Coral troubles some bleaching, some dying, some great???

[brewtality]

My tank has been up for about 2 months now. I am having some corals thrive and some are not doing so hot. I have a candy cane that is just about completely lost its color. Very ends of heads still have color but I am not sure its still even alive. I also have a galaxea that is bleaching. Both are low in the tank, moderate flow. I had pulsing xenia that more or less disintegrated over about 3 days. GSP that did the same over about 2 weeks. Blue coves as well. I have ricordia that are happy, regular mushrooms, duncan is happy, acan is happy, yellow scroll, palys. Some zoas open fully, some don't. Cloves won't open, and I think its anthelia kind of shrinking. All of the stuff that is "beginner" level is doing very poorly. Light bioload, have a fox face, dragon goby, two clowns, a bangai cardinal, pajama cardinal, and a turbo snail. I do reg water changes 20% percent bi-weekly with Red Sea coral Pro. Have a refugium area in sump with cheato algae.
My water tests are:
PH 8.2
Alk 10
Calcium 500
Ammonia and nitrites are zero
SG 1.025
temp 78
nitrate 15ppm
phosphate is reading .25
I am running two phosban 150 reactors. One with GFO and one with carbon. Carbon has only been running for a few days.

Any suggestions?

 

[dz6t]

That may be caused by you LED, sounds like a typical narrow spectrum issue.

 

[s_kelley]

How old is your tank?

 

[dannyp02908]

2 months according to his post. I was going to say that alot of softies like higher nutrients, but his nitrate is at 15. Could very well be the LEDs. Do you have a t5 or halide you can try?

 

[dannyp02908]

also, is anything too close? A Galaxea can literally kill an area roughly twice its size. They are not what i would call a beginner coral. Beautiful in my opinion, but literally, the devil.

 

[P-Nut]

My tank has been up for about 2 months now. I am having some corals thrive and some are not doing so hot. I have a candy cane that is just about completely lost its color. Very ends of heads still have color but I am not sure its still even alive. I also have a galaxea that is bleaching. Both are low in the tank, moderate flow. I had pulsing xenia that more or less disintegrated over about 3 days. GSP that did the same over about 2 weeks. Blue coves as well. I have ricordia that are happy, regular mushrooms, duncan is happy, acan is happy, yellow scroll, palys. Some zoas open fully, some don't. Cloves won't open, and I think its anthelia kind of shrinking. All of the stuff that is "beginner" level is doing very poorly. Light bioload, have a fox face, dragon goby, two clowns, a bangai cardinal, pajama cardinal, and a turbo snail. I do reg water changes 20% percent bi-weekly with Red Sea coral Pro. Have a refugium area in sump with cheato algae.
My water tests are:
PH 8.2
Alk 10
Calcium 500
Ammonia and nitrites are zero
SG 1.025
temp 78
nitrate 15ppm
phosphate is reading .25
I am running two phosban 150 reactors. One with GFO and one with carbon. Carbon has only been running for a few days.

Any suggestions?

What kind of light do you have?

 

[dannyp02908]

LED according to his sig. Its the maxspect.

 

[dz6t]

also, is anything too close? A Galaxea can literally kill an area roughly twice its size. They are not what i would call a beginner coral. Beautiful in my opinion, but literally, the devil.

Agree, galaxea is very agrresive. It nukes all the area around it.

 

[brewtality]

As stated tank is about 8-9 weeks. I bought it as an up and going set up and took most of the water and live rock so I guess technically it is more mature than that.
I know the galaxea is nasty but it had nothing at all near it. I am a noob, but I am confident the galaxy didn't get anything. I am running the Maxspect Mazzara P led lights. They are about 6-8 inches from the surface. I was running them around 80% and as soon as I noticed signs of bleaching I cut them back to about 40-50%, reduced time cycle and moved the affected corals out of the direct light. Thy have not recovered at all. Thanks for the input.

 

[dz6t]

Once my coral got burned by LED, most of them died and one large brain coral survived and recovered under metal halide.
Those early generation LED are coral killers.

 

[JonsReef]

Everyone is so quick to blame LEDs these days. Yeesh.

Curious why dong thinks that this fixture is such a "coral killer" relative to others on the market. They use some of the same LED modules (xm-l, xp-g, xp-e) as many others.

This forum needs a new thread for all led-related topics like some other forums do. Mods???

 

[dz6t]

I am running the Maxspect Mazzara P led lights. They are about 6-8 inches from the surface. I was running them around 80% and as soon as I noticed signs of bleaching I cut them back to about 40-50%, reduced time cycle and moved the affected corals out of the direct light. Thy have not recovered at all. Thanks for the input.

JonsReef, I experienced the same thing as Brewtality experienced. So, it is quite lightly the LED is to blame.

 

[CoralJunkie]

Not to steal the thunder but two days ago i added my first sps a tyree ultimate blue stag and i noticed that a few hours after half of the little stems turned brown could this be that it needs to adjust? all levels are good i did not acclimate my lfs said i didn't have to...? the pic of it is my avatar and profile it didnt get any worse and maybe a little better but not much i have the aquatic life T5 HO 4 lamp fixture and it's at the highest point in my tank at the lfs they were using MH

 

[anthonymit]

Not to steal the thunder but two days ago i added my first sps a tyree ultimate blue stag and i noticed that a few hours after falf of the little stems turned brown could this be that it needs to adjust? all levels are good i did not acclimate my lfs said i didn't have to...?

Your LFS said that you don't have to acclimate .. ? Time to get a new LFS

Ask for your money back and tell them which staff told you that you didn't have to acclimate.. Stems turning brown are not a 100% sign of death, it could be slowly expelling zooxanthellae. But it's generally a bad sign

 

[CoralJunkie]

will it color back up? or is it doomed it had good polyp ext

 

[CoralJunkie]

they're the only slatwater lfs in the area they are always good with everything ive bought pretty much everything from them never had issues with fish or anything

 

[anthonymit]

well.. SPS are a lot harder to keep than LPS/softies. I don't think it's doomed per se but in my experience there are two things that could be happening. It could be on its way to bleaching due to high light. It could also be massing zooxanthelae due to lack of light. I know they're exact opposites of each other but it's basically your coral reacting to its new environment. Keep an eye on it and since you're tight with your LFS hopefully you won't get too much crap if things go south.

 

[CoralJunkie]

the stock looks good still it still has a nice blue color and good polyp ext but im just worried it's gonna stay brown... if it adjusts and starts to heal or whatever will it regain it's original color?? my light fixture is brand new so i know the bulbs are good but im not sure how new the MH were at the lfs if you look close it looks like brown pinstripes then it goes solid brown on the stems but it stops as soon as it gets to the stock of it

 

[JonsReef]

JonsReef, I experienced the same thing as Brewtality experienced. So, it is quite lightly the LED is to blame.

So now two anecdotal experiences should be taken as proof? It's a good thing you two aren't scientists.

 

[dannyp02908]

Actually, if I recall dong is a scientist of some sort. He is quite knowledgeable. I would trust him. It isn't just the 2 of them. There are countless threads on RC with the same issue.