I could use some help troubleshooting sudden bleaching on Needle in Haystack

[Sierra_Bravo]

I was just looking at my Red Dragon and Needle in the Haystack frag yesterday and they looked their normal color. At lunch today I see that they have faded/bleached in less than 24 hours. The Red Dragon uniformly, the Needle in the Haystack in different spots all over the frag.

They've been doing well for the month or so that I've had them and I'm at a loss as to what to do at the moment. I've taken them off the frag rack and lowered them to the sand.

Parameters:
Alk: 8.2
Calc: 425
PO4: .018
Nitrate: 4
Ammonia, nitrite: 0
Temp: 77
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.02

The only thing that has changed at all between yesterday and today is that I adjusted calcium to 425 from 395. I use dosers for two part but my calcium was trending low so I bumped it up. Would a change in calcium levels cause an event like this?

No other acros or monti's are exhibiting issues.

 

[BoomCorals]

Both are soft skinned acros, and in my experience some tanks don't do well with those. They also generally require the most stable and mature of tanks to thrive.

 

[Ocdreef]

You said you raised your Ca. Oftentimes depending on your tank situation and chemistry raising Ca can cause Alk to drop suddenly. Have you if you haven’t yet I would double check your Alk just to make sure it didn’t crash on you, because if it crashed your Alk at all that could be your culprit. Your other parameters are great. Yeah smooth skins can be finicky.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

Alk did drop a tiny bit from 8.4 to 8.2 after adjusting the calcium.

I have some friends on our local board speaking to this as well. Just to include missing details that came up there my Mag is at 1425 and there was one additional change made to the tank a little over two weeks ago: I added two T-5 fixtures and am running them 3 hours a day now, ramped up from 1.5 hours a day when I installed them. I lowered my LED levels 20% at the same time to offset the additional light. Consensus over there was lighting change probably was the culprit.

I have them at the bottom of the tank and we'll see what happens.

@BoomCorals - I am learning quickly as a new hobbyist that just because you can keep an acro doesn't mean you can keep any acros

 

[29bonsaireef]

More than likely it was an off balance in parameters. I doubt that lighting was the cause, if anything T5s will help with smooth skinned acros.

 

[Ocdreef]

Yeah for sure. T5’s will help to unify the par levels around your tank. Probly just wacky tabbacky params like bonsair states, though 8.4 to 8.2 is a very mild drop [emoji848]. Did you by chance take any par readings lately? Your LED might have still been high enough to shock something put together with your t5’s.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

Yeah for sure. T5’s will help to unify the par levels around your tank. Probly just wacky tabbacky params like bonsair states, though 8.4 to 8.2 is a very mild drop [emoji848]. Did you by chance take any par readings lately? Your LED might have still been high enough to shock something put together with your t5’s.

I'm going to take a reading this evening as I just received a par meter today that I had ordered. That was a pretty convenient coincidence, huh?

 

[Scorpius]

If everything else is doing good I wouldn't change too much.