problems with my tank,release of zooxanthellae

[nitrofish]

every time I make a slight change in my tank I get problems, today I turned my tunze up just a tiny bit and now a few of my corals are limp looking and I can visually see release of zooxanthellae from both hammer colonies and a torch. the thing I can't understand is the other corals like my bubble,flowerpot etc look great. I checked out my alk, its at 4.0 m/l or 10dkh
my calcium is at 440 ppm and my ph is at 8.1 or so (I hate those color codes). my temp is at 78 degrees.

what am i doing wrong, one day everything looks great and the next day it dosen't. its been off and on like that for weeks now.its really frustrating to have so much equipment and see others who simply dump kalk in there tank and they are all set, and everything looks beutiful.

 

[dedfish]

Do you think the corals that started looking bad reacted to the change in flow?

 

[nitrofish]

I think so, because the last time it happened I was messing with the tunze. you would think I would learn my lesson and leave them alone

 

[nitrofish]

im going to experiment with the low maintence method on my nano tank. ill simple add kalk and nothing else and see if i can't replicate the coral growth I seen at this guys house.he has to be doing something right, his tanks are beutiful. maybe low tech is the way to go.

 

[Moe_K]

Hammer corals, IME, do better in low flow.

Why are you messing with stuff so often? Just practice some careful neglect, let things stabilize, and observe the growth.

 

[dz6t]

Just practice some careful neglect, .

Beautifully said. You are the man, Moe

 

[nitrofish]

well I figured since my tunze powerheads where at 50-60 % power that I should gradually turn them up. I guess ill just leave them alone

 

[Moe_K]

Well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, Jeff.
I have no idea what's going on in your tank. If ya need more flow, you need more flow.
Only you know what's up.
I just wanted to put the idea in your head that there is such a thing as messing w/ your tank too much.
Good luck.

 

[nitrofish]

how serious is it when corals release zooxanthellae ? everything seems back to normal now. the corals that released zooxanthellae don't look bleached.

how do you know when you have enough flow? I thought the goal was to turn the tunze all the way up, maybe they don't need to be that high.

I agree, I guess im messing with my tank to much, Im just trying so hard to make everything perfect that im making things worse. I was testing my water every day and everytime something was not quite where I thought it should be I quickly tried to tweak it.its all a learning experience I guess. this is my first reef tank.

 

[nitrofish]

heres a couple pics when fist setup, had an alge problem. I guess Ive made progress at least, it looks pretty bad here

 

[Moe_K]

Jeff, I think your tank looks really good.
I don't see many SPS corals in there, so maybe you don't need a ton of water motion.

 

[JohnK]

I've seen clams and mushrooms release some zooantahle in response to mild to moderate environmental changes (I haven't kept any LPS). My guess would be that your corals are just reacting to the little adjustments your making. That said, if they are showing such stress reactions very frequently or easliy, I would look for something that's off a bit all the time to keep everything slightly stressed (I also think your tank looks great, but only you as mother nature, really knows your tank).

This could be a lot of things.
I can think of: accumulated dissolved organics or toxins not necessarily nitrate, salinity off but looks right because testing equipment is off, too much flow for the LPS and the tunze adjustments just make it worse, external contamination or toxin (paint fumes), some level (alk, ca,) fluxuating a lot between corrections if not steady, salinity changing a lot because of manual top off................... Uh I don't know, anything that could be keeping things a bit stressed?

$.02

 

[dad300]

the other thing to remember is that lps occasionally release dead Zooxanthelle so that they can replenish. It is a relatively normal thing. When I had frogspawn(dang I need to get some of that again!) about once very two months it would poop out old zooxanthelle. If I remember correctly borneman told me that it was normal(via rc thread).

 

[wrassefan]

Jeff, I wouldn't worry about it so much. I wouldn't blast my soft corals or lps...they usually don't respond well to high flow. Take it slow...unless you start getting into sps, I would tone down the tunzes. I have sps that love being in direct line of the tunze but the torch and the colt would close up.