Red and purple coral not coloring up – and in some cases, dying

[fatoldsun]

I'm hoping to get some advice so I have tried to be a thorough as I possibly can be "“ hopefully this covers everything"¦.

I'm trying to figure out, could this be an issue with my light spectrum from my new LEDs since it seems to be mostly one color area? By contrast, the blue & green stuff looks good

My new DIY LEDs have been up since early February. You can find the build here While I was putting it together my HQI bulbs got really weak (build took longer than anticipated and I was too cheap to replace them b/c I kept thinking I was days away from finishing) and I lost a LOT of the stuff I had. I never had great success with anything but a few things "“ some LPS (Hammer) and some soft stuff seemed to be good. After adding the lights and slowly pushing up their power I added some frags thanks to the generosity of folks here. One of the things I had that made it through the build was a small piece of red monti cap. After the LEDs went up, a lot of what had receded started to fill back in and it nearly doubled in size "“ in just 2-3 months. In the last two weeks, it has bleached or STN'd significantly.

The only real changes I made was to start dosing Coral Snow to help with some cyano that I thought might have come from the new lights. It seemed to pop up shortly after adding them. When I noticed the cap start to go I stopped using it. The cyano is virtually gone BTW. I've done some large water changes and it's still dying.

All this got me thinking "“ of the pieces I have, all of my red/purple stuff looks pretty bad "“ especially when compared with the stuff in the blue/green spectrum "“ that stuff looks good and seems to be growing. Examples: I have 3 kinds of mushrooms in the tank, blue, green and red. All started as one. The blue I "œpropagated" into 4 but it is now about 12. Green I didn't touch bbut it has grown to about the same 12 "“ some before and some since the new lights. The red is just bleaching out. I tried moving it thinking it was too close to the new lights and it still looks the same or worse. By contracts, the green monti cap is doing well. The only "œred coral" that seems ok are the polyps on my superman monti frag. That was almost totally dead when I added the LEDs and it has recovered nicely and the base is blue for the first time since I got it. I have some recently added SPS frags "“ purple digi "“ the tips look purple-ish but the stalks look brownish. Purple Bonsai just looks very brown. It's not bleaching and I do see some polyp extension but it just looks weak. I also have a frag of pink lemonade and it looks almost bleached. It's not b/c I see some fluorescing under the moon lights so I believe the good bacteria is still there.

Anyone have any tips? Last testing was as follows: (Alk was low "“ lowest it's been since I started keeping records"“ not sure why and calcium was low too but mine always is "“ this was 24 hours after a 15-20% water change)

SG "“ 1.026
Phosphate "“ 0.08
Nitrate 0.0
Ca "“ 370
Mg "“ 1320
pH "“ 8.15 (@11:00 AM)
Alk 5.9 dkh (red sea test - I usually use my Hanna but the red sea stuff was out and I'm low on Hanna reagent "“ I tested with both last week and Hanna was actually lower than the red sea "“ it was 6.5 and red sea was 7.0) "“ this could be the issue but I don't know what could have caused it. "“ The only other change I can think of is my CO2 tank running my MTC mini-Cal was changed on 3/21 so about 3 weeks ago.

So, poor coloration of reds/purples
1. Light spectrum
2. Alk
a. Coral Snow
b. bad CO2

Any thoughts?

Here are some pics of what's going on:
Red cap shortly after I got it

3 weeks ago

Last week

Today(before the lights were on so this is just natural lighting)

"¦and here's the red shroom- sorry, it's really hard to pick out but it's the whitish- light pink thing roughly in the center

 

[NeilFox]

How are you dosing Ca and Alk? The lighting could be a factor but it would seem like the color loss would be more immediate not to mention you said the trend was reversed after the led's were up and running. I would try hitting it hard with 2 part. If you are using a reactor you may not be able to keep up with demand.

 

[fatoldsun]

no real dosing aside from the reactor. Maybe it's a little undersisized but I went with what I could fit under my stand. I turned up the drip rate last night to see if that helps - as for the trend reversing, that only applies to the red cap - the other stuff hasn't colored up well at all

 

[GroktheCube]

Ca and Alk are a bit low, but it might have more to do with lighting. Are your reds 660 or 620nm? I'd expect you to be fine regardless there, since you have the netural/warm whites (5000k?)

FWIW, my LED setup is fairly similar (buildmyled.com, not DIY, but colors are very similar), and I decided to add a 4x54w ATI sunpower. My biggest concern was that there is a significant "gap" in spectrum between the UVs and Royal Blues. While LEDs do not produce ALL of their light at just one point in the spectrum, the vast majority of the light they produce is +/-5nm of their rating. If you're using 400nm UVs and 450 or 460nm royal blues, there is very little light between ~405 and ~445-455nm. A lot of corals fluoresce in this range, and the more I've read the more I've realized that it's rather important biologically. That might be part of your issue.

 

[fatoldsun]

Thanks. Most of that is over my head but it gives me a point to start reading from. I'm not sure I have reliable statistics on my stars, as I got most of my stuff from others failed builds. That includes the UVs and 2/4 of reds. I'm pretty sure they came from Rapid so I'm gonna see what I can find

 

[leveldrummer]

is that cap close enough to the hammer that it might get stung by sweepers? they look really close.

i had a cap bleach and loose tissue just like that when i added too much kalk paste trying to kill some aptasia,

 

[fatoldsun]

is that cap close enough to the hammer that it might get stung by sweepers? they look really close.

i had a cap bleach and loose tissue just like that when i added too much kalk paste trying to kill some aptasia,

I've had some stinging issues before. This looks different so far. Maybe the coral snow had an impact that was similar to the Kalk paste

 

[Animadverto]

I've had some stinging issues before. This looks different so far. Maybe the coral snow had an impact that was similar to the Kalk paste

Coral snow (Zeovit Coral Snow) would not have done that as I've been using it on and off for 2 years. I would check the monticaps for montipora eating nudibranchs. They look like bite marks from the pictures.

 

[fatoldsun]

Someone on my local board said that too. Can I see them with the naked eye?

 

[Animadverto]

Yes, you should be able to see them. The larger ones are usually about 1/2 centimeter long, and they move rather slowly. If you haven't done it already, google it to get some pictures of what they look like so you know what to look for.