Corals losing color

[bjm1287]

I have a 75 gallon reef tank and nearly all my corals including the few Lps and softies I have are losing color. It has been a very slow process. Most sps is looking whitish , however there are still encrusting and growing. I check parameters often and are always in check. I even had a club member come by my house and check with all his Hanna checkers etc... I have 6x54 ati sunpower, until yesterday it ran full blast for 9 hours. I run carbon and Gfo 24x7 and change regularly. I change 15 gal of water every 2
Weeks. For flow I have 2 tunze 6095s and mag 9 return. Any thoughts? I have 6 fish and was feeding pellets very lights twice a day, as of yesterday I'm going to feed a mini frozen cube daily. Any other suggestions???

 

[Overgrown]

Your water is either too clean, your light/ light cycle is too intense for your tank, or a combination thereof. I personally ditched GFO altogether and my tank has never been healthier. You want some measurable phosphates. ( personally keep mine around 0.04)

Also, how close are your lights to water level and how deep is the tank. ATI's are driven harder than say, a Tek.

 

[bjm1287]

It's about 6 inches off the water, I'm cutting back to 6
Hours a day and gonna feed more. We shall see what happens. Ill also turn off reactor and see what happens, thanks for the response

 

[bjm1287]

18 Inches deep

 

[Timfish]

I prefer the Elos professional phosphate as it's more sensitive than the Hanna checker. I've seen this several times now in several local systems where the phosphates have been dropped too low. All corals need some phosphate and nitrate to grow their symbiotic dinoflagellates. Here's an interesting quote from Charles Delbeek "When I see the colors of some of these low nutrient tanks, I can't help but be reminded of bleached coral reefs. . . Our crystal clear aquaria do not come close to the nutrient loads that swirl around natural reefs." Coral pg 127

 

[justthewife]

I don't have an answer for you but I am interested in what kind of lights you have on your tank.

 

[fazilosman]

Your symptoms are typical for coral starvation which happens slowly over time. My recommendations would be to use much less GFO & GAC and make the change schedule longer. Also, you need to feed your corals more and maybe consider dosing some amino acids. The only thing to watch out for is nuicense algae with rapid increase of nutrients. As for the lights, decreasing intensity and duration may also help. I would make changes carefully and observe the results.

Good luck.

 

[bjm1287]

Thanks a lot for your time guys I really appreciate it!

 

[bjm1287]

I use an ATI sunpower 6x54