Need some advice on a few corals

[Nico2176]

2 of my corals are looking odd, my birds nest has turned white ish color and one of my platting Montipora has turned brown. I think my birds nest might be bleaching but I need a second opinion. If anyone know why my montipora has turned brown that’d help out too. Any advice would be appreciated .
Salinity: 1.024
Calc:440~460ppm
dKH:10

 

[Nico2176]

I have a Mars Aqua 300w light fixture that I’ve set to 60% blues and 25% whites. They both turn on at 8:00 am then the whites turn off at 7:00 pm and the blues turn off around 10:00 pm. My hammer coral and Zoanthid seem to be doing great it’s just these.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Might be too much light. Do you know what PAR the corals are getting? This is very very important with LED lighting. Whats your nitrate and phosphate at? You will need some detectable with alk and cal at the higher levels you are at. How long has the tank been setup?

 

[Nico2176]

Might be too much light. Do you know what PAR the corals are getting? This is very very important with LED lighting. Whats your nitrate and phosphate at? You will need some detectable with alk and cal at the higher levels you are at. How long has the tank been setup?

The tank is about 4 and a half month old, a lot of my stuff in the tank came from my old 40 gallon breeder. I had some issues with my hammer so I asked on a forum and someone told me I needed to turn my blues way up and ever since that my hammers been doing great. I do want to say about a week ago I added a coralline algae accelerator so... that might have affected my calc.
I will test my phosphate and nitrate right now to get an accurate measurement.

 

[Nico2176]

Phosphate:0~.25ppm
Nitrate:~0ppm
I use a api reef master test kit so it is slightly difficult to find an exact measure. I believe that my phosphate it way lower than 0.25 ppm as the color shown is a green while my sample is way lighter. I wouldn’t say it’s zero ppm but it’s in between the two.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Your po4 is going to be way lower than .25, trust me. I have used that exact API kit and in fact I have one right now. The po4 test will read .25 even with 0 tds rodi. Invest in some higher quality test kits. Salifert and Red Sea Pro are good, Hanna Checkers IMO are a must for Alk and po4. Your corals are most likely starving and can keep up with the high lighting and base elements. How high is the light mounted? Your tank is still young so sps will be a challange until if finds stability. How much rock did you use from the old tank and how much new dry rock, assuming dry rock was used.

 

[Nico2176]

Your po4 is going to be way lower than .25, trust me. I have used that exact API kit and in fact I have one right now. The po4 test will read .25 even with 0 tds rodi. Invest in some higher quality test kits. Salifert and Red Sea Pro are good, Hanna Checkers IMO are a must for Alk and po4. Your corals are most likely starving and can keep up with the high lighting and base elements. How high is the light mounted? Your tank is still young so sps will be a challange until if finds stability. How much rock did you use from the old tank and how much new dry rock, assuming dry rock was used.

I had about 40 pounds of rock from my old tank, and when I figured I was moving up to a bigger tank I let a lot of media sit in a bag in the 40 gallon breeder. I added about 35lbs of dry rock. I plan on adding some chaeto to my refugium in the next few days. I can make an educated guess that my phosphate aren’t super high as I see no real nuisance algae. I used 0 tds rodi water everytime i do I water change and about a week ago I had some crazy growth out of my birds nest. I can still see growth from my montipra as it was much smaller than when I got it. It was only recently I noticed the whitening of my birds nest, and the single white spot on my other Monti.

 

[Nico2176]

I did also dump a whole bottle of beneficial bacteria to my tank when i transferred everything over.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Try and feed the tank more, try a good coral food like Reef Roids, dosing aminos will help. I am having the same issues and it cause me to look my birds nest coral and other corals are not looking 100%. Work on getting those nutrients up a little. How high up is your light mounted? A 300w MARS at 65% blues and 25% whites with the optics still on is a strong lazer beam off lighting and should be at least 12" above the water. Your pics look really blasted with light.

 

[Nico2176]

Try and feed the tank more, try a good coral food like Reef Roids, dosing aminos will help. I am having the same issues and it cause me to look my birds nest coral and other corals are not looking 100%. Work on getting those nutrients up a little. How high up is your light mounted? A 300w MARS at 65% blues and 25% whites with the optics still on is a strong lazer beam off lighting and should be at least 12" above the water. Your pics look really blasted with light.

My light is mounted about 2.5 inches from my tank.

 

[Nico2176]

I do feed reef roids occasionally to all my corals, I am just puzzled why my Monti turned down.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

My light is mounted about 2.5 inches from my tank.

Raise that fixture to at least 12” off the water. You’re frying that poor thing

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Raise that fixture to at least 12” off the water. You’re frying that poor thing

I second this. I run 2x 300w mars aquas on a full blown SPS tank and they are 12" off the water and only peak at 60% blue and 50% white. 4 inches under the surface with 2 gyre 230s and 2 mp40s making waves and ripples, the par is still in the 550-600 range using an apogee 510 and this is with the covers removed from the leds.

Those covers on the mars aqua focus the light to make super hot spots. Turn those bad boys down. It is OK to leave the covers on, just raise the light up and turn it down.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Raise that fixture to at least 12” off the water. You’re frying that poor thing

I don’t have a mars but I keep my hydras 16” above the water

 

[Nico2176]

I was able to move my lights up higher and I personally like them higher makes it easy to get my hands in the tank. I was only able to raise it able 8.5 inches from the water line due to the wall in front of my tank. To make it clear my 75-gallon acrylic tank is in the wall connected to my bedroom. I then turned my lights down to a lower intensity and I plan on increasing it to the right setting over the next month. I can already see that my birds nest appear to be doing a little better as some of the polyps are coming out of the skeleton like normal. I appreciate the assistance from you both would either of you know how often I should feed reef roids because lately, I have a loosely based feeding plan where it's off and on.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

How many fish do you have in your tank

 

[Nico2176]

How many fish do you have in your tank

I have 2 clowns, a yellow tang, and 2 mandarin dragonets.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

You need more fish. More fish equals more fish poop equals more coral food. I wouldn’t start just throwing reef roids until you get a reliable no3 (salifert)and po4 (ultra low) test. I think you were led burning your corals, so now that the light is higher and lower your corals should be able to recover. Give it a week or so before you start adding anything else.

 

[Nico2176]

You need more fish. More fish equals more fish poop equals more coral food. I wouldn’t start just throwing reef roids until you get a reliable no3 (salifert)and po4 (ultra low) test. I think you were led burning your corals, so now that the light is higher and lower your corals should be able to recover. Give it a week or so before you start adding anything else.

Do you have any recommendations for fish? I was thinking of a fox face, but I wasn't sure because they get pretty big. I am adding a royal gramma tomorrow, but still, I think I could fit some more fish in.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Do you have any recommendations for fish? I was thinking of a fox face, but I wasn't sure because they get pretty big. I am adding a royal gramma tomorrow, but still, I think I could fit some more fish in.

In my 50 gallon I have
2-18year old clowns
2- orchistriped cardinals
2-Bangai cardinals
1-bristletooth tang
1-foxface
1-star blenny
1-orchid dottyback
1-6 line wrasse
2-dragon faced pipefish
Snails
And probably 25-30 zebra hermit crabs