Chalices and Favites dying

dugthefish · Jul 14, 2019

125g mixed reef, 8 months old. Sps, including a few easier acros, are thriving. Acan, duncan, euphilla, blastos all doing well. For the life of me I cannot get my chalices and favia/favites to do well. Have tried numerous positions/light/flows, with the understanding they do best in lower light, moderate flow areas. In some cases they seem to do well for a week or two, then revert to doing poorly.

All parameters are in my desired range. Alk was a bit high a couple weeks ago as I was getting a new dosing pump dialed in, goal is 9. Nitrate and phosphate are high as I was dosing to combat dinos, will be bringing thses back down to 10-15/.03-.1 in the coming weeks.

Screenshot_20190714-144035_Aquarium Assistant.jpg

Mjrenz · Jul 15, 2019

kireek · Jul 15, 2019

Sorry for your troubles.They could be recovering from the swing in alkalinity or the dinos.Have you noticed anything picking at them ?

dugthefish · Jul 16, 2019

kireek said:
Sorry for your troubles.They could be recovering from the swing in alkalinity or the dinos.Have you noticed anything picking at them ?

Nothing that I've seen has been annoying them, be it flora or fauna. This has been going on for months now, every time I seem to find a spot they like they recover a bit then fade again.

kireek · Jul 16, 2019

Are you using any sort of media like GFO?

dugthefish · Jul 17, 2019

kireek said:
Are you using any sort of media like GFO?

Just carbon, which I now remember is probably time to pull. Put it in last month when the dinos threatened yo make a return.

kireek · Jul 17, 2019

Some of them look like they were over exposed to light.So if you already adressed the issue then you may just have to wait for a long slow recovery.Corals can take well over a year to recuperate themselves, so be patient.In the meantime keep your parameters stable through testing like you are already doing. Fluctuations in water chemistry could be causing issues. Maybe look into getting a Triton test preformed in the future if you continue to see problems. Just in case I am missing something other than a few screws ,I'll ask the #REEFSQUAD .

kireek · Jul 17, 2019

Is my hash tag working? #REEFSQUAD

dugthefish · Jul 17, 2019

kireek said:
Some of them look like they were over exposed to light.So if you already adressed the issue then you may just have to wait for a long slow recovery.Corals can take well over a year to recuperate themselves, so be patient.In the meantime keep your parameters stable through testing like you are already doing. Fluctuations in water chemistry could be causing issues. Maybe look into getting a Triton test preformed in the future if you continue to see problems. Just in case I am missing something other than a few screws ,I'll ask the #REEFSQUAD .

Should I perhaps reduce the lighting by a tic?

DJ H · Jul 17, 2019

You can tell the way they look they need more light. I have a lot of high end chalices and favias there placed mid to high. I got 2 400 watt mh in my tank. Don’t believe everything you read.

kireek · Jul 17, 2019

dugthefish said:
Should I perhaps reduce the lighting by a tic?

Maybe.What kind of lights of you have ? About how far away are they from the corals? And do you have full display shot available? Again this may be a water quality issue and they may just need some TLC. Every time you move them they are going to have to adjust to the new conditions.

DarthSimon · Jul 17, 2019

In my experience, chalices don’t like a ton of light. They have all done well for me at the bottom parts of my tanks where par is 100 or less. Most likely, this is your problem.

Also I wouldn’t adjust your lighting, I would adjust where the chalice is. You have others corals that thrive with current lighting. Why upset that?

kireek · Jul 17, 2019

Also do you know any experienced reefers with a coral saw? Trimming off the dead skeleton may help roboot them when all else fails.Hopefully you won't have to try this,especially because they look like small frags.I just wanted to throw this out there.

dugthefish · Jul 18, 2019

Running 3x black box LEDs, set at like 70blue 20 white. I've tried spots with indirect light and even full shade to no avail, perhaps flow wasnt right in those spots but I've pretty much tried all available spots in the tank. Chalices are almost completely dead now, favites right behind.

kireek · Jul 18, 2019

Wow ,your aquarium looks awesome! Deep though . I wonder what the par is towards the bottom. I personally run my blues at about 90%.My whites are at about 50% and it's a 20 gallon high display .The sand bed is at 100 par. So long story short, find a nice reefer with a par meter you can borrow. I am sorry to hear about your losses.

Braves Fan · Jul 22, 2019

One of the best investments I have ever made in this hobby ,, a Par Meter ,, my friends love it to ,, it also gets me some pretty good coral deals from them

if your not using a Par Meter ,, your just guessing ,, when things go wrong ,, you can rule out Par right off the bat if you have the meter ,,