hey guys. im having trouble figuring out what's causing the problem with my zoas. my mixed reef tank has been running for about 8 months. about 2 months ago i decided to ramp up my lighting a little bit to about 40% intensity. i have the Evergrow Programmable Full Spectrum IT2080 LED's. around the same time i changed my GFO and carbon, only this time i filled up the GFO almost to the top of the reactor (i'm using bulk reef supplies carbon and gfo reactor).
after my zoas started to bleach i thought it was from the lights so i turned them back down. unfortunately they weren't really turned down since i forgot to save the settings. so 1 or 2 weeks later i noticed this and made the correction.
i didn't see an improvement so i started researching and came across posts that mention too much GFO can strip out everything from the water and can cause light shock to your corals. in fear of this, i stopped running the reactor completely hoping things would revert back.
(fyi-during this time i was also fighting bryopsis so i was treating with kent m-tech). after a few weeks i spoke to a fellow reefer about the issue and they thought it could be lack of nutrients in the water and how having only 4 small fish could play a part since the fish waste is good for the corals. at this point i decided to rerun the gfo and carbon but only half the gfo canister to be on the safe side.
this was about 3 weeks ago and while ive seen some improvement in corals..some (even new zoas) show signs of lost color and bleaching. for some reason i still feel like it was from the lights but ironically some of the zoas are actually mushrooming...which i think is a sign of reaching for light?
does anyone have any feedback or suggestions? this is a tough nut to crack.
ps - the sps is doing fine although i see color changes as well (not really bleaching)
after my zoas started to bleach i thought it was from the lights so i turned them back down. unfortunately they weren't really turned down since i forgot to save the settings. so 1 or 2 weeks later i noticed this and made the correction.
i didn't see an improvement so i started researching and came across posts that mention too much GFO can strip out everything from the water and can cause light shock to your corals. in fear of this, i stopped running the reactor completely hoping things would revert back.
(fyi-during this time i was also fighting bryopsis so i was treating with kent m-tech). after a few weeks i spoke to a fellow reefer about the issue and they thought it could be lack of nutrients in the water and how having only 4 small fish could play a part since the fish waste is good for the corals. at this point i decided to rerun the gfo and carbon but only half the gfo canister to be on the safe side.
this was about 3 weeks ago and while ive seen some improvement in corals..some (even new zoas) show signs of lost color and bleaching. for some reason i still feel like it was from the lights but ironically some of the zoas are actually mushrooming...which i think is a sign of reaching for light?
does anyone have any feedback or suggestions? this is a tough nut to crack.
ps - the sps is doing fine although i see color changes as well (not really bleaching)
