Trumpet coral and acans will not live in my tank

[BKRJIM]

Hi,
i have been fighting this problem for years. I have a 120 gal. Reef tank. For years i have tried to keep trumpet coral. When i put them in the tank, the heads, which are closed at the time i put them in, never re-open. The heads eventually shrink away to nothing. I have the same problem with acans. I had one acan colony for about 3 years. They never grew or really expanded. The past month, the heads started to get smaller. I gave them to my son, and after a week, the heads are 3 times the size, and they open to eat. When i gave him the acans, he gave me some trumpets to try again. They were huge in his tank. I put them in my tank, and they never re-opened and now look like they are shrinkng away.all my other corals are doing fine. I have mushrooms, kenya trees, cabbage coral, star polyps,frogspawn, hammers, cactus coral,feather dusters ,giant mushroom 10",chili coral,mussels etc. All are prolific.

My water checks very good, just the nitrates usually run about 40. Salinity 26. Temp. 78, phosphate .05, ph 8.3 calcium is high, 550.

My light was three 10k halide system with 4 actinic blue power compacts. I now have 3 165w led fixtures with 3 white spectrums, two blue spectrums, red and green. I have the exact same problem with the new light.

Does anybody have any idea of what could be wrong ? I tested my son's water. And it is almost identical to mine, except lower calcium. I am going to give him the trumpets again, and they will grow back huge in his tank. His tank has been up for about 3 months. I would like to be able to keep the acans and the trumpets. It is like i am putting them in poison water. They start to decline in one day.

All and any help appreciated..

 

[Reefer54]

i am led to believe light acclimation, water parameters, flow, chemical warfare.

Nitrate of 40 is WAY high, though not unheard of in some successful tanks.
salinity of 26....is that ppt, if so it should be 35 ppt, or do you mean 1.026

lighting....those leds are way brighter than we see compared to say a MH. what %power are you running them....white to blue is commonly accepted at 1:3, and for a softy tank, i would imagine you dont need to go much above 30%, is your 120 the tall tank

have you tried running carbon

 

[BKRJIM]

Hi,
thanks for the reply. The salinity is 1.026 as for the chemical war, i have moved them all over the Tank, they are not near anything. As for the light, would too much do that? I did Have the same prob.with the halides. When you say 1:3 would that mean THE RATIO SHOULD BE AS IF I HAD 1/3 power for white and full for blue? Thanks

 

[BKRJIM]

The tank is a long 23" high. In regards to the 1:3 ratio, if my whites are on the lowest setting with the dimmer, the blue would be about 3/4 on? What is more important for the corals, blue or white? I WAS RUNNING THE LIGHTS AT 1/2 BLUE 1/2 WHITE, TURNING UP BOTH MID DAY TO 3/4 TO FULL ON BOTH. TOO MUCH? I THOUGHT THE TRUMPETS MAYBE WANTED MORE LIGHT. I HAVE THREE SMALL COLONIES. WHITE, GREEN, AND KRYPTONITE GREEN. RIGHT NOW THEY ARE ABOUT MIDWAY, AND THE WHITE COLONY IS ON THE BOTTOM IN THE OPEN. MY ACANS WERE ALWAYS AT THE TOP. UNDER THE HALIDES.

 

[turboreefmaster]

I think you should just put all your corals in your sons tank and convert to fresh water.

 

[turboreefmaster]

Acan/trumpet

 

[turboreefmaster]

View attachment 275730

 

[Reef Frog]

Both corals are sensitive high light levels and it sounds like you have some powerful equipment. I can bleach them a bit with a 6 bulb T5 if placed too high. I have a large swath if neon green & a few teal colored trumpets in high & low positions and the more shaded locations produce the best color & polyp extension. it's surprising how little light they need to flourish. So I say try them in more dimly lit locations.

 

[Mael]

my acans also seem to do a bit better when not in bright lighting.

One question that comes to mind if the cal is at 550, what is your alk at? Nitrates are high but I just recently saw a frag tank that everything was doing awesome and the guy had nitrates in the 50-60 range. He didnt have acans but tons of sps, zoas and hammers and they all did well, this isnt the norm though, since I acclimated the frags I got from this guy to my water which peaks at 5 for trates and they are doing great in there as well.

 

[BKRJIM]

Hi,
i don't remeber the actual number but i had everything checked last week at the lfs. They checked alk, mag, salinity, ph, calcium, phosphate,nitrate etc. I had them do it all, they are friends of mine. The only things that were out were the phosphate was at .5 and the calcium was 550. And the nitrates were 40-50. Everything else was fine. Today after a water change, and finally bringing my phosphates to almost zero, i moved all the trumpets down to the bottom and put them in a shaded area. I am also keeping the white leds on the lowest setting, and the blues less that half full power. What do you think?
The pictures posted by turbo reef are my son's . The second picture of the red acans are mine after two weeks in his tank. When i had them, the entire size was smaller than the middle rings they have now.

 

[Reefer54]

based on the update, i would put my money on the lighting. if you happen to have a par meter, that is a great tool for helping distinguish optimal placement. if not, oh well.

white light is a culmination of all other colors of light (including blue), so when you have whites higher than your blues, then you are emitting a lot of red, yellow, green, orange--all colors that coral (corals in question anyway) use very very little of. The vast majority of corals we practice keeping in our tanks use primarily blue light in the 400 to almost 460ish nm range. That being said, the majority of led users gear the leds so there is roughly 3x more blue than white being emitted into the tank. That can translate a very vast number of ways and unfortunately, without a par meter or very expensive spectrometer to tell you how much light in what wavelength is getting where in your tank, you must resort to trial and error. So, on a 24" deep tank with crystal clear water, i would start the whites at 30% adn the blues at 50%, ramping them up 5 - 10% per week until you see the corals tell you when to stop....then i would continue ramping the blues up if the corals are ok with it. they will respond negatively to the other colors of light before blue typically. This all varies on a tank by tank basis, and coral basis for sure, but if you do a bit of reading here, you will see many people with successful reefs are running the whites between 30 and 70 % and blues all the way up to a 100%, but i would guess conservatively that most are peaking at 85%.

then comes photoperiod...pur....photoinhibition. All things to take into account.

I too keep my trumpets at the bottom in very indirect light, and they do great, dont grow fast, but color adn PE is great. Acans i can place at the bottom adn sides of my tank.

good luck. check your sons lights, especially if they are the same.

 

[BKRJIM]

Hi,
thanks again.my son has a much less intense lighting system of led. Also, he really likes the blue spectrum and he does keep the tank way on the blue side, very dim on the whites. I think you may have figured it out. I remebered the alk, it was 9.93, which was high, but that was prior to using the phosphate remover. I read that the removal of phosphates can lower the alk. I am going to have that tested again today. And i am using carbon in the sump/refug. I am trying the lighting now. I will see what happens. About how long do you light your tank. In mine the blues goes on a 7:00 am and off at 8:30 pm. The whites go on at 9:30 am and off at 7:00 pm.