First colors fade, now bleaching from the base

[cccapt]

Over the last year maybe, I noticed the colors, especially purples, starting to fade. Green, orange, blue and red are all still OK nowhere near as faded as purple. Now, a few, especially a Bali Tricolor validia has started to bleach from the base. The validia is the worse, but I see it on a few others. There is no bleaching at all on any millie, prostrata, nasuta, aspera(even tho it went from deep purple to pastel purple now) or any monti.

Lighting is 3x175 Iwasaki 15k and 2x160 VHO SuperActinic. Actinics on for 9 hrs, MH on for 7.
I run GFO and carbon in a reactor and change them every 4-6 weeks.
I've been dosing DIY 2-part and keep a pretty steady 420 ca, 9 dKH alk, 1325 mag. The amount I dose has almost dropped in 1/2 over the last month when....I noticed my alk was around 11 dKH. I went from about 225 ml of each/day to now about 125ml of each.
Nothing else changed. 20% water change every 2 weeks with Red Sea salt. Tank has been running for little over 2 years now with mostly SPS, but it's an upgrade from the 50g, then 75g reef I started 20 years ago.

Here's the base bleaching on the validia.

A bad pic of the faded purple.

This is the same coral about 4 months ago.

 

[maestro]

Hi,

Have you tested for pottasium and iodine defiency?

Do you dose anything like zeovit or simular?

 

[cccapt]

No, I never tested for either. I don't dose anything except ca, alk and mag.

I also only have 6 fish in the tank. Mated pair of clowns, lamarck angel(6 1/2"), Atlantic blue tang(5"), 2-spot bristletooth tang(4 1/2") and yellow watchman goby. I feed them pretty heavy, every day.

 

[Ricunger]

Larry,

When you noticed the DKH was at 11 when was the last time you tested it @ 9? Maybe a spike caused some stress.

 

[cccapt]

Ric, I usually test every 2 weeks, right before I do my water change. It was about 3 weeks ago I noticed it at 11 and it was back down to 9 in a few days and has been steady now at 9. But.....I'm only dosing a little more than 1/2 of what I was dosing before to keep the same levels. Something is wrong, but I don't know what it is.

 

[cccapt]

Anyone else care to take a shot at what the problem may be?

 

[ryshark]

Maybe too low of nutrients and/ or flow? What is you nitrate and p04?

 

[DeathWish302]

Larry,

Sorry to hear your current state. I'm experiencing something similar, as all my validas have bleached (1 is back to a pastel green), orange is faded and pink/red/purple are non-existant (except for a red unchanged chalice frag). My Pearlberry from Dan is white with a slight pastel hue and a frag from his Sanjay pink mille colony is white and brown. A couple deept purple-blue frags i picked up at the last swap are now brown with light purple tips.... I've discussed with Dan and thought it was maybe too nutrient poor. As I upped the Seachem Reef+ an increase in hair algae occurred. I've been adding some Potassium, but doubt a ATS with no zeo could cause this. I didn't have a spike as you, but have been running alk at about 7.5-8 and have finally bumped it up to try something else. My next area will be iodine testing and additions along with possibly strontium. I've added Potassium Nitrate, Iron, and fed heavily with no change. I've switched completely to RC from IO with no changes in the past few weeks. This completely blows my mind how the blue, green & yellow frags look as good as a zeo setup, but the remaining colors are blah.

Let me know if you find a breakthrough in your dilemna and I will keep you posted on any changes I encounter.

 

[RickMartin]

My first guess would be phosphates. I have to change my gfo every 2-3 weeks on an 85g tank. Looks like some algae growth in the background too but only one picture now working

 

[cccapt]

Frank,

This has me totally confused. I've changed virtually nothing in the way I maintain my tank over the last 2 years, in fact I've been doing pretty much the same thing for 20 yrs, but just got into SPS a few years ago. Same salt, same 20g/2 wks water change, change GFO & carbon 4-6 wks. There is virtually no nusiance algae at all in the tank. Lots of coralline and that's still growing. The only change I did was drop the time my lights were on. I talked to Sanjay at our last swap and asked him about the fading colors. He thought too much light and not enough nutrients. I dropped the time my lights are on from 10 hr MH to 7 hrs MH and from 12 hrs actinic to 9 hrs. I don't really know what to do to add nutrients to feed the corals without polluting the tank. I'm just not up on all the bottled supplements and which are good and which are a waste of money.

The validia was a 1" frag when I got it, now the colony is a little bigger than a softball. And to add to the confusion, the base is bleaching but the branches are still growing new tips and I get fairly good polyp extension during the day and they are out in full force at night. It's only happening on a few corals, the validia, a Larry Jackson purple tip is just started to show some bleaching but not on the base but up a little in a very shaded part of the coral, a Mike Accardi teal stag still has real good color and the branches are still growing but the base is bleaching. The millies/prostratas aren't affected at all and have great color and polyp extension. No affect on any monti's either.

Here's a few recent tank shots from about 1.5 months ago. Every coral you see, except the tan cap in the middle and pachyseris.sp on the far left were grown from 1" frags in about 2 years time.

 

[DeathWish302]

Larry,

The photo period change is an interesting concept....:worried:
I too have been running MH for 10-11 hours and wonder about photo inhibition. I have noted a slight change in the latest red/green milli addition with the last 3 days and 3gal WCs' per day. The red is coming back 'some'.

Up until the past 5 months, I have only added MAG Flake, Epsom salts, baked baking soda & calcium chloride to my tank (minus food). The latest additions of nitrate, iron, Reefplus & such were out of desperation. I've never been one for snake oils and feel alot of these additives are exactly that. I have resumed my prior stance and will only try iodine (Lugol's) if that level is low. I will continue to perfrom ~5% WC every day for the next couple weeks and see if this helps with the benefit of the replenished trace elements.

Are you running the Iwasakis' on magnetic or electronic? How old are those bulbs? My reeflux 12k bulb starts showing HA growth when it's heading south, but not familiar with the Iwasaki bulbs. If your bulbs are good, I would suggest maybe a couple large WC to see if that helps.

Finally, it was suggested from Dan that I thoroughly clean any detritus out of my display/sump. I did not get time this weekend as planned, but I'm planning on cleaning some build-up I have acquired in the past year surrounding the skimmer and completely teardown the skimmer and soak in vinegar along with redoing the mesh on the modified QO3000.

Really at this point, I'm just shooting out ideas that have been suggested to me and I have not completed yet. They may help or do nothing other than performing some spring cleaning... I feel your pain, as I went full blown sps about 2 years ago also and have never seen anything like this with zoas and rics in nearly 10 years.....?

 

[rholguin]

I had a similiar experiance colors started fading and then dieing. Nothing had changed in the tank. I don't do any carbon dosing. I started feeding my fish more I feed three times a day now and my sps are starting to regain their color. So in my case low nutrients was the problem. I do have an over size skimmer so I think I might have overskimmed. Good luck.

 

[DeathWish302]

rholguin,

You have only started feeding your fish more? No sps specified diet? Why I ask is I upped feedings to nearly 4x previous amounts and had no positive upturn, only increased turf scrubber production.

 

[reefsic]

Temp. flux? Got a good heater/chiller running in the system?

 

[Canadian]

I'm having almost exactly the same coloration problems. I've recently added sand (previously BB) and several fish to try to get my nutrient levels up. My NO3 and PO4 have literally been 0.00 (Elos and Hanna respectively).

Here's the tank one week after adding sand and 6 green chromis and a yellow tang. I'll give it a few weeks to monitor for color change.

I was inclined to blame it on my T5 lighting at one point but seeing that you have 250W MH I guess I can't do that anymore and have to assume it's a nutrient issue.

 

[rholguin]

Deathwish302- yes I started feeding the fish more but on top of that I feed oyster eggs every other day when the lights are out. I have also just bought some rotofeast so ill see how my corals respond to this food.

 

[sweet ride]

I just went full blown SPS as well, I was very happy with the color of the tank a few weeks ago"¦ but now the color of my tank looks very similar to the pictures that have been posted"¦.

I will tag along as well"¦.

 

[mjstover]

It looks like a lack of nutrient to me too. The best way to fix this is deffinitaly add fish and feed the fish more often. Dont start dumping in bottled food that could just lead to other issues like you said. Add fish feed them more and let them feed the coral. I cant really tell but it looks like your tank might be close to a BB with just alittle bit of sand, if so BB tanks must be careful with nutrient levels because they can drop really. BB tanks need very good skimming and very good feeding.

 

[cccapt]

Temp. flux? Got a good heater/chiller running in the system?

Temp is a steady 78-79 using a Ranco 2 stage controller.

I got in touch with Eric Borneman to see what his thoughts are. He says not enough PAR from the 175w Iwasaki 15k bulbs. Dunno....the Iwasaki's put out more PAR than Radiums and many other popular 250w bulbs. I do have a couple 250w ballasts so I may just try 250w XM 10k's. I'm really just grabbing straws here now, but I have to do something. I've been doing 20g water changes about every 3-4 days, but it doesn't seem to be making any difference.

The pic I posted at the top of the thread showing the validia base bleaching was taken on 3-11. Here is a pic of the same coral taken on 3-24, so about 2 weeks worth of bleaching.

 

[finksmart]

Are those bite marks on the thick branch coming out the base? Have you dipped or basted for aefw?

Temp is a steady 78-79 using a Ranco 2 stage controller.

I got in touch with Eric Borneman to see what his thoughts are. He says not enough PAR from the 175w Iwasaki 15k bulbs. Dunno....the Iwasaki's put out more PAR than Radiums and many other popular 250w bulbs. I do have a couple 250w ballasts so I may just try 250w XM 10k's. I'm really just grabbing straws here now, but I have to do something. I've been doing 20g water changes about every 3-4 days, but it doesn't seem to be making any difference.

The pic I posted at the top of the thread showing the validia base bleaching was taken on 3-11. Here is a pic of the same coral taken on 3-24, so about 2 weeks worth of bleaching.