SPS diagnosis Nutrients..Light...?

[Outdrsyguy1]

I need some advice on figuring out what's wrong with my sps. I have a hard time telling if it's too much light, too little light, too little nutrients etc.

My corals tend to pale and grow super slow. The original color just slowlly fades and the tissue thins. When I say pales, it just slowly looses color till there's nothing but a light tan or white color.

I heard they can turn white from too much light, too little light, or too few nutrients. Anyone got some tips on how to sort it out?

I do own a par meter and most all of the test kits.

here's my parameters. been like this for 6+ months

calcium 430
alk 8.4
mag 1400
nitrate 0
phosphate 0
salinity 1.0258
temp 79.4 to 80.4 depending of time of day, never goes outside this range
2 part doser for calc/alk

110 tank with 20 gallon sump (90 tall frame size)
skimmer

used to run carbon/gfo through brs 2 stage but was guessing I was too low on nutrients so took it offline and slowed down how often I changed filter socks. Also fed fish more and started dosing red sea reef energy part A/B. A lot more algae on glass and rocks but corals started to color up a lot. Still a long ways to go though and the coloring up has slowed. Lately nitrates around 3 and phosphates still 0. nitrates measured from red sea pro low range kit, phates by elos low range kit.

 

[cugly]

Post some pics..so we can tell somewhat what it looks like

 

[sahin]

What lighting? How long are you running lights? How much APR are the corals typically getting? How much % and how often are you doing water changes?

 

[pakirri]

Do you dose any additives to your tank? Some have been proven to help with coloration such as Iron, Potassium & Iodine. What about any Amino Acids, do you dose any?? How many fish do you have? a lot of tanks that I have seen that are very colorful have a lot of fish and still manage to control the nutrients. You need a lot of import & export & maintain your parameters specially CAL, ALK, MAG & Potassium. I have heard very good things from Zeo AA such as pohls Xtra, Coral Vitalizer & Amino Acid concentrate, you might want to check those out.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

For a long time people kept telling me it was phosphates so I was changing water a lot, vacuuming sand, running rox carbon and gfo, and changing sock filters every few days. Nothing seemed to change honestly. It's weird because my parameters seem to be in the right area and have been for 8 months. I finally bought a nice elos test kit and found that I had 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates. You literally couldn't see any color change from 0 on either of those low range tests. That's when I figured too low nutrients might be the problem. I also noticed that things tended to color up a little after something in my tank died. After I slaughtered my Red bug problem with interceptor there was a little burst of color.
I started adding reef energy/amino part A/B every day and after about 2 weeks several things started coloring up quite a bit. It's bee about 6+ weeks now and i've hit a plateau with the colors.
I originally had 2 - 250 watt brand new geismann 20k MH bulbs and 2 - 100 watt PC's for lights. I tested them with a par meter and it was like 250 par just under the surface so I tossed them and went DIY LED. (i think the ballasts were bad, and I know the coralife fixtures were terrible for light spread). The new set up can put out 1600+ par just below the surface. I've got them backed waaayyy down because I couldn't tell if things were bleaching or what (everything was fading/turning white).
I think most things are at 200 to 300 par now and the lights run about 8 hours a day with a little sunset/sunrise for 1 hour before after. I'm running Blue's at 44%, Cool whites at 30%, high noons at 20% (only for 4 hours), and UV at 100% (there's only a sprinkling of UV and they are worth about 20 par.
Everything's on an apex so I can do whatever I want.

It's weird, my tanks over a year old and the corraline algae really hasn't done what it should. I had some asterina stars but got a harlequin to rid myself of them.

I was trying to do 10% WC every 10 days or less.
I don't have a potassium test and don't like adding things to my tank unless I can test for them.
I have been very tempted to try zeo.

Here's a bunch of pics. I"m sure you can tell original frags from current ones...

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

green tort
<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/November2013055_zps5864ae5d.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/November2013055_zps5864ae5d.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo November2013055_zps5864ae5d.jpg"/></a>

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

blue rimmed acro (can't remember name, sorry) 6 months apart in pics
<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/May2013057_zps008f234b.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/May2013057_zps008f234b.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo May2013057_zps008f234b.jpg"/></a>
6 months later center of pic
<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/November2013052_zps98bf73af.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/November2013052_zps98bf73af.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo November2013052_zps98bf73af.jpg"/></a>

 

[sahin]

green tort

OK, it might just be the photo, but the acro on the left shows pale spots, which resembles bite marks. Have you checked for acro eating flatworms?

Dont mean to worry you, but its just caught my eye. Might just be beginings of new polyp growth.

EDIT: It was this photo I was referring to:

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

purple stylo
<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/May2013066_zps0c79d046.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/May2013066_zps0c79d046.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo May2013066_zps0c79d046.jpg"/></a>

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

yeah, i'm dealing with AEFW now . That's why all the acro's are in the frag racks in a quarantine tank now. There weren't that many aefw. But they got worse when the corals health started to improve with more nutrients. Been in quarantine 4 weeks now.
The stylo above however isn't affected by acro, nor the birds nest. I"ll post a couple pics of those.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

original birdsnest when I got it

<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/March2013007_zps858c9102.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/March2013007_zps858c9102.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo March2013007_zps858c9102.jpg"/></a>

6 months later, it's actually colored up a lot in this picture, whole thing used to be almost totally white, polyps and skin.

<a href="http://s1308.photobucket.com/user/outdrsyguy1/media/November2013034_zps59401c6d.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1308.photobucket.com/albums/s614/outdrsyguy1/November2013034_zps59401c6d.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo November2013034_zps59401c6d.jpg"/></a>

 

[sahin]

If you have established/eliminated the possibility of pests...I'd say your corals are starving.

We are at the point in the hobby where our nutrient reduction systems, be it chemical or mechanical is just too powerful compared to 10 to 15 years ago.

I would carry out 20% water changes each week without fail for at least 8 weeks. Then slowly start to feed the tank more, ie your fishes. Also boost up your clean up crew and keep an eye on the phosphate levels. Once you get to 0.03ppm phosphate, then commence using GFO.

Dont use any GAC. That Rox carbon is pretty extreme at stripping the water.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

In my first year of reefing, I've had the following items to deal with. No qt really hurt me. It's been a REALLY trying and painful year. I see so many amazing tanks on this site and I do everything I can to emulate them but my stuff just doesn't do well

Zoa eating Nudi's
Zoapox
Red Bugs
AEFW
Pinched mantle disease (killed 4 clams)

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

thanks for the tips Sahin. I took my carbon/gfo offline probably a month ago and have seen several things come back noticably. I'm trying to feed more and let the tank "dirty up" a little. I also started with 90% marco rocks so there wasn't nutrient loaded rock in the tank to feed things. I also was doing water changed, vacuuming sand every 2 weeks and blowing off the rocks ever 3 weeks. I just don't things ever got a chance to build up.
I also only had 1 algae bloom about 1 month after startup. After that there was no such thing as algae really. I cleaned the glass once every week+ and had 4 snails and 7 hermits in a 110 gallon tank. Now i'm getting some algae patches popping up and I'm considering upping my CUC.

 

[sahin]

OK, we are posting in between our posts. LOL.

Its a combo of issues.

I've dealt with pale/starving corals before. The best thing to help them recover believe it or not is: WATER CHANGES.

Anyway;

Here is the plan:

AEFW:
1. Deal with the AEFW's. QT and bring them to point where no new eggs/FW's can be found. Only once you are sure there are NO MORE AEFW's then transfer them to the display.

Display:
1. As I said above, your most potent weapon against the pale corals is water changes. 20% every week without fail. A 10% midweek too, if you can manage.

2. Dose Amino Acids ONLY IF YOU HAVE NO BROWN SLIME. Eg KZ brand. Doesnt matter if the corals turn brown. STOP if algae starts to increase.

3. Keep a CLOSE eye on PO4. Measure every few days. ELSO High Res PO4 is brilliant. Stop Amino Acids if PO4 gets above 0.03ppm.

4. Boost up the clean up crew.

5. Make sure Mg, Ca and Alk are all within NSW.

Doing the above, for at least 3 months should recover most corals. It will take a long time. But they can recover.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

oh, and I feed rod's once a day and pellets once a day. 8 fish, medium to small sizes.. well mostly small. I've got a few more in my qt to add to try and help add some bioload.

 

[Outdrsyguy1]

I did try the water changes once for about 5 weeks but not with nutrient addition. I'm curious why the water changes help, don't they just reduce nutrients?

Should I feed the corals directly at all? I have a few types but rarely use them (reef chili, coral frenzy)
Mg, calc, alk have been spot on for probably 8+ months now. I test every couple days to once a week depending on how they are doing.

thanks for the help

 

[sahin]

I did try the water changes once for about 5 weeks but not with nutrient addition. I'm curious why the water changes help, don't they just reduce nutrients?

Should I feed the corals directly at all? I have a few types but rarely use them (reef chili, coral frenzy)
Mg, calc, alk have been spot on for probably 8+ months now. I test every couple days to once a week depending on how they are doing.

thanks for the help

My experience of keeping SPS over the past 10 years has taught me that water changes help with all water quality problems. Be it lack of elements or something else in the water.

I've had corals turn very pale before due to excessive nutrient reduction. A combo of HIGH IMPORT + HIGH EXPORT turns the corals around.

HIGH IMPORT = food for your corals. Coral Frenzy and Reef Chilli will probably help, along with keeping your fishes well fed. HIGH EXPORT = Good skimming and water changes. Along with GFO is required.

Water changes maintain good water quality. So, whilst you may think of it as its reducing nutrients, it actually helping maintain good water quality by removing the products of the food you input.

When corals are pale, we tend to start feeding lots. However, you dont want the waste products of all this food to stay in the water. Hence my recommendation to carry out lots of water changes during this period.

I'll leave it there for anyone else to make some input. Let us know how things progress. And if things do get better, do come back to the thread and tell us what you think may have helped. It helps us further the hobby.