Im Stumped --- Please Help

[hilde123]

I'm having troubles with several corals in my tank that have been there for years and are starting to bleach. But Coralline is growing like no other. The tank is a 180 gallon with clams, SPS, LPS, a few softies and 4 fish (powder blue tang, clown, Copperbanded Butterflyfish, and Manadrian Goby). The lighting is 480 Watt VHO (~12 hours a day on Solar Dimmer) and 2 - 250 Watt MH on for 5 hours a day. The tank has a 55 gallon refugium with macroalgae. The skimmer is a reeflo ORCA 200 and the I believe I should have sufficient flow with 4 penductors on an Iwaki MD70 on a Ocean Motion 2 (4 hours a day) and 4 Hydor Koralia 4 12V on the Deluxe controller (24 hours a day). I run ozone in the ORCA 200 at 50 mg/hr on a controller. Water parameters are as follows:

PH - 7.9 (morning) - 8.1 (evening)
Temp 80-81
ORP - 350 (morning) to 320 (evening)
SG - 35 ppt
Calcium - 450
Alk - 11.5
Magnesium - 1310
Phosphate .05
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 1.5
Iodine + Iodite <.03
Copper - 0

I feed every other day about 1" X 1" X .24" thick piece of homemade frozen food (clams, mussels, nori, shrimp, scallops, squid) and 1/2 the recommended dose of reef chili or reef frenzy ( I alternate).

The only changes I have made to the tank were made 2-3 weeks ago and were in an effort to correct the bleaching problem with my SPS (the LPS, softies, and clams seem to be fine)

-I used to run my skimmer 14 hours a day to save power, I changed this to 24 hours in case I am having a build up of nutrients.

-I added 1/4 the recommended dose of Rowaphos to get phospahte down ( it was .2 on 7-11) and it dropped to .05 in 5 days (is that too fast).

-I added about 1.5 cups of carbon in hopes it would help take care of the problem.

I cant imagine any of these are the problem, but I can figure it out! Please reply if there are any parameters I omitted. Please help.

 

[Uncle Luke]

Which corals are bleaching? Pics may help

 

[lilalove]

Could be all of them together. You improved the clarity (carbon and skimmer) of your water, allowing more light penetration. Then you reduced nutrients (phosphates). Corals need a little phosphate to sustain them. Or it could be none of them. But rather I do think it's a combination of it all.

 

[hilde123]

If it is a combination of reduced phosphates and increased clarity increasing light penetration and stressing the corals what should I do?? I dont see how clarity can be that high both Ozone Controller and AC3 ORP probe are measuring 320-350 which is only 10-20 points higher than it was before running skimmer 24 hours a day and adding carbon. Does anyone think my alkalinity level coud be to blame? I thought high Alk affected LPS and softies the most (they are doing great)?

Also attached are two pics, one of an acro where you can see the tips are starting to turn white and one of a green cap that looks like its gone (the snails keep picking on it). Damn if that green cap wasnt growing like a weed (1/4" per week or better just a month ago).

2 Months Ago

NOW

 

[hilde123]

bump

 

[njdevilsfan]

look for little white nudis on these guys
i doubt thats the prob and i really really hope it isnt
tey look like a grain of rice with legs
they will be on the bottom or backside and come out at night

 

[hilde123]

Don't see any creature that looks like rice with legs moving around any of the corals at night.

 

[njdevilsfan]

as i look at your numbers your big 3 seem a littke out of balance
just my 2 cents but..i would lower the dkh a tad and raise the mag

 

[hilde123]

njdevilsfan:

I am doing that now, cut the reactor effluent back a bit and are doing daily doses of Mag until the level gets up about 75-100. I will let you know how that works?