, so just slowly let nutrients creep up and see what you get. A month from now take another pic of those acros and see if they are responding.

You could also stay the course on carbon, and add some fish that graze and poop a lot. Tang, algae blenny... that way if some algae starts forming they will manage it for you.
Going pale? How would 2ppm of nitrates cause his acro’s to go pale? There’s nothing wrong with that. He has a reading. I never personally keep my tanks below 10ppm but he shouldn’t have a problem with 2ppm. They don’t look pale to my eyes....
 
Your carbon dosing will lowering your nitrate more than phosphates resulting in their imbalance. You want a 20:1 nitrate to phosphate ration. IMO you should refuce or stop carbon dosing and let the nitrates rise.
 
Going pale? How would 2ppm of nitrates cause his acro’s to go pale? There’s nothing wrong with that. He has a reading. I never personally keep my tanks below 10ppm but he shouldn’t have a problem with 2ppm. They don’t look pale to my eyes....

This is what GARF looks like at 10 nitrate. Forgive the morning blue, but surely you can see the difference?

IMG-4231.jpg
 

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