Brown corals and Clam expelling zoo: tone down the light?

[jonwright]

So I have a 50 gallon tank with a crispa anemone, maxima clam, pink monti, frog spawn and other assorted critters.

I have a 250 watt Mh fixture probably about 5 in from the water with an SPS 10k bulb in it. Also 2 T5 bulbs one is blue+ another is actinic. 8 hr Mh photoperiod and T5's 1 hr before and after Mh.

I've recently been going through an exercise to keep the alk higher as it was consistently around 7. I've added vinegar to the kalk ATO at now 30 ml/gallon. Alk seems stable now at 9. Ca is always high at 500 or so (Reef crystals).

Problem: Now that the monti has colored up again to pink. Now he's turning a dark shade with a hint of brown. The Maxima is expelling zoo out of his vent and has been consistently doing this for over a week now every day - no loss of color and she seems to otherwise be fine. The skunk clown enjoys slurping it up like spagetti - she never hits the mantle itself. The frog spawn now rather stays retracted. The coralline ONLY grows where light is filtered or "bend" on edges of rocks. On the tops there is none. The nem is fine and is a medium brown color - not too far off from what crispas appear anyway from what I gather.

So I'm beginnig to think that my light is just too much for the critters - do you folks think these symptoms point to that as well? Will going to a 14k bulb take the edge off?

<a href="http://s1317.photobucket.com/user/jonwright3803/media/Mobile%20Uploads/01DFFF95-E37B-424B-8A72-D597993BA72A_zpsvhr4qp7r.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1317.photobucket.com/albums/t638/jonwright3803/Mobile%20Uploads/01DFFF95-E37B-424B-8A72-D597993BA72A_zpsvhr4qp7r.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 01DFFF95-E37B-424B-8A72-D597993BA72A_zpsvhr4qp7r.jpg"/></a>

 

[FarmerTy]

I would guess nutrients are your issue here... not lighting. Do you have results for nitrates/phosphates?

 

[jonwright]

Yup. Less than .02 PPM PO4, undetected Nitrate. Red Sea pro test kits, bought a few months ago. I NEVER detect nitrate nor PO4 in the tank - certainly not what I would think are elevated.

Now, I have tested PO4 in my ATO water at about .08. I also tested 3 PPM TDS in my DI output the other day, but even still I wouldn't think that would make everyone angry in the tank (new DI on the way).

I cleaned out the GFO and GAC cannister and kicked it off again as it was stopped up. Water was rather yellow and kinda cloudy - I'm thinking that's due to nutrients and bacteria and not necessarily the 10k light.

Since I've started the vinegar with the ATO I've noticed stringy bacteria growing, but it appears to be offsetting the cyano so I'm not THAT worried at the moment.

I've never had my BRS reactor run for more than a week without getting clogged - guess I need to look at another reactor.

This is what's funny about the whole organic/inorganic nutrient thing. If your tests never show it, how do you know it's a problem? I've read about it and quite frankly I leave more confuzzed than enlightened.

 

[FarmerTy]

So can you sum up all the new changes in your tank regiment the last couple of months?

Is vinegar dosing new? I would suspect that, especially if you're seeing bacterial growth associated with it.

 

[CStrickland]

It's not uncommon to see anemones brown when dosing vinegar for carbon, what is the evap rate for your tank? Like how much vinegar is actually going in there daily per gallon of water in the whole system?

Zoox eat light too. I wouldn't be surprised if you were sort of on the edge of too much and the vinegar tipped the scale, but idk anything about mh's to say if that's a lot of light or not.