Please help tell me what's wrong.

[steiger33]

I had this piece of coral give to me and it was a bright neon green until today now it looks like this. I'm not sure what kind it is or what's wrong with it. Looks like it has a bunch of thin strands coming off of it.

Sorry for the crappy pics taken with IPhone 6

 

[Tahoe61]

I am making a guess that it might be a Leptastrea.

The white strings are probably mesenterial filaments, based on the appearance of the coral probably related to stress.

Please list all your available water parameters, lighting and age of tank.

 

[steiger33]

Alk 1.024
Cal 500
phos 0.02
nitrate 0

Running 2 Green Element Evo LED blue and whites. On a timer blues on at 10am both on at 11am whites off at 8pm blues off at 9pm.

Tank is about 8 months old.

 

[Tahoe61]

I believe your Alk value and SG value are switched?
Why is your Ca so high? Are you dosing?

It looks stressed to me, the usual suspect is chemistry issues, next come near by corals.

I would do the whole battery of water chemistry testing, double check results if something looks unusual. Then I would move the coral down and proceed with a couple smaller water changes over the course of a few days.

 

[steiger33]

Your right I put all that was the salinity. The Ca has always been right between 450-500. Should I try to get that lower? My zoa's seem to be doing really well.

Also what do you mean battery testing?

 

[Tahoe61]

Magnesium.....Alkalinity.

"Also what do you mean battery testing". Test for everything.

I would not want my Ca at 500, but it's probably not a huge deal, a lower value would be ideal though. Need alk and mag levels though.

Did you do anything to the tank like, dose, water change, move stuff???

 

[twilliard]

Have to know your alkalinity
I am going to assume it will be high

 

[steiger33]

I don't have a test for mag or alk. I will need to get that tomorrow.
The only thing I did was a 10% water change and redid the Aqua scape to get rid of a rear rock wall. Now I have islands.

 

[steiger33]

I found my alk tester and it is high at 196.9. What do I need to do to lower these levels off some

 

[luxauterna]

196.9? Is that ppm? What kind of alkalinity test are you using?

 

[steiger33]

It is the PPM. It's the reef test kit where you put the drops in. It was a total of 11 drops to turn it bright yellow.

 

[twilliard]

That is 11 DKH apx
So with ALK that high with no no3 can spell trouble.
Back off water changes let it fall naturally down to 7 to 8 DKH
If you don't have proper export just do smaller water changes with a few more days in between

 

[steiger33]

Thank you for your help. What would be proper export?

 

[twilliard]

High efficiency skimming or diverse macro export

 

[Harold Green]

In the meantime while you're waiting to improve the water quality I'd try to shade it a bit more. The lept. I have doesn't like strong lighting. It grows well down the sides but the top face tends to bleach out some.

 

[steiger33]

Thank you I just moved it.

 

[steiger33]

Also my high PH is 8.2. What kind of test do you need for Mag? I can't find one locally.

 

[Tahoe61]

That is a great pH. You'll need to order the Mag test kit on line or at a local fish store, not sure if you can get it at petmart or petco.

 

[steiger33]

thank you Tahoe61

 

[convictions13]

High mag will strip the corals color out, if your dosing anything like purple up to try to reach better colors or faster growth stop immediately. Mag is a more complicated test so if your not used to doing them I would do the test a few times to make sure they come out the same. And if you don't have a lot in the tank I would go ahead with the smaller regular water changes until it's at a good level, not having a lot of corals in the tank won't drop it down very quickly.