Acans all receding

Nath514 · Jun 18, 2020

Hello,

I have quite a few Acans in my tank. Most are fairly new but were looking good in my tank for 3 ish weeks after purchase. At that point I realized that my AI Prime lighting schedule was pretty poor in terms of providing the right spectrum and intensity which may be why I never saw good coral growth. I adjusted my lighting to match the BRS recommended settings for the Ai Prime 16HD for LPS. Since that point I have seen all my Acans shrink down and start receding. I am not sure if it is the lighting but that seems the most likely culprit. Should I keep the lighting consistent with the new settings and hope everything adapts or should I change back? I put the prim into acclimation mode at 70% but I am not sure that is working. My tank details are below:

Tank: FijiCube 32EXT
Light: AI Prime 16HD running J's Reef Profile turned down to 75%
Skimmer: Reef Octopus essence 130
Water Changes: Automatic nightly change handled by stenner pump doing 5 gallons every 20 days
Return Pump: Octo varios S-2 at level 2
Powerhead: Nero 5 Running at 30% random
Fish: 1 clown, 1 chromis, 1 dwarf angel
Coral: Softies and LPS
Cleanup: Mix of snails and hermit crabs
Sump: FijiCube 20
- First stage is filter floss changed every 2 days
- Second stage 20 marine pure balls
- Third Skimmer compartment
- Fourth refugium with chaeto using this light LED Light 10pm - 8am - Dosing chaeto grow twice weekly
- Fifth return section
Auto Top Off: AutoAqua ATO
Dosing: Tropic Marin All for Reef daily ~9ml
ALK: ~8.7
Feeding: 2 times weekly rods frozen, 1-2 times weekly flake / pellet food
Feeding Coral: 2 times weekly Reef Roids

My current lighting schedule:

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if more measurements are needed.

kylebeano · Jun 18, 2020

You have done a lot of work already testing and changing lights, which all seem fine, strong work!
But, you do have a dwarf angel, have you ever observed it for a day to see if it is picking at your LPS? Would be my first suspect. Acans are apparently pretty tasty, i have had a yellow clown goby eat $$$ in acans/scoly/etc over a couple months before i figured it out. And YCG arent known to nip like the angels...

muzikalmatt · Jun 18, 2020

Typically you don't want to ramp your lights up all at once, especially if they were at a significantly lower intensity prior to ramping them up. A good rule of thumb is to increase the intensity 5-10% per week to give your corals time to acclimate to the changes. Although, given that you put the lights in acclimation mode, that may accomplish the same thing. However, I'm not entirely sure as I don't have a Prime so I'm not sure how the acclimation mode functions.

Nath514 · Jun 18, 2020

kylebeano said:
You have done a lot of work already testing and changing lights, which all seem fine, strong work!
But, you do have a dwarf angel, have you ever observed it for a day to see if it is picking at your LPS? Would be my first suspect. Acans are apparently pretty tasty, i have had a yellow clown goby eat $$$ in acans/scoly/etc over a couple months before i figured it out. And YCG arent known to nip like the angels...

I have never seen him touch the acans. He nibbles on at the rock but I nave never seen it touch a coral. I will be keeping a close eye on him though.

Nath514 · Jun 18, 2020

muzikalmatt said:
Typically you don't want to ramp your lights up all at once, especially if they were at a significantly lower intensity prior to ramping them up. A good rule of thumb is to increase the intensity 5-10% per week to give your corals time to acclimate to the changes. Although, given that you put the lights in acclimation mode, that may accomplish the same thing. However, I'm not entirely sure as I don't have a Prime so I'm not sure how the acclimation mode functions.

Acclimation mode should reduce the intensity and then ramp it up over a number of weeks. Not sure if it is working though. My acans are mostly at the bottom of the tank and should still be getting fairly low PAR likely lower then they were getting from the places I bought them from.

Nath514 · Jun 30, 2020

I have reduced the lighting intensity by 25% across the board. Most of the acans appear to be on their last leg. I moved some into the shadows of the rock scape but haven't seen any change.

rogersb · Jun 30, 2020

Why aren't you feeding everyday? My guess is they are being starved. Coral need some NO3. If you have to feed the chaeto, chances are there is nothing in the water to feed the acans.

anth · Jun 30, 2020

I Had same problem a couple of years ago
It was my flame angel
I had many acan frags which receded but never seen the angel picking at them. Months passed and i decided to buy another acan frag to see how it would hold up (i was convinced my water was contaminated)
As soon as i put it in tank the angel attacked it.
I removed the angel and a couple of weeks later all acans were coming back out

Nath514 · Jul 7, 2020

anth said:
I Had same problem a couple of years ago
It was my flame angel
I had many acan frags which receded but never seen the angel picking at them. Months passed and i decided to buy another acan frag to see how it would hold up (i was convinced my water was contaminated)
As soon as i put it in tank the angel attacked it.
I removed the angel and a couple of weeks later all acans were coming back out

The only thing that makes me think it isn't the angel is that I had sevearl Acans in the tank for many months that were doing great and growing well. Then I changed the lighting and added more acans and they all went downhill quickly.

Nath514 · Jul 7, 2020

rogersb said:
Why aren't you feeding everyday? My guess is they are being starved. Coral need some NO3. If you have to feed the chaeto, chances are there is nothing in the water to feed the acans.

I have been feeding almost every day now but am not really seeing any difference in the acans

ZiBiReef · Jul 7, 2020

Do you have a peppermint shrimp? Mine picked at my acans at night

Nath514 · Jul 7, 2020

ZiBiReef said:
Do you have a peppermint shrimp? Mine picked at my acans at night

No shrimp at the moment, only stocking is 1 clown, 1 pygmy angel, 1 chromis and a variety of snails / hermit crabs

Hydrored · Jul 7, 2020

Acans are a pain in the but in my tank due to me lowering nutrients. Acans were huge and happy with 10 nitrates and .10 phosphates. I would start with ensuring you have appropriate values. I have acans now that stay on the smaller side but I keep them under a rock overhang in about 70-80 par and they are growing still, just not super fat. I find they hate high light and low nutrients

Miller535 · Jul 7, 2020

I too am wondering about you water parameters.

Also, I would not go off of BRS recommendations for lighting. Yes they used a PAR meter and did some decent work. But there are other things like flo that affect PAR also. I subscribe to the philosophy of Thein from tidal gardens, it's always better to start low and give corals not enough light then to give them too much light.

ZiBiReef · Jul 7, 2020

Nath514 said:
No shrimp at the moment, only stocking is 1 clown, 1 pygmy angel, 1 chromis and a variety of snails / hermit crabs

Try watching your tank late at night with all lights off. U might see someone misbehaving

anth · Jul 7, 2020

Do u have any pictures of the acans and i can tell you how they compare to mine that were harassed by my angel

Nath514 · Jul 8, 2020

anth said:
Do u have any pictures of the acans and i can tell you how they compare to mine that were harassed by my angel

AmaleeC · Jul 8, 2020

Super low flow and low lights. I did that with mine after they were pretty much colorless and almost skeleton. I saw feeder tentacles the very next day. Not even exaggerating.

I actually put mine underneath my overflow box, which is basically one big shaded area and that’s where they got better.

SonyaBAZ · Jul 8, 2020

Nath514 said:
Hello,

I have quite a few Acans in my tank. Most are fairly new but were looking good in my tank for 3 ish weeks after purchase. At that point I realized that my AI Prime lighting schedule was pretty poor in terms of providing the right spectrum and intensity which may be why I never saw good coral growth. I adjusted my lighting to match the BRS recommended settings for the Ai Prime 16HD for LPS. Since that point I have seen all my Acans shrink down and start receding. I am not sure if it is the lighting but that seems the most likely culprit. Should I keep the lighting consistent with the new settings and hope everything adapts or should I change back? I put the prim into acclimation mode at 70% but I am not sure that is working. My tank details are below:

Tank: FijiCube 32EXT

Light: AI Prime 16HD running J's Reef Profile turned down to 75%

Skimmer: Reef Octopus essence 130

Water Changes: Automatic nightly change handled by stenner pump doing 5 gallons every 20 days

Return Pump: Octo varios S-2 at level 2

Powerhead: Nero 5 Running at 30% random

Fish: 1 clown, 1 chromis, 1 dwarf angel

Coral: Softies and LPS

Cleanup: Mix of snails and hermit crabs

Sump: FijiCube 20

First stage is filter floss changed every 2 days

Second stage 20 marine pure balls

Third Skimmer compartment

Fourth refugium with chaeto using this light LED Light 10pm - 8am - Dosing chaeto grow twice weekly

Fifth return section

Auto Top Off: AutoAqua ATO

Dosing: Tropic Marin All for Reef daily ~9ml

ALK: ~8.7

Feeding: 2 times weekly rods frozen, 1-2 times weekly flake / pellet food

Feeding Coral: 2 times weekly Reef Roids

My current lighting schedule:

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Let me know if more measurements are needed.

I have older AI hydra 26’s and recently did a big lighting schedule swap. Couple of questions to think about if you haven’t already. Length of lights in terms of how long they are on, peak intensity hours? Are they the same or different from before? Also I notice the peak hours last for 8+ hours with little ramp up time. That’s like being in high noon sun for 8 hours which in reality is not how our sun exposure works throughout the day. However, I do know schedules like this work great for others. I had a lighting schedule similar to yours just shorter peak time (4hrs) and longer ramp up and down. I felt like my growth was slow and colors were ok so I had recently made a change to a David Saxby style setup (keep in mind his tank is super deep so his full schedule may be too much for your tank).

When I did this I had to do some calculations to determine how much I needed to reduce the lighting for acclimation. Some colors needed only a 50% reduction while other needed over 70%. Plus I greatly increased the amount of time my lights were actually on. So I decided to do a 75% reduction overall and 6 week acclimation period. About halfway through I felt like the lights were getting too intense. Things just weren’t as fully extended. Dialed back the acclimation again and ecided to do the PAR meter rental from BRS. Found out I was actually running high on par based upon what I’ve read on others suggestions for LPS. Dialed in the final numbers I wanted and ended up at 60% of what his original schedule was. End of the day all of my LPS handled it well.

If you aren’t sure if the acclimation setting is working or not just turn the function off wait for the lights to update and watch it. If it’s working you will see a difference in light intensity.

I know making changes in the AI system can be a challenge sometimes so if you need some other lighting ideas a guy my husband found on Twitter has this website for AI lights. https://reeflightprofiles.com/. Lots of different lighting schedules on there that you can download and put in the AI app really easy.

I also agree with the others it could be your dwarf angel. I’ve never been brave enough to keep an angel fish because I’d be super upset if they ate my corals. I’ve had many reefers tell me as long as they are fed well they don’t nip at their stuff. I too would also be interested in your parameters for nitrates and phosphates. None of my corals were happy with near zero of either of those things and high lighting.
Hope this helps. Keep us updated.