Micromussa help

[SLPMonkey]

Hi everyone!

I have a 40b reef tank. I'm new to reefing (set up my tank in April and this is my first) and am still trying to figure it all out! I bought this beautiful Micromussa from WWC's sale in July and it's really suffering. It lost it's beautiful stripes after a couple months, but was growing new heads and seemed really happy. Recently, it's been retracted and unhappy and I don't know what to do to help it! I would LOVE the original color back, but would settle for it just being out and happy again. Any advice? I just moved it to the sand and turned down my lights (2 AI primes) because I noted a couple of my corals looked like they were bleaching a little.

Any advice? Please help!


July:

October:

November:

Now:

Tank Stats: 40B with 2 AI prime lights. Phosphate: .15 ppm, Calcium: 400 ppm, Alkalinity: 8.6 ppm, Magnesium: 1170 ppm, Salinity: 1.023 SG, Amonia: 0 ppm, Nitrate: 20 ppm

 

[emmaleegrech]

Might be your Magnesium bud. Magnesium levels in a reef are suggested between 1350 to 1500

 

[Jimbo662]

+1 on the Mag. Also, what % are you lights set to.

 

[SLPMonkey]

I'll look into the mag. My lights are pretty low. Green and red are off and everything else is now between 15% and 25% max. They had been up to between 20% and 35% for all the colors except for green and red which have been off for a while since I was struggling with cyno.

 

[ChiCity]

Along with what everyone else has said, I'd like to add....
My experience with acans and led's; they always morph under them.
If you want to retain honest true colors on your acans, stick with t5

 

[Jimbo662]

It could be your original setting on the lights were too low. I had that exact problem...I ran mine I think at 38% max. I lost quite a few of them. Never checked them with a par meter and just judged by eyesight. Turns out I needed them double that.

+1 to ChiCity...I switched to T5/LED hybrid and all my acans look amazing.

 

[SLPMonkey]

I actually just lowered them. The higher numbers are where they were, and I noticed my bridsnest and my 2 favias were bleaching. I just lowered them a couple days ago so I don't know yet what effect that's going to have. Here is the birdnest with the bleached section. Hard to tell in the picture but it is now stark white and there are no polyps there.