Need help with Caulastrea

[kainic]

Hi,
Time to ask for some help.
This is how my caulastrea looks today.

This is how my caulastrea used to look like.

As you can see there's some hydroids in its skeleton and I think this is not its only problem.
It's been in high and low flow, in high and low light and it's been always happy but some time ago it started to decline.
Tank parameters are stable now and I wonder how can I help it to recover. More flow? More feeding? More light? What would you do in this situation?

Thanks in advance

Sergi

 

[Tweaked]

How old is the tank, and how long did this take to happen? What are your params btw?

 

[Tweaked]

Ok I read above "stable now" and on another thread you say NO3 at 25ppm correct? Don't you think that is a bit high? What is your PO4 reading?

 

[kainic]

Tank is an upgrade of a 1 year old tank. New tank is 6 months old.
I had an alk spike 1.5 months ago and lost some corals. I have another caulastrea that had the same problem and is now fully recovered. Both caulastreas come from the older tank.

Alk 8.6
Ca 420
Mg 1260
Salinity 1.026
PO4 0.06
NO3 25

I know nitrates are high, I'm trying hard to lower them (with no success).

 

[jml1149]

How big is the tank? Do a 10% water change every other day for a week and it will knock those nitrates and phos right down. What else are you doing to lower them? At 25ppm I think that's really the only reasonable way.

Are you running Carbon, GFO, or other media?

 

[jml1149]

Also I see in the first picture it's somewhere in "high light" area and the second picture it's off to the side. What kind of light are you using? And what nitrates test?

I have found that my trumpets, exact same blue one as you show, are REALLY sensitive to light changes. I went through this twice, once when I started GFO and the other time when I switched to new kessil lights. Both times resolved my reducing the light to the coral and waiting. One looked much worse than your picture and rebounded fine. Also, crabs are the devil.

 

[kainic]

Is a Red Sea Reefer, which is a 73g display plus 18g sump.
I'm using biopellets xl (for 7 weeks) and adding probiotic bacteria. A big ball of chaeto in sump (which stopped growing a while ago). Using a block of marine pure for 3 months now. No GFO for now as my phosphates were ranging 0-0.03 until now. Running carbon passively in sump.

 

[kainic]

I'm running a Pacific Sun Pandora Hyperion S 2x145w led and 4x39w t5 fixture. Currently at 65% and bali par scenario. T5 on from 11am to 7pm.
This trumpet has always being in a higher light than the neon green trumpet I have, even when healthy. For the last month, trying to solve its issue I moved it to a shaded area and it get worse. Two days ago I placed again in a more open area (more light but a little more flow also), cause I think its problem can also be related to hydroids growing in its skeleton (hydroids love shaded areas with low flow).
As you can see there are too many variables and only focusing in one may mean being too late when I find out what the problem was.
As of parameters, my tank has always been on the high side for nitrates and it didn't seem to bother this trumpet.
Would you recommend brushing the skeleton trying to remove hydroids? I don't want to damage the coral nor bothering it in the bad shape it is.