Acan lighting

[dmolavi]

I'm not sure what's going on with my acan. It was doing well for a while, growing well. Now it appears to be bleaching in spots and some of the heads are just dying off. I'm not sure if it's a lighting or flow issue. What, generally speaking, do they like w.r.t. light and flow?

 

[James M]

They like shady areas of light and medium water flow

 

[dmolavi]

Thanks. I'll move to a shadier spot and hope for the best. I've also turned my lights down a tad, as well.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

I'm not sure what's going on with my acan. It was doing well for a while, growing well. Now it appears to be bleaching in spots and some of the heads are just dying off. I'm not sure if it's a lighting or flow issue. What, generally speaking, do they like w.r.t. light and flow?

What lighting are running?

I have mine in direct light but down low, but I don't run really strong lighting.

 

[dmolavi]

Fairly strong for them, probably (a BuildMyLED 20000K Reef Spectrum). And I removed the dimmer a while back. Guess it took a little while for them to freak out over it...

 

[gcarroll]

Honestly I'm not sure how much light is too much light or too much flow. I have been told plenty of times that I have too much of both.

25g tank
light: XR30 G4 Pro running at 60%
flow: Tunze Nanostream 6040 pulsing at 1200 gph
and Tunze Nanostream 6025 dialed back and pushing approx 800gph

 

[DSC reef]

I'm surprised at how much light they can take. Not familiar with the build my led or how focused they are but always kept our acans on the bottom of the tank with halides/T5

 

[Retro Reefer]

I’m guessing lighting is not your problem, I have them all over my tank from sand bed to up high getting blasted by t5/led lighting and they are all happy.. can you provide complete details of tank and parameters?

 

[dmolavi]

I’m guessing lighting is not your problem, I have them all over my tank from sand bed to up high getting blasted by t5/led lighting and they are all happy.. can you provide complete details of tank and parameters?

40 gallon tank, mostly LPS with a couple of 'nems. Parameters are all in check, calcium, alk, mag (those I measure regularly). Nitrites are 0. Haven't measured nitrates or phosphates lately, but nothing else in the tank is complaining. Weekly water changes of approx 12 gallons each, run a skimmer and reactor w/ RoX 0.8 and Phosguard. Dose bi-weekly with Vibrant, 4mL.

 

[DSC reef]

40 gallon tank, mostly LPS with a couple of 'nems. Parameters are all in check, calcium, alk, mag (those I measure regularly). Nitrites are 0. Haven't measured nitrates or phosphates lately, but nothing else in the tank is complaining. Weekly water changes of approx 12 gallons each, run a skimmer and reactor w/ RoX 0.8 and Phosguard. Dose bi-weekly with Vibrant, 4mL.

Phosgaurd and vibrant are pretty aggressive at stripping nutrients from the tank. Acans don't do very well in to clean of water.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Agree.. I’m letting my skimmer drain back into sump, don’t use any media and have removed my filter sock and my acans and other corals are much happier and healthier.

 

[dmolavi]

Phosgaurd and vibrant are pretty aggressive at stripping nutrients from the tank. Acans don't do very well in to clean of water.

Carbon is ok though? I will say that my skimmate is far from the dark, nasty sludge that I see here. It's more of a pea-soup green/brown color (think baby-poop if you're a parent haha). Stinks to high holy heck though.

 

[DSC reef]

It's fine to run all that stuff if its keeping your tank in check but sometimes you can't keep certain corals due to the parameters you aim to keep.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

A while back my acans started to recede and heads die off. I have them in all areas of the tank from medium to low flow and from 80 to 400 par of light. I also started to have some of my euphilla not look so well. After living the "clean tank" life, I decided to let me tank sit slightly on the dirtier side , 10 nitrates and .03 phosphates and everything took off and went nuts. In a month all my acans were back to looking good and the next month they were growing like they were given steroids. My euphilla all started to pop new heads and the tank looks a 100 times better. I am not saying this will work for you, but I was in the same boat a while ago. Sadly I did not have to dose or add things to get my nutrients low, they just did it on their own. I do dose sodium nitrate and some phosphates now to maintain the levels I want as my coral colonies and bacteria population seem to eat up the bio-load quicker than it come out lol. Its even to the point my skimmer is all the way open and is only providing gas exchange and collect nothing, yet I still have to dose.

Either way though, from my experience, acans like a little NO3 and PO4 and if acclimated correctly can deal with most light levels out there.

 

[dmolavi]

I'd like to keep the acan. it had great color and a nice 'pop' to it. If it requires less than ideal parameters, I can take those lumps...

 

[dmolavi]

A while back my acans started to recede and heads die off. I have them in all areas of the tank from medium to low flow and from 80 to 400 par of light. I also started to have some of my euphilla not look so well. After living the "clean tank" life, I decided to let me tank sit slightly on the dirtier side , 10 nitrates and .03 phosphates and everything took off and went nuts. In a month all my acans were back to looking good and the next month they were growing like they were given steroids. My euphilla all started to pop new heads and the tank looks a 100 times better. I am not saying this will work for you, but I was in the same boat a while ago. Sadly I did not have to dose or add things to get my nutrients low, they just did it on their own. I do dose sodium nitrate and some phosphates now to maintain the levels I want as my coral colonies and bacteria population seem to eat up the bio-load quicker than it come out lol. Its even to the point my skimmer is all the way open and is only providing gas exchange and collect nothing, yet I still have to dose.

Either way though, from my experience, acans like a little NO3 and PO4 and if acclimated correctly can deal with most light levels out there.

No algae issues?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

No algae issues?

Getting my levels up some, actually helped my algae issues. I was having some gha issues in one tank and having some cyano issues in another tank and it is now gone in all tanks. (I have 5 tanks lol. All were low nutrient to start and all have acans). I did have one tank shoot up to .08 PO4 and some gha started to come back, got my dosing corrected and it is gone (well gone in the form of my tangs eat it before it becomes noticeable).

Somewhere there is a good post about the ratio of NO3 to PO4, but this has been debated quite a bit, so take all of them lightly as all tanks are different. Also, I need to note that I changed my levels slowly and not all at once. This allows for everything to react in its own time and not be rushed. Rushing in this hobby leads to bad things, trust me, I have been through a ton of them over the years lol.

As for less than ideal parameters, that is a matter of opinion. I have an full blown SPS tank, an all softy tank (now becoming a clam dominated tank), a mixed reef, and some nanos with whatever gets fragged lol, and they all seem to like it a little dirtier (again opinion). In reality, I do not think there is truly a set area for where a tank should be, but that's me. Think about the tanks that love 10dkh and others that run at 8dkh, but they both look awesome. There are so many things to go along with this, but each tank has its own happy medium that has to be found, and that's one of the things I love about this.

Since your tank is mostly LPS, a little on the dirtier side should be OK, even with the Nems. I have a ton of bubbles and other nems, and they do great with my parameters. You just have to go slow and see how things react to changes.

 

[dmolavi]

Getting my levels up some, actually helped my algae issues. I was having some gha issues in one tank and having some cyano issues in another tank and it is now gone in all tanks. (I have 5 tanks lol. All were low nutrient to start and all have acans). I did have one tank shoot up to .08 PO4 and some gha started to come back, got my dosing corrected and it is gone (well gone in the form of my tangs eat it before it becomes noticeable).

Somewhere there is a good post about the ratio of NO3 to PO4, but this has been debated quite a bit, so take all of them lightly as all tanks are different. Also, I need to note that I changed my levels slowly and not all at once. This allows for everything to react in its own time and not be rushed. Rushing in this hobby leads to bad things, trust me, I have been through a ton of them over the years lol.

As for less than ideal parameters, that is a matter of opinion. I have an full blown SPS tank, an all softy tank (now becoming a clam dominated tank), a mixed reef, and some nanos with whatever gets fragged lol, and they all seem to like it a little dirtier (again opinion). In reality, I do not think there is truly a set area for where a tank should be, but that's me. Think about the tanks that love 10dkh and others that run at 8dkh, but they both look awesome. There are so many things to go along with this, but each tank has its own happy medium that has to be found, and that's one of the things I love about this.

Since your tank is mostly LPS, a little on the dirtier side should be OK, even with the Nems. I have a ton of bubbles and other nems, and they do great with my parameters. You just have to go slow and see how things react to changes.

Thanks for the info. What's the best way to slowly bring up the various params? I do have a slight algae issue (weird black stuff on the rock that recent cropped up, easy to suck off when doing a water change), but other than that, nothing too bad. I can stop the phosguard and vibrant, as well.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

There are numerous ways to increase them, but one thing to do is to not change everything at once.
Do a full run of dkh, ph, nitrates, and phosphates.
Note what they are with what you are doing now. If you are using API for phosphates and nitrates, get a kit that does low scale. I use nyos and salifert for most, along with hanna for calcium, phosphate, alk

And before starting any of this, AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, test everything and post it here as a reference for you and for us to better determine a course of action for the issues. Those test results may indicate something else and we may need to change your approach to the issue as it may not be low nutrients or they may point to the above suggestion of raising nutrients, as we are just merely guessing and giving what we have been through at this point.

But just for info's sake on increasing your nutrients. You could stop the vibrant dosing if you are following the bottle's directions as it is added every 2 weeks, the phosguard will exhaust itself as long as there is silica and PO4 present, and you can test every few days to see how the nutrients climb, if they do climb. If they do not climb, you may need to dose for a bit to get to a level, and the tank may hold that level afterwards once the vibrant driven bacteria get in check numbers wise. Again, I would highly suggest you test everything above and report it on here before making any changes.

Tons of people on here have had receding acans, LPS dying, SPS mass losses fixed. Posting the tank parameters for their tanks have been the greatest thing they posted so all of the people here can see them and work together to get your issue solved. I have been one of those people it helped and I was all wrong on what the issue actually was, cause I was freaking out and not thinking about the obvious.

 

[dmolavi]

I use Hanna for phosphate and alk, RedSea for calcium, and API for pH, Salifert for nitrates and magnesium. I will test and post tomorrow when I get home from work. Thanks for all your assistance