Scolymia help please.

Gil03 · Dec 17, 2016

Hello all, new to this forum. I have a couple of scolymias that have slowly been receding showing skeleton and I don't know what is the issue. My Params are as follows
Ph 8.3
Salinity 1.026
Alk 10
Mag 1290
Cal 400
Nitrate 3
Phos 0
Amm 0

I'm using a kessil A350we for lighting (40%color max- 70% intensity) and it's a 50 gallon cube. FYI they did not have have skeleton showing months ago when I bought them. I'm using a gyre 130 (40%max) and MP10we (30%max) for flow. I moved the bleeding apple close to the rock to see if it was lighting and it hasn't changed much. I spot feed them twice a week and prob a little more considering some of the foods I feed my fish are in the water column for a while. The only thing I can think of is they've been getting too much flow. Any help would be much appreciated.

cowboy · Dec 18, 2016

My LPS have never liked the ALK above 8.5 I try to keep my water at 440 CA, 8.3-8.5 Alk, 1450 Mg, Po4 at .4-.7 and my No3 at a 4-5.
Med light on my LPS with Med to low flow.
One thing to note they do like a bit of PO4 and No3 everything I have got below detection on PO4 I start to get some serious issues with my LPS.

Also how long have you had them have they been dipped and if so in what. Have you noticed any crabs picking at them I have had hermits that will pick at LPS and some fish.

Rick.45cal · Dec 18, 2016

My scolymia is very tempermental to PO4 dropping below .02ppm, it also doesn't tolerate bright light at all.

Gil03 · Dec 18, 2016

The interesting thing is I have two Cynarina that are doing better than excellent, my Acans all doing excellent, I have an acan frag that in the last couple months have sprouted at least 5 heads and all have fully developed mouths and tentacles for feeding. One of the cyna's has doubled in size since I've had him unfortunately it ate my blue dwarf coral banded shrimp. I've lowered my flow considerably and I'll see how that does, I've also lowered my light intensity a little too and I'll monitor them closely.