War Coral Fading?

HumuhumuFan · Apr 2, 2019

I placed my War coral pretty close to the surface. I’ve noticed the side of it facing toward the glass looks great.

The top side towards the light looks a little faded to me. Does this look like the start of bleaching?

HumuhumuFan · Apr 2, 2019

Some background:
20 gallon long, CurrentUSA Orbit Marine, Glass Lid
Tank has been running since December.
Parameters: 1.026 SG
79 Degrees
Ammonia: 0.0
Nitrite: 0.0
Nitrate: 0.0
pH: 8.0
Phosphate: 0.0
kH: 8.5
Calcium: 400

Edit: I did turn the lights down a few weeks ago. Is the feeder tentacles out during the day a sign that it needs more light?

Blue Chrome · Apr 6, 2019

It looks like it may have been getting just a little too much light, but it looks healthy. If it fades more, it might need to be moved down a little.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 11, 2019

It looks like it’s getting worse so I moved it to the substrate and back from the lights. Its kind of shaded by a powerhead also.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 12, 2019

I think I didn’t really account for how shallow the tank was and overestimated how much light the glass lid would block.

Blue Chrome · Apr 12, 2019

The shading from the powerhead should help a little. Do you have any other corals in the tank showing any signs of stress? And I saw your question about feeder tentacles;they can come out during the day if you fed or if it senses food. It is usually not about light.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 12, 2019

Blue Chrome said:
The shading from the powerhead should help a little. Do you have any other corals in the tank showing any signs of stress? And I saw your question about feeder tentacles;they can come out during the day if you fed or if it senses food. It is usually not about light.

My hammer is looking fantastic, my zoas haven't opened fully since I got them, and the other random bits of war coral I salvaged from the eggcrate they had grown over look pretty good, although when I got home from work today I noticed some of them had spots that looked orange-ish.

Blue Chrome · Apr 13, 2019

What do you mean orange? do you have a pic?

HumuhumuFan · Apr 14, 2019

Blue Chrome said:
What do you mean orange? do you have a pic?

HumuhumuFan · Apr 14, 2019

And here’s the mother colony today.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 14, 2019

Water Parameters as of today:
pH: 7.9
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0
KH: 9.5
Calcium: 460
Temp: 79

I have my light mounted on the bracket it came with (CurrentUSA Orbit Marine) and it is behind a glass lid. I didn't put the plastic piece on the back of the lid and I keep it centered on the tank so there's some room for air exchange on both sides of it.

My current lighting schedule is on at 1pm off at 10pm. For the daytime I'm running White at 40%, Blue 50% and Red/Green at 5%. Being a 20g long the tank is pretty shallow. Initially, the mother colony was only about 5" under the lights and I was running the light intensity higher. First I cut the intensity down, waited a few days and moved it to the sand, waited a few days and moved it back under the powerhead and out from directly under the light.

Sarah24! · Apr 14, 2019

Hello,

Depending on which currents they are, you could be giving them way more light than they need. Also if your running a low nutrient system, I would spot feed your corals twice a week.

Also you need to drop your alk down to 7-8 and cal down to 420-440. Cal is too high and so is alk for a super low nutrient tank.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 14, 2019

Sarah24! said:
Hello,

Depending on which currents they are, you could be giving them way more light than they need. Also if your running a low nutrient system, I would spot feed your corals twice a week.

Also you need to drop your alk down to 7-8 and cal down to 420-440. Cal is too high and so is alk for a super low nutrient tank.

The light is the regular marine light, not the IC or Pro. I never set out to run a super low nutrient tank, I've actually been feeding the fish (2 small black and white clowns) more to try to get a little bit of nutrients in the water. I tried to spot feed a couple times with oyster eggs unsuccessfully. The fish and peppermint shrimp stole the food off the coral even though the light was just running in night mode (20% blue I think). I will try again tonight but kill the blue totally and run red light so I can see. I'm guessing the shrimp will still be an issue but hopefully the clowns will be asleep.

Blue Chrome · Apr 14, 2019

I see what you mean about the orange, it could be adapting to different lighting since you said it came from a different place. The mother colony is showing a little skeleton; how close is it to the powerhead? Is it getting blasted with flow?

HumuhumuFan · Apr 14, 2019

Blue Chrome said:
I see what you mean about the orange, it could be adapting to different lighting since you said it came from a different place. The mother colony is showing a little skeleton; how close is it to the powerhead? Is it getting blasted with flow?

It's about 7 or 8 inches below the powerhead in the back corner and the powerhead is pointed across the back of the tank, not down at the substrate. It's definitely not getting blasted back there and its only a Koralia 240 nano, anyways.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 15, 2019

My feeding failed last night with just red lights so I did some research and tried the bottle top trick. It seemed like a success until one of my nasarius snails burrowed under the bottle. I guess I can cut a new one and make it deeper so I can push it into the sand.

HumuhumuFan · Apr 16, 2019

Today’s update. The mouths look healthy to me at least. Hopefully they benefited from the oyster last night. I’m just worried I took it from too much light to not enough. I’ll resist the urge to move it again.