ric's turning white?

[skinz78]

I have about 10-15 Fla ricordia's that have recently been turning white. I also 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 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 I have 20 clams so I am guessing it isn't. But I have one of those dip strip multi test kits, I think it is outdated but it says my trates are at 50ppm.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 lps forum too.

Thanks,
Chris

 

[tsouth]

Try raising your salinity 1 thousandth to .025 and and lowering your temp to 78-80. Have you changed your lights or bulbs by any chance? Also are those param's before or after your water change?

 

[skinz78]

The params are before the water change. I just put the bulbs in 3 weeks ago. I have a closed loop system and the pump for that gets pretty hot. I am planning on moving the tank and placing the pump in a seperate cabinet when I do so. If this doesn't lower the temp I will have to purchase a chiller.

 

[tsouth]

Maybe cut the photoperiod down a couple hours and raise it back up over a couple of weeks just in case.