Holy grail micromussa suddenly dying

[Reefer Dan]

Any idea what would cause the micromussa to go from extremely healthy and loving life to half dead over 5 days?

pH 7.8-8.0
Temp 76
Ca 420
Alk 7.5 (has been slowly trending down, working on dialing in)
Mg 1410
Phos: 0.3-0.6
Nitrate 4-7

I have been trying to increase my t5 lighting by 15 minutes/week, but I reduced my LEDs by 30% in hopes to compensate. PAR is 130-230 depending on time of day.

 

[Arego]

Depending what the alk was in it's previous healthy state before coming to your tank you could be off by a quite a bit based on what it likes or is used to.

On top of that if your alk is sliding you can't not blame that if every other parameter is stable in an ideal range.

You can not let alk just slide especially with newly acclimating corals at a disadvantage getting used to your water.

 

[Reefer Dan]

Depending what the alk was in it's previous healthy state before coming to your tank you could be off by a quite a bit based on what it likes or is used to.

On top of that if your alk is sliding you can't not blame that if every other parameter is stable in an ideal range.

You can not let alk just slide especially with newly acclimating corals at a disadvantage getting used to your water.

That is correct, I was maintaining alk around 8 but my clam has just settled in and is now ramping up its consumption so that is why the alk dosing is being evaluated again. I wanted to be transparent so figured that was worth mentioning. This coral is not new to my tank, it has been in my tank for about 7 months and I’m confused on why it suddenly took a turn.

 

[Michael Price]

micromussas need very low light. Watched a video from tidal gardens that recommended 50 par for it

 

[Nano sapiens]

For a lower light coral like this, they can be adapted to relatively high lighting gradually (key word, 'gradually'), but once they are 'up there' any rapid changes to the system cause addition stressors...on top of the necessity of dealing with oxygen-free radicals (think peroxide) daily due to the higher lighting. So general rule of thumb, it is much safer to keep 'lower light corals' (Micromussa, Blastomussa, Plerogyra, etc.) in the middle range of their lighting tolerance.

If that were my Micromussa, I would place it in a partial shaded location (~40 PAR and give it small amounts of quality food daily (don't stress it with too much food all at once). Once it starts looking more vigorous and regrowing polyps, you can gradually move it to a somewhat higher light level location if desired.