polyps retracted

[skinz78]

I have a few LPS corals that are acting funny. Frogspawn, hammer, candy cane, blastomussa wellisi and 1 of my acans are all pulling their polyps in. I also have about 10-15 Fla ricordia's that have recently been turning white.

I use salifert tests, my params are:
120g skimmerless tank with 20 g sump + fuge
salinity 1.024
ph 8.2
cal 500ppm
alk 7.0dkh
mag 1260ppm
phosphate .08ppm I'm working on this just added a phosban reactor.
temp avg's 82-84 deg

Now I am wondering if my nitrates may be a problem. I have 20 clams so I am guessing it isn't. But I have one of those dip strip multi test kits, I think it is outdated but it says my trates are at 50ppm. I need to get a more reliable test kit.

I just did a 20 g water change and the lps corals are extending a little more than before.

any other suggestions would be great. I'm going to post this in the shroom forum too.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[peter1]

Do you eat your corals somethig? How many your flow?

 

[Mental1]

IMHO -- your alk is too low, temp seems a bit high, as you mentioned phosphates are high. As a temp. fix for phos just put a bag of rowaphos in your sump in a high flow area. And you def. need a good nitrates test. Also, remember the salifert alk test is questionable -- get another brand of those too as it could actually be a bit higher. I would keep doing water changes if you are only going to do 20 g. Good luck .... don't forget those freshwater dips ...

 

[skinz78]

peter1

eat my corals? lol no. My tank is a closed loop system and the pump gets kinda hot. I plan on moving the tank soon and when I do I am going to place the pump in a seperate cabinet away from the tank. If this doesn't work I plan on installing a chiller. I don't know what my volume of water movement is but as I said I have a 1/10 hp pump on my closed loop. Plus I have a koralia 5 and 3 smaller power heads in the tank.

mental1
My alk is always sketchy and I constantly battle it. Having 20 clams uses alot of alk. Temp + hot running pump + 800w halides = hot. I hope the tank move and making the pump remote to the tank helps out. Like I mentioned in the op I just added a phosban reactor and the phos has came down alot.

I plan on checking params tonite and probably doing another 10-20g water change too.

 

[Mental1]

Like all of us -- I think you actually know why your corals are unhappy! I have a coral that has been withdrawn for a while -- my gut says it is the hairy mushrooms putting out chemicals but I keep looking for another explanation. Peopel say the mushrooms don't do that. Is it flow? But when you look at the pattern of polyps withdrawn it is like a big neon sign pointing at the mushroom. It really sounds like you know what's up.