Chalice has completely browned out..

[ocncheffy]

Hey guys,

I'm in need of some assistance with this chalice.. I have a second chalice that is doing completely fine and is growing at a steady rate, but this one is having a very hard time. I've owned the chalice for about a year now, and it's been brown for a good half year. I've done many things to help such as moving to more light, moving to shade, increasing flow, and feeding. Nothing seems to help and it continues to look brown.

Here's some pics of when I got it:

The bottom two pics are day one, and the top two pics are a week later. You can see how the pink/red has increased ten fold.

Here it is two weeks after purchase. My initial thought was that it received too much light and too many nutrients due to feeding reef roids.

Here's the current state of the chalice. Completely brown with white veins going through the frag.


My tank is a Nuvo 16 with an ocean revive T24 @ 50% blues/7% whites.

DKH is 9
Calcium is 450
Mag is 1350
Nitrates <3ppm
Phosphates 0


If any of you have more suggestions on what I can try, I'm all yours..

 

[CastAway]

I cannot see the pictures myself, but, that may be because I'm at work.

I've heard it said that "brown" can be the result of too much nutrients. Although your measurable NO3 and PO4 seem low, do you have a lot of algae, evidence that NO3 and PO4 are present and being consumed?

 

[ocncheffy]

I have zero algae in the tank at the moment. I haven't had any signs of algae, other than bubble algae, for a good year.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

10 to 15 nitrate range would probably help

 

[ocncheffy]

10 to 15 nitrate range would probably help

Ah, so your saying I'm running to little nitrates? I guess that's the tough part about running a mixed reef with quite a few SPS frags... I'll stop the vodka dosing and let the nitrates rise a bit. See what happens.

 

[Salty1962]

What's your Alk. Mine are very sensitive to ALK levels and swings. If you do every frag, keep me in mine