Coral issues

[USMA36]

I have a nice sized Jason Fox Monty Plate that I picked up from a friend. The color isn’t what it was a week ago when I got it. It is more pale now. I think it is growing as I see white around the border. I run an 8 bulb 36” ATI about 12” over the water. It’s a 48” 90 gallon tank and the Monty is about 2” off the bottom. I am running core 7 other methods ph 7.9-8.1 ALK 8.3 Calcium 450 .02 Po4 2.5-5 No3. I also run carbon and gfo. Any advice? I wouldn’t think it is bleaching at the bottom of the tank but who knows. I also am having a similar issue with birds nest but I suspect my emerald crabs started eating it. They have been banished but I think the damage has been done. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I would suspect a bit of bleaching on the new addition. Esp If it came from a tank with much lower light.
You’ve got old school intensity going , and a lot of folks run very low now.

How long is the photo period?

And yea, it’s possible your stripping a bit too much Po4 as well.

The biggest explosion of growth I ever had was t5 and my damsel shredded my deep sand bed and flooded the tank with nutrients.

 

[USMA36]

2 Actinics come on at 9am full lights from 12-6 actinics only again from 6-9. Tank is 1 year old.

 

[USMA36]

I was actually only 9” over the water. I just raised it to 13”. Is this too big a change?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Wow man. That tank is filling in great!

No , I think that’s a fine change , esp cuz it’s just lowering the intensity.

Yea, I dunno , I think we can say nutrients aren’t the prob. Most likely. For the cap , I’m still going with acclimation to Light or maybe parameters. If it came from led , you most likely have more Nm of spectrum in the tank, and I’d wager more intensity.
The birds nest , I dunno. Those are usually pretty hardy.

 

[USMA36]

Thank you. Yes the tank it was in was lit by several Radions. It was up high in the tank though.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Leds have dimmers. And color sliders for spectrum. Lol. So it’s hard to say.

But the top of your tank , the peak is most likely in the 7-800 par range and the sand in 100-200 par range in the top center field , With a nice full wide even spectral curve.

So it can be an overall intensity prob or a narrow band that hasn’t been introduced to the coral before.

Either way your in the right track, keep it low and in good flow, the sides will have bit less light than the middle , and it’ll likely recover.

 

[USMA36]

I believe I figured out my problem. I tested my dosing pump this morning. I use core 7 other methods. Pump 1 doses bottle 1 which I believe is magnesium and trace. Pump 1 was dosing 70% more than it should be. I’m doing a 25% water change today. I don’t have a mag test kit. I ordered one but it’ll be a few days. LFS were all out of stock.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yup. I saw that. Hopefully that’s the issue.

 

[USMA36]

I had started losing snails about 2 months ago. I attributed that to hermit crabs. I think it was the first sign of high magnesium. Now it’s starting to effect corals. My birdsnest is almost completely without flesh now.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Dang. Yea.
Ime here, it’s hard to diagnose high mag issues. Mainly becuse mag is the hardest to test or rather the most unreliable test due to amount of possible error in the nature of the test.
So dying snail , coral tissue loss etc , are usually in conjunction with other issues.
But in this case , we do know a LOT more got added than was normal.

 

[USMA36]

Yes almost double for over a month. All my other parameters are where they should be. I never bought a Magnesium test kit for that reason. I figured if my other numbers were in line that would be too. Didn’t take into account an error with the dosing pump.