Acro help

[Tremor_Clown]

Hey everyone..
I am in need of help as to what is going on with some of my SPS corals.
Some acros/SPS are either faded/light pale color and bleaching, little to no polyp extension and honestly just don't appear happy/healthy.
This was going on for 3-4 months and I didn't think anything of it since they were growing. But just last night I noticed that a couple of my SPS corals, two in particular, have bleached tissue/dead spots and RTN'd. What i I don't understand is how some SPS are affected, but others are doing fine.

My tank is 60 gallons, flow is a korallia 1400 and a Vortech mp10 on reefecrest mode, a Vertex Omega 150 skimmer, and a Vertex dosing unit. The light is a 400w Radium on an old PFO HQI/HPS ballast in a Lumenbright large reflector on 6.5 hours a day. The light is 20 inches from the water surface and the tank is 16 inches tall. Levels are: alk 9, cal 400, mag 1250, nitrate 5 and phosphate tested differently at 1 and 1.2

I attached pictures pictures below. Any advice/input is greatly appreciated.
My guesses are either: alk too high, mag too low, phosphate too high, soft corals (xenia) are messing with water chemistry with SPS corals or possibly that the 400w radium in the lumenbright reflector (even at 20 inches high) is cooking the SPS corals (as it did to my chalice corals) and maybe I should downgrade to a 250w radium instead since my tank is only 16 inches tall. It seems like maybe

 

[Tremor_Clown]

Anyone?

 

[biggles]

I don't think your alk is the issue as 9.0 isn't a dangerously high level. Doubt flow is the issue as frags right next to affected acros are all looking fine. I run a 250W radium 5" off the water on my 18" deep SPS tank and have run lots of 400W radium bulbs as well and i'm fairly certain you're under lighting your corals if anything. I ran 2 x 400W radiums 4" off the water over my 4x2x2 without any probs so it's not too much light.
That kinda leaves the obvious - your phos level is way too high and as with most things different acros tolerate different light/water/flow which is why some are sulking with poor or no PE whilst others are dying and yet others are soldiering on. I don't think it's simply overfeeding as your nitrates are a lot lower than i'd expect to see with your high phos levels.
Running some carbon will help if the xenia is releasing toxins into the water but i think you would see more numbers affected if it was this. I put some xenia into one of my SPS tanks once and just about everything had the poops within a week - the xenia went bye byes real quick lol.
You need to isolate where the phos is coming from and take measures to stop or reduce its concentration. Running GFO will remove it but you still want to avoid adding it if at all possible. RO water, food types and how much might be worth looking into. Good luck and i'm sure you'll get this under control pretty quickly with the right fix. :thumbsup:

 

[trueblackpercula]

Couple questions

What is your temp?
What is your salianty?
Are you dosing a carbon source?
Are you running gfo or carbon or bio pellets?
What fish
Do you feed your corals and foods
How long has the tank been running


I agree with biggles on his post as well. I also think from the look that the light may be to strong right now for them and I don't see any coraline algea. I think your phosphates are higher then your test kit is showing.

 

[Tremor_Clown]

biggles: thanks for the help. I believe my phosphate test kit isn't reading right and my levels are actually lower than that. Especially considering I do 5 gallon water changes every 3 to 4 days. Currently I am using a moderate amount of carbon and a smaller amount of GFO.
The strange thing is that the acros that are affected look pale/white and show no polyp extension (but some tissue remains) at the top part of the coral where the radium/halide shines on them, but on the underside of the affected acros...they look healthy and have normal coloration and polyp extension. It's like a night and day different between the top of the coral and underside part of the coral...which is why I figured it was the lighting. The corals were originally under a 250w radium and when it came time to replace the bulb I upgraded to a 400w radium and everything was fine for a couple months. Very strange. I can report that the few affected acros that were pale/light in color now have some spots of bleaching/dead tissue. I am still wondering if maybe the xenia (which is growing out of control) is stripping the water of nutrients and such that the acros are lacking things to handle the absorbed light from the radium. I have no nuisance algaes whatsoever so that seems odd with what my test kit reports the phosphate at.

 

[Tremor_Clown]

trueblackpercula: thank you for the response

Temp is maintained between 77 to 79 degrees.
Salinity sometimes fluctuates between 1.024 to 1.026
I am not dosing any kind of carbon sources/supplements.
I am running carbon and GFO, each in separate filter bags in the sump in a low to moderate flow area.
5 fish: 2) black/white percula clowns, 1) chromis, 1) neon goby and 1) small lamarck angel
I have only been feeding my fish Rod's Original food once to twice a day. I recently just picked up some Rod's Coral food to see if that helps the corals.
The tank has been running for less than 6 months. No sand (bare-bottom) but do have live rock which came from my previous tanks. The rock is almost 7 years old.

 

[Tremor_Clown]

Oops, sorry I meant to say that I agree with you both (and that my phosphates are probably higher).
I don't think my test kit (salifert) is reading the phosphates correctly as the first test read 1.0 but then the second test shortly after showed a result between 1.0 and 3.0. Now, a couple days later, I just tested again and it looks close to 0.5.
Also, I was originally using Seachem and Fluval salt and switched to to Red Sea Coral Pro salt.
A LFS informed me that my problem may be due to switching from a synthetic salt (Seachem/Fluval) to a natural salt (Red Sea Coral Pro).

 

[biggles]

Those were all good questions Perc asked, i'm hopeless at going about things in a logical order lol. That's a good point he made too about the lights. I was speaking in relation to the cause of the actual issue and agree that when phos and or alk are too high that running low light until the issue is resolved helps a lot with die off.
How much GFO do you have in the bag, do you change it out at least bi monthly. I force water through my GFO bag when i run it by blocking a baffle with the GFO and carbon bags so just about all the water has to go through either bag to get back to the display. If you run enough GFO in the right manner you should be able to strip out the phos regardless of its continual addition - at least we'll be taking the stress of the corals while we sort out where they're coming from.
The food you're using is popular so i don't think that's the problem. Are you using RO and have you done a phos test on your ATO storage container as being the last link in the RO water chain before it hits the tank it's a good place to check if something's up with the top up water, i've read of certain containers leaching phos so no harm checking that. I'd urge you to get yourself a low range Hanna phos checker when you can as i trust Salifert for everything except the phos i test using the Hanna kit.
Dropping your alk a little bit might be wise just to give yourself more of an even buffer against swings. 8.2-8.5 is where i usually aim to be as it's in between the high and low levels is see negative impact with in my system - your tank might be different but as long as you're somewhere in that 'safe' zone with alk you should be good if you can keep it relatively stable over the 24 hrs. You haven't mentioned how you keep your alk and calcium levels stable - this might be a big factor as well in the corals being poopy.