bleaching or what?

[bayoureef337]

ok so im having some trouble and i cant figure out why. any help would be MUCH appreciated! so i have a 40 breeder a little under a year old. i recently switched from fluval sea leds to t5s. ati purple+, coral+ x2, blue+ and leds on lowest blue setting. leds come on first for about an hour. then purple and blue. then coral+ for 4 hrs max, then reverse. the t5s are around 10 in above
params
Amonia 0
nitrate around 20?
nitrite 0
alk 300
ph 7.8
calcium 450ish

ps im using those test strips. used the last of them last night. going to grab the better test tubes this time.

now my question is why are most of my corals losing color? bleaching. or maybe something in the water.
the pics are of some corals i am concerned about. the hammer was in full color with leds, now its tentacles have turned translucent. the green torch and palys are the most recent purchase. coming from a tank running leds that are much more intense than 4 t5s. the torch has lost most of his full green color on tentacles and the palys went from a nice purple with green ring and long "eylashes" to almost white with no eylashes and shrinking. they never open. ill also note that when i first put the palys in the tank they reproduced rapidly for about a week. popping out heads and even growing on the the rock it was first on. now it has just halted. the toadstool is acting weird aswell. i know the shed but im not sure if all the other concerns are the same thing affecting him aswell. duncans open on occasion they lost color but have produced 2 more heads in the time ive had them. i did completly lose favia and acan. on the other hand, star polyps and yellow polyps xenia mushrooms continue to grow and still have their original/better color. i spot feed corals 1x a week. and i dose fuel after waterchanges. any help is much appreciated!!

 

[bayoureef337]

more pics

octopus frogspawn opens one head all the time the other is splitting but doesnt seem to open but half way. the zoos were rapidly reproducing under just leds. they are now double the size, but have recently stopped growning and some of them look like theyve bleached with flourescent green?

 

[mcgyvr]

alk 300? Thats a typo right.. Did you mean 3meq/L?
What about phosphate? Do you test for that..
I suspect its elevated too..

You seem to have "green rocks" too (excessive algae)


In general... "bleaching" is from too little light..
"browning" is from too many nutrients (nitrates,etc.. too high)..

In general your nitrates are a bit high for a coral tank.. get them down below 10 or less

From what I can see it doesn't look like enough lighting (but intensity is impossible to see through the internet)

In general corals do take time to adapt to new lighting too..

Right now I'd focus on getting nutrients lower.. Stop feeding and do a few "larger" water changes..

And watch out for the "tang police".. They will come after you for that..

 

[tzylak]

I'm no expert but every tank is an environment of its own with individual limits.
I tried keeping a starfish. Within 2 weeks it was gone. It might have been calcium deficiency or something. A year later I tried another one and it's doing great. Did anything change?? Not that I know of.
It is a mystery
Good luck.

 

[bayoureef337]

alk 300? Thats a typo right.. Did you mean 3meq/L?
What about phosphate? Do you test for that..
I suspect its elevated too..

You seem to have "green rocks" too (excessive algae)


In general... "bleaching" is from too little light..
"browning" is from too many nutrients (nitrates,etc.. too high)..

In general your nitrates are a bit high for a coral tank.. get them down below 10 or less

From what I can see it doesn't look like enough lighting (but intensity is impossible to see through the internet)

In general corals do take time to adapt to new lighting too..

Right now I'd focus on getting nutrients lower.. Stop feeding and do a few "larger" water changes..

And watch out for the "tang police".. They will come after you for that..

thats what those shitty tests strips read. i assume its 3 because its in the "good" range according to them.. no i dont have a phosphate test so ill get one this weekend. ok so to get nitrates lower just do large water changes? i just did one sunday and i will have time to do another this sunday. ive been feeding every other day now. as far as lighting its pretty bright. one lfs told me the 4 t5s and the leds i have would be too much and the other told me it would be just fine. i could turn the leds to full whites?as for the tangs i will most likely take them out because i suspect they have too much of a bioload problem and that might me giving me issues. i did rescue the kole from petco. he was full of ich and i took him home for 17 $, quarantined him back to health. he was pretty bad. but ive grown attatched..:sad2: and how do i fix the algae? it looks cool to me. coraline is def growing all over, maybe it just looks green in the pic? i also am seeing bright green coraline type algae? thanks for the quick responses you guys!

EDIT: the color is way off on the pics. it those bright green sections are more of a brown in person

 

[bayoureef337]

checked levels alk fine, phosphate fine, nitrates 10, and calcium a tad high.

 

[Martin Kuhn]

A) reliability of your water parameters
I wouldn't trust at all what you have measured with those stripes.
Try if a forum member around you could measure it
Or & better
Get yourself reliant and good quality measuring kits including
- a reference solution to calibrate and especially also to "learn measuring with it" by yourself
- measurement tool for reliably measuring salinity ( preferred: big spindle plus separate temperature measurement, calculate salinity from the two values density & temperature

B) lights / light spectrum
The pictures look extremly "blue" to. They are also masking any other colours of your tank, rocks etc.

C) I see LOTS of stone in your tank. For me by far to much. Together with imperfect water flow (stream pumps) this is "perfect"for bad water circulation and "collecting" detritus / debris in your stones. This is BAD for low nutrient levels and maybe the source of your issues.

From my experience and even with the bad quality pictures due the high "blue content.... this tank looks sub-optimal to me
So my first suggestions would be as radical as this
- get rid of 50% of your rocks. Avoiding especially "big junks"
- if there are old rocks in the tank where you are uncertain if containing phosphates -> remove this first
- assemble rocks in a way that water can flow around "ringwise"
- if water circulation is still not enough. Add more stream pumps
- start dosing bacteria and keep this stuff alive be feeding with whatever source of bacteria food.

This all together should improve nitrogen cycle which might be the issue of your tank.
Small corrections like water changes might not reliably get you a better running tank. Sorry.

Also you should check spectrum of your source of light. Too much of blue might be not the best for your corals, even if you like it personally





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[Dkuhlmann]

checked levels alk fine, phosphate fine, nitrates 10, and calcium a tad high.

Martin, I think his rock scape looks great! I see no reason to change any rocks

These descriptions in no way shape or form give us an indication to what's going on in your tank. We need to see exact numbers in order to help you.

These are not parameters:
Fine
Tad High

 

[mcgyvr]

If that 300 alk number is reported as mg/l as CaC03 then your alkalinity is really high..

Are you using a buffer?