Advice on PE Please?

[Aqualund]

Okay so this summer brought many changes with my home display tank, which is comprised of mostly sps corals. Prior to this summer, I was running a DIY led build and dosing with 2 part. I ran this system like this for nearly 2 years with great success and fully confident I had mastered the art.

Now, at the beginning of June I got fed up with constantly repairing the DIY leds (arduino), and intrigued by the allure of more pop in my sps so I switched to a T5/LED DIY combo. So now I have 4 T5's and 36 leds over my 120Gallon tank.

Around this time I also switched from Full 2 part to easing into a Calcium reactor dosing system as well. This transition did not go well as for a couple of weeks a lot of components failed (solenoid, gear, etc) causing havoc in the stability. It got so bad that I had to remove colonies and bring them to my coral farm to keep from losing them.

Once I got everything stabilized around July I started reintroducing corals back into the display. Only now, corals that were once fuzzy and luxurious barely show their polyps.

My system is as follows:

Ca: 440
Mg: 1360
Alk: 3.9
Sg: 1.025
NO3: .25ppm
PO4: .016

Leds ramp up at 8am, stay at 100% for 10 hours (there's only 36 3watt cree leds...they arent giving all that much par) then ramp down at 8pm.

The 4 T5's come on at noon and go off at 6pm. My par is about 250-350 in the areas where the corals in question are located during peak light cycle. When the t5's are off it's about 150.

I have two MP40's and a Hydor providing excellent movement inside the 120, along with the return that is cycling at about 12 times an hour.

I run a bio pellet reactor and a gfo/carbon reactor.

I feed the corals once a week, home cultured plankton (nanno) and amino acids.

I dont have any metal exposed...and I ran a magnet into and around the rocks and sand just to be sure.

No stray voltage.

The color of the corals isn't that bad...the sps have decent pigmentation...it's just that their polyps definitely do not want to play.

My stylophoras, pocilliporas, montiporas, and lps/softies are all doing just fine and nice and fuzzy. This is specific to my acropora variations.

So, since I am at wits end...I would love some insight. Is it just too soon to expect a turnaround? Is this just going to take six months for the corals to pop back into shape?

It's hard because I've never had this issue...usually things would always get back to business after a hiccup in a matter of days. Not weeks/months like this.

Photos:
<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/Zkaws/embed"></iframe>

 

[Aqualund]

bump

 

[ros_sco]

Made your pictures show up for you. You might try photobucket, is a little more forum friendly.

The polyps are there, but as you said - don't look like they want to play.

Since you had the parameter issues, repercussions from that is the first thing I would consider. Was there PE while you housed them in your coral farm?

Have you added any fish in the meantime that would be nipping?

 

[Reef Bass]

The color of the corals isn't that bad...the sps have decent pigmentation...it's just that their polyps definitely do not want to play.

My stylophoras, pocilliporas, montiporas, and lps/softies are all doing just fine and nice and fuzzy. This is specific to my acropora variations.
...
It's hard because I've never had this issue...usually things would always get back to business after a hiccup in a matter of days. Not weeks/months like this.

Aqualund, I feel your pain. I believe I have a similar issue. The lines above ring oh so true for me as well. It's been months since I've had "normal" PE on my acros. And that eats at me!

I baste regularly and inspect for pests with my macro lens and have not found any. In addition to the usual water tests, I started running carbon again and I'm about to replace all the media in my water filter. I'm about due for new bulbs too.

I'm down to thinking it must be, as ros_sco suggests, a resident fish nipping, although I've never seen that happen nor any concrete evidence of it (bite marks, suddenly missing tips, etc.). However, then I would expect greater PE at night when fish are asleep, which isn't happening.

Ok, my A. yongei puts out 1/2" polyps from its apical coralites at night reliably, but that thing is like an acro weed. It's all the other acros about which I am concerned. And during the day A yongei has good PE for an average acro, but it should be wookie like when it's happy. I know this because it used to be!

Tagging along.

 

[Aqualund]

Thanks for the replies and the picture help. Likeliehood of the fish nipping is very slim..I just have two tangs, a cbb, melnaurus wrasse and about 10 chromis.

Also no polyp extension at night.

When the corals were at the farm they perked back up and were just fine....it was depressing to watch them regress back to square one upon reintroduction to my tank though.

It's gnawing at me that perhaps a little lanthinum chloride experiment about 6 months ago may be the culprit. I did the typical reactor install for a couple of weeks to see how it did on my phosphates but I could point to that time frame as when things really just did not swing back around.

So, I put all my corals back at the farm today and all of my "live rock" is now in an acid bath.

Starting over. This will be my first reboot in 15 years lol...I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

 

[Reef Bass]

Sorry to hear, but probably a good thing. I bet things are better after the reboot. I also have plans that involve a new tank and a new sandbed.

FWIW, I had two beautiful healthy tangs (a Chocolate and a Kole) go from model citizens to acro flesh chewers. Together they would tag team an acro colony and strip it bare of flesh. It was painful to watch. Eventually I had to stop everything, get a bucket, and turn them into the LFS.

I believe it was a case of mutual displaced aggression. They'd rather have been chewing on each other, but viciously ripped at acros instead.

 

[Aqualund]

really?! that's amazing I've never heard of this! Definitely good to know now. Thanks man.

 

[jda]

It does not look like it, but are you sure that you have no pests? Red bugs are no bueno for polyps and are easy to miss when there are few.

Just about any tang or angel, except for genicanthus, can be polyp pickers. Hungry crabs can pick at polyps too, but this is typically local to a few areas.

If you cannot figure anything else out, then I might suggest that you run the T5 for the whole day and turn the LED off for a week and see if anything changes.

 

[fishguy597]

3.9meq=about 11dkh right? I had problems when I switched to LEDs and my alk was high like that. Now I run around7-8 dkh and my corals are happier.