Looking for a little help or insight

[Yates273]

Not sure what’s going on here. Tank has been up and running for a while now and I have not changed anything as far as rocks coral fish. Recently a few of my corals have not been very happy. My Duncan’s have been closed for close to a week. My green Monti turned brown in spots my purple stylo is no longer purple but the polyps are fully out amd my green Nepthea now has some brown slimy stuff coming off of it when I hit it with a baster. Flow consists of 2 mp10’s and 2 Jebao
sw-10’s. I am running reef crystals. That did spike my #’s a little bit with the last batch I mixed. Went from 9.5 to almost 11 alk. Amd the calcium shot up to 540. I have since stopped dosing to allow #’s to settle which is now 8.5 alk 481 cal. and 1417 magnesium. Oh and I forgot to mention all my euphyilla are open but they are not as fluffy as they used to be.
Temp is steady at 78 nitrates are at 5 ppm amd phosphates are at .02. These are tested using Hannah all other tests are from Trident. I use Rodi water with 0 tds Does anyone have any idea what is going on here. Could it be coral warfare?

 

[Yates273]

Sorry for blue light pictures Here are pictures under white light
Forgot to add I feed tank white worms everyday and dose reef energy + every M-W-F.
iso added 5 ml of Kent essentials to my calcium and alk containers.

 

[RSnodgrass]

Usually it's a few things but in general it honestly sounds like you already know the problem, the spike.

Otherwise you can always test your other levels to make sure things like potassium are on track.

 

[Yates273]

I was scared that may be the issue but geez Louise it’s wreaking havoc right now I just hope it will all settle back down. Tank has been doing so well. Hopefully everything pulls through. I did do a 10 gallon water change the other day but hopefully once it stabilizes my corals will be happy again. Is there any chance this can be from coral warfare? I do run carbon though

 

[RSnodgrass]

When I've had leathers look like that there are only a few things that help stop them from deteriorating.

Blow them off daily to get rid of the rot.

Change any filter socks and such daily.

Keep skimmer running a bit "wet".

Run carbon.

 

[Billldg]

It may take a few days for things to settle down, but you should start to see things go back to normal slowly. Just remember, not to react and make more changes causing more issues. Once the Alk and Cal are back to normal parameters, which it sounds like they are, then I would just go about doing your normal routine and let things settle.

 

[Yates273]

When I've had leathers look like that there are only a few things that help stop them from deteriorating.

Blow them off daily to get rid of the rot.

Change any filter socks and such daily.

Keep skimmer running a bit "wet".

Run carbon.

Don’t run filter socks but I will keep
Up on the 2 other suggestions

 

[ZoWhat]

Recently a few of my corals have not been very happy.

The trick to coral husbandry is to take a serious look at what you have done recently that is different than what you were doing back when corals were happy.

You need to return to previous habits. Corals demand consistency. If you keep changing the game, you go down a rabbit hole.

If you keep changing things to make it better, you make it worse.

Sit and ponder what you need to do to get back to "happy coral days" slowly and consistently


.

 

[Yates273]

I am trying not to do anything but it’s so hard seeing everything the way it was to the way it is. I know by me doing anything will only make it worse so I am going to have to sit back and hope for the best. I plan on changing out the lights next week to 2 hydras, but I may hold off if the corals are still stressed.

 

[Yates273]

The trick to coral husbandry is to take a serious look at what you have done recently that is different than what you were doing back when corals were happy.

You need to return to previous habits. Corals demand consistency. If you keep changing the game, you go down a rabbit hole.

Sit and ponder what you need to do to get back to "happy coral days" slowly and consistently


.

Yes I did I looked back on my Apex and it seems everything was happy when my # were in check. This is why I stopped dosing since the new batch of salt was using had elevated #’s since doing this the Duncan’s are opened up the slightest but not what they were. It’s just everything else is so mad right now. I did have to cut off some of my green Acro because it bleached but that’s ok since that grows like a weed.

 

[Dkmoo]

Whats ur pH levels?

 

[Yates273]

Ph is 8.2 day 8.0 night although it has been struggling to get up to 8.2 during the day. Could be because I just harvested Chaeto.

 

[Nano sapiens]

IME, having an alkalinity spike within reef keeping norms is not optimal, but is often tolerated by many corals (Acropora and Montipora tending to be the most negatively effected). Having an alk spike in conjunction with other things like lighting changes, overdosing of Mg, salinity changes, changes in feeding habits, etc. will often wreck havoc.

Chalk this up to experience: Always check the major parameters of a new bag/bucket of salt mix. Never assume that just because the brand is the same that the mix is too.

For most reef scenerios, make changes slowly...painstakingly slowly. The coral animal is extremely chemosensitive and light sensitive (intensity and spectrum), so give then a good amount of time to adapt to changes.

 

[Yates273]

I have been using reef crystals with no ill side effects so far but I guess I need to pay more attention. I could probably also go with regular instant ocean this way when I dose it won’t elevate the #’s too high since it starts out low.