Corals Looking Bad. Please Help

[AUFishGuy]

Just got back from a 10 day vacation and something is happening to some of my corals. Tank is a 90 gallon. I had someone come by a few times to check chematry and dose as needed. I am not sure if this is bleaching or necrosis. I am thinking the latter. Please give any input you may have. A couple of my SPS Look fine while others(below) are not. My frogspawn and hammer are also looking bad, especially the hammer. My oregon tort, shortcake coral and octospawn are looking fine.

Below are my numbers and some pics. The phosphate is most likely my issue but i am unsure of the number i am getting. I am using an API phosphate test kit so it goes from 0 straight to .25 and i am having trouble judging the color. I will be buying a better test kit tomorrow. As well as probably ordering a phosphate reactor.

Nitrate = 0. I only have one small clown in the tank.
Po4 = .25
Ca = 410
Kh = 9.2
Mg = 1260
Temp fluctuates between 81-82

Green Montipora


The base of this coral.



Pink Stag


Purple monti


You can kind of see it on this acro. At the base of the branches.


Below are pics of the frogspawn and hammer which are both looking strange.

The hammer looks "sick" almost like it is wilting and not fully extending.




the branches of my enchinata has channged from green to brown.




Any ideas?

 

[Stevenahammer]

Personally I would never have someone dose my tank unless they have knowledge of reefkeeping.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Phosphate, while not a good thing long term because it provokes algae growth, isn't going to nuke your corals.

While your numbers seem to be OK, I'd be concerned that your tank-sitter might've fed way too much food to your single fish (that's the most common mistake non-aquarists tend to make). If so, then there's a possibility that you had an ammonia spike, which would be very problematic.

Looking at your pics, I'm thinking that this is a very new tank. If so, then it might've been a bit hasty to have added corals this soon. Nonetheless, all is not lost. Get an ammonia kit (they're cheap and readily available at a LFS), and check your tank water. If there's no ammonia present to speak of, then I'd ask the friend if he/she found it necessary to add any top-off water while you were gone, and if so, did they use water from the tap?

 

[AUFishGuy]

The person looking after the tank has had reef tanks in the past and works at an LFS that i also work at part time. The tank is 6 months old but that is due to an upgrade. All of the rock is over 2 years old.

Ill check ammonia in the morning and post the numbers but im pretty sure the tank wasnt overfed. Like i said he has experience and only came over 2 times just to make sure the top off tank was full. I had RODI made for him to replenish it. I will ask him just in case. Any other ideas? Also doing a water change tomorrow night

 

[FullBoreReefer]

Everyone has a preference, but, do you always keep your tank that warm?

On another note, how long were they in this tank before you left for vaca?

The tank is fairly immature yet and could be seeing some fluctuations, but have hope with good water.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

What is your sg? The problem that is obvious with your hammer is it's being shaded by the frogspawn. I think a large part of your problem is with lighting and coral placement.

 

[dkeller_nc]

It sounds like your tank-keeper knew what he was doing, so we can eliminate that from the possibilities.

With respect to temperature, do you have a controller on this tank so that you can look back at temp history? While 81-82 deg F is OK, a temp excursion above 84 could be problematic. It's not unusual for the thermostats in heaters to show some hysteresis, so is there a possibility that warm weather over the holidays could've allowed the tank temp to get too high?

With respect to the corals, how long have you had them? If you've had them for 6 months, then you can safely attribute the problems to issues with the tank's water chemistry, temp, etc... If you got them less than a month ago, and especially if you use LED lights, then I would be leaning towards the corals reacting negatively to a lighting change.