My acros are faded.... Please Help!

[gmoney243]

From what I can tell from this thread it seems ur po4 was to low and now by taking it offline ur po4 is to high. Test it and use less gfo to keep po4 in the .03-.05 range and see how corals and tank look in a few weeks.

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[Duc1098]

Fading is typically do to to low of nutrients. PO4 should be around .04ppm to provide sufficient nutrients. One way of doing this is adding Aminos to your tank such as Red Sea Reef Energy A/B or Zeovit and feeding more often. I recently just started dosing Red Sea Reef Energy A/B and have seen a drastic improvement in PE and a little bit better color, but it is still early on. Another month or so and I should see some good results. This is only because prior to dosing my PO4 was at 0.0 on a Hanna. I have since started the Amino/Vitamin dosing and feed the tank twice a day and have now gotten the PO4 up to .03ppm. Another thing, if your nutrients are low I would recommend taking the GFO offline, it will just start the zoos and hence the coral.

 

[jedimasterben]

At 0.03ppm, phosphate levels begin to negatively affect calcification, so I'd keep it less than that. Keeping it undetectable is ok as long as you feed more, supplying nutrient and amino acids.

 

[islander84]

Its been a few weeks since i started making slow changes and heres what i have came up with

Started feeding a little more, doesnt seem to have changed anything.

Added microbe lift special blend per directions on box, doesnt seem to have changed anything.

Am adding couple more powerheads next week and we'll see where it goes.

I have noticed a little more cyano in sand bed and a few sps slowly getting worse.

 

[dknuckles]

Tagging along

 

[greg0385]

gary, im having somewhat the same problem(cyno and some acros arent as colorful as i think they should be). so i took advantage of some holiday sales and hope to get back on track. it will be hard to know what exactly if any of it fixes my problem but i all this coming within the next week:
new MH bulbs( unsure on age other they are 10+ months old and i bought them used)
new ati t5 bulbs( bought new so they are 10months old)
new rodi filters( approx 10 months old and tds meter is reading 1tds)
hannah phos meter( right now api test results are less than .025- 0 reading) local members have tested my water and phos are around .03
new eco-bak bio pellets (current bio pellets are the npx(i believe) and eco-bak review have interest me into trying them out
new cleanup crew as current have basically disappear

i had a salinity problem that may have caused my issue so got my refractometer fixed and been dosing microbe-lift to no results

so hopefully with all this new equipment i will be able to take back control of my tank and if i have any results i will be sure to pass them on.

good luck
greg

 

[islander84]

Thats almost exactly what i recently changed in my tank. I run 14k phoenix 250w x 2 and 4 ati t5 39w

Seems like my stuff was doing excellent before i changed my lights and rodi filters, and started doing water changes lol

The only thing im not doing is runing biopelets.....

The cyano seems a bit more toward the brownish red side and it seems kindof stringy in areas....

Im hoping by adding more flow it corrects my problem, i have had this tank running for about 2 years and things looked amazing back before i ended up with aefw....and aenb.... which i know for certain they are gone but things havent been the same since then

 

[islander84]

My melanurus wrasse likes to snack on my cuc! Lol.... back when we did that groupbuy i ordered alot of cuc and i bet i dont have but half of what was ordered because of that joker! Lol

 

[schprock]

Time for new bulbs?

 

[islander84]

There all new.... maybe 2 months on them....

2x 250 14k phoenix
4x 39. T5 Ati

3 blue+ 1 coral+

 

[schprock]

Looking carefully for pests
Aefw or red bugs

Hard to spot sometimes

Use a turkey baster to blow on sps

 

[Rubensreef]

it happend to me too ....my phosphates were high ....so i change my media and big h2o change...and it helps .

 

[seamonkey84]

I would think posphates are the most likely cause. However if that's not the case, try zeovite's K-balance. I had great results with coloration after I started dosing the stuff. Several corals that I could never get to color up (Garf purple bonsai in particular) now look great, and that's after I had a Alk spike that browed and stn almost everything several months back.

 

[islander84]

Definitely no bugs....

I have cyano on sand bed very little on one rock..... some of my acros look excellent growth and color, some look really pale and some look really (thin, weak fleshed) some have sparatic stn...

A few that have the sparatic stn usually end up rtn.

I know what bugs do to acros, and what they look like and all the signs and i can say it is not bugs.


Alk 8.2
Cal 500
Mg 1400
Ph 8.3
Temp 79.5

All my params are pretty solid all the time.

My temp swings from 79.5 to 79.8. With light cycle
My alk might swing from 8.1 to 8.3 over the course of a week or 2
My cal hardly ever moves
My mg might swing from 1300 to 1400 over a months time

All params are checked with hanah, RS, salifert kits

I am really scratching my head trying to figure out what could be causing this...

I run carbon(rinsed well) periodically to absorb toxins

Rodi is at 0 tds

Fish are healthy and happy

Even my some of my lps are slowly receding but very slow.....

 

[fort384]

This sounds exactly like the problems I had with my tank - some SPS doing well, some declining, LPS receding, etc. I changed my photoperiod to be 8 hours at full intensity and 12 hours total (down from 10 hours at peak intensity, and added a 2 part automated dosing system from BRS and all corals started to explode with growth and color. My Alk hung out around 8 as well before I added the 2 part system. Now I keep it at 10, steady, and things seem to be going well.

Just my observations - I am fairly new to reef tanks, but this was my experience over the several months.

 

[islander84]

For example i have a red planet, pink lemonade, sof, stag, nasuta.... that are thriving
Then i have a nasuta, divarcata, stag and couple others that dont look the greatest
Then i have stag, nasuta, echinata, couple others stn/rtn


I have a pink watermelon chalice that looks excellent, then right beside it is an alien eye chalice that has receded alot and not far from that is a micromussa that has slowly reced over last year or so. And then a meteor shower colony that looked excellent in color then it trippled in size and the started looking really blotchy and half of it receded

 

[ifarmer]

check the phosphate level in your tank.

also, maybe do more frequent water change rather than just once every two months.

I think 10% water change once a month now is too little. alot of people do 10% every week. or 20% every other week.

 

[jedimasterben]

Some like me don't do any changes, or a guy I know, Kris, that hasn't done a water change in over a year AND has no skimmer, no chemical or mechanical filtration, just dosing kalk in topoff water and feeding heavily. :faint2:

 

[islander84]

Hate to say it but my stuff looked killer before i changed my bulbs and started doing water changes! Lol. :nerd:

 

[islander84]

Some like me don't do any changes, or a guy I know, Kris, that hasn't done a water change in over a year AND has no skimmer, no chemical or mechanical filtration, just dosing kalk in topoff water and feeding heavily. :faint2:

Any pics or information on yours and his setups? What kindof livestock?