Emergency! Need help

[bobo33]

In the past two weeks... all of my 9 different acan colonies have lost every bit of color. My rainbows are almost transparent. All my params are in check and the acans are healthy. Ive even seen a new little polyp develop on my used to be neon green ones. There are only two other corals in the tank showing signs of stress. My platigyra that used to by very colorful is now a dull purple and I am starting to see the skeleton under its tissue. and all of my zoas have disappeared except for some ugly brownish green palys that I got in on a rock, Those are doing fine.
All of my soft corals on the other hand are growing like crazy. My yumas are big and colorful as well as all my other mushies and my xenia. My duncans, frogspawn, hammer, blastos, and few favites seem to be unaffected for now. But I have hundreds of dollors in acans that look like crap now. Anyone else ever had this happen to them.
I have not introduced any new stock to the tank in months and have never had a problem with parasites. Could it be some kind of contamination? Please help, this is way over my head.

 

[bobo33]

my computer is being stupid and wont let me upload any photos.

 

[Reef Frog]

Loss of color would have to be due to the acans expelling the symbiotic algaes living in the tissue, I would think.

I had a nice ~8 polyp rainbow colony do this for no reason I could discern. Polyps shrunk too. But it came back in about 2 months. Never figured it out but I do remember elevating them a little directly off the sand bed as I was thinking it might be a vector for some kind if pathogen. I also dipped it and scrubbed the frag disc with a toothbrush as it had gotten grungy.

Have you ruled out pests? Watch at night. Are they eating? To much or changes in light could do it but you're saying you haven't changed anything.

Super low nutrients is an idea to explore, especially since some zoas are suffering too.

Unknown irritants? Water changes & GAC could be in order if this idea rings true.

Just a collection of random ideas for your consideration...hoping you can sort it out!

 

[chrisfont23]

In the past two weeks... all of my 9 different acan colonies have lost every bit of color. My rainbows are almost transparent. All my params are in check and the acans are healthy. Ive even seen a new little polyp develop on my used to be neon green ones. There are only two other corals in the tank showing signs of stress. My platigyra that used to by very colorful is now a dull purple and I am starting to see the skeleton under its tissue. and all of my zoas have disappeared except for some ugly brownish green palys that I got in on a rock, Those are doing fine.
All of my soft corals on the other hand are growing like crazy. My yumas are big and colorful as well as all my other mushies and my xenia. My duncans, frogspawn, hammer, blastos, and few favites seem to be unaffected for now. But I have hundreds of dollors in acans that look like crap now. Anyone else ever had this happen to them.
I have not introduced any new stock to the tank in months and have never had a problem with parasites. Could it be some kind of contamination? Please help, this is way over my head.

Two things that come to mind are

1) too much light - of course, depending on placement as I am assuming the yumas, mushrooms etc are lower. Euphylia like more light than acans in general.
2) too low nutrients - I tried running a 0 nitrate tank with my LPS and they hated it. I had to bring them back up again to get the corals to respond better.

 

[bobo33]

As far as lighting, I run an all blue actinic and a 50/50 power compact because none of my corals require high lighting. My frogs and hammers are up high. And because of my lighting choice my acans are scattered all over the tank, high and low. I never worried about them burning in the high to mid level placement. In fact only one colony is down low, in the sand bed.

Every two weeks I do a 25% water change and I buy the Redsea premixed from the lfs.

Also, I maintain my nitrates between 20 and 30. Just because all of my mushies, zoas, and my acans especially like it that way. Ive tried to keep my params the same for the last 3 or 4 years.

I feed religiously every weekend and all corals in tank feed quite well, especially the acans.

Ive looked under my moon lights at night for pests but never see any.

 

[alexx2208]

When was the last time you changed your bulbs? after 4-6 months of 8+ hours a day, the colour spectrum begins to lower and more algae growth is a good sign of this.

I would say changes the bulbs, see what happens over like a week, if it doesn't help, put in the old bulbs for a couple months and you'll have almost new bulbs for when you need to replace them.