The Mystery I can't figure out!

WetWhistle · Jul 7, 2015

I can't see a shift in spectrum cause that. But it really depends on you settings and lights to say for sure. What do you have your light levels set at and what lights are you running? (sorry if that was already posted)
I myself have peak intensity times with some spectrum shift. I found if my UV was to low or high it caused a color shift. What is yours set at?

P3FE · Jul 7, 2015

WetWhistle said:
I can't see a shift in spectrum cause that. But it really depends on you settings and lights to say for sure. What do you have your light levels set at and what lights are you running? (sorry if that was already posted)
I myself have peak intensity times with some spectrum shift. I found if my UV was to low or high it caused a color shift. What is yours set at?

I have a single Radion Gen2 running for 11 hours a day, starting with blues at 30% continuing ramping up to 20k at 70% shifting to 14k at 70% peeking for a very short time to 14k at 75% back to 14k at 70% continuing to shift to 20k at 70% ramping down to blues to the moon cycle. Lights come on at 11am and go out at 10pm and they are 10 inches from the water. Top of the aqua scape gets between 350 to 380 par with 120 in the sand bed.

P3FE · Jul 7, 2015

ImageUploadedByREEF2REEF1436317300.607275.jpg

WetWhistle · Jul 8, 2015

PM sent.

P3FE · Jul 21, 2015

Well, chasing this color issue has taking me to an unexplicable battle agains RTN/STN. All but two of my SPS are starting to die and loosing tissue by the day even my monti cap is dying. The only thin I did in the past three weeks is use Red Sea Reef Energy to dirty the tank a little, slowly drop ALK to 8.3 from 9, Took away GFO and raise NO3 from 0 to .5. PO4 never went up and the rest of the levels stayed the same. I tested the water a couple of hours ago with Salifert and Red Sea and everything came about the same result +/-10 of each other, i even tested for ammonia and nitrite, and this is were Im at the moment
Tem - 78.9
PH - 7.93
Alk - 8.3
Cal - 465
Mag - 1350
Amonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Salinity - 34

Any suggestions will be appreciated. Im painfully watching all my SPS die in front of my eyes. All LPS, Zoas, and Fish are fine. Don't know what else to do, other than let the issue take its course and standby for a recovery phase.

Touring · Jul 22, 2015

Unfortunately I would wait and let it take its course and recover like you said. Everything your are seeing happen, is from weeks ago.

what's your potassium at?

P3FE · Jul 22, 2015

Touring said:
Unfortunately I would wait and let it take its course and recover like you said. Everything your are seeing happen, is from weeks ago.

what's your potassium at?

My potassium is at 400. I've never had this issue before, kind of disheartening but whatever I did thinking it would help just did the opposite, I just hope this thing doesn't spread to the couple healthy frags I have left

WetWhistle · Jul 22, 2015

What are you feeding your corals? They are probably starving at these low nutrient levels as nutrient uptake is one of the feeding modes corals use. I have a friend that had the same issue and he had to up the feeding of his corals a lot and started dosing nitrates. It helped fix his issue. He had the same color loss as you and a few of his sps started to STN. I am not saying dump a load of food in as you don't want to go in the opposite direction. Just enough to raise your levels a little.

RafaelsReef · Jul 22, 2015

Sorry to hear that. I also have a hard time keeping SPS, I hope you solve your problem.

P3FE · Jul 22, 2015

WetWhistle said:
What are you feeding your corals? They are probably starving at these low nutrient levels as nutrient uptake is one of the feeding modes corals use. I have a friend that had the same issue and he had to up the feeding of his corals a lot and started dosing nitrates. It helped fix his issue. He had the same color loss as you and a few of his sps started to STN. I am not saying dump a load of food in as you don't want to go in the opposite direction. Just enough to raise your levels a little.

I started feeding them a month ago with no change, raise NO3 to 1 and PO4 never changed. I think that's what started this problem, I never had problems with polyp extension or growth, colors just looked washed out, once my monti cap started to lose tissue I knew I was in trouble, that coral has been in my tank since day one with no issues and was growing very fast. That's when I stopped feeding and left the tank alone, but it was to late.