Chalices melting away

[Mattyice008]

Well for the past few weeks my only 2 chalices have been looking terrible, and are slowly dying. I came to the conclusion that it was because of my mag/alk/calc levels. Alk was 8 calc 420 mag 1200. So I bought a mag booster mix and changed my water change schedule from 15gal every 2 weeks to 10gal every week, and dose the magnesium a bit in the new water. So 2 weeks later and nothing is looking a lot better. EVERY other coral is doing awesome, but my 20 eye Miami hurricane has gone down to 5 eyes and my Vanessa's vomet has slowly been losing its rim.

Here are parameters from today, I just got home after being out of town for a week.
Calc 420
Alk 8.4
Mag 1440
Nitrate 0
Phosphate 0
Temp 79
Salinity 1.024

I'm making water right now for a water change tomorrow night hopefully, if not then Saturday morning (I use reef crystals). I was told dosing that mag, since it was soooo low, it would bring up the levels of the alk and calc for those hard corals. So my mag is up, but still no big change

 

[CraigG]

Sorry to here about that, I've seen this before. Sometimes certain coral types get out competed by other coral types. I have a 5 gallon bucket sized green pocilapora in a 120gal and it seems to have just about shut everything else down. I'll be ripping that system down and going all acropora soon.

 

[Mattyice008]

Its just a shocker to me its a 75g tank and the biggest thing I have is a frogspawn but nothing that should really be eating up all the alk and calc. They did fine for a long time too

 

[CraigG]

It could be the case of overly clean water. I know holly wood stunner chalice gets funny in super clean water.

 

[Mattyice008]

I've never heard that haha. But I'm just going to keep up with my new water change schedule. Is it true that raising mag will keep alk/calc higher?

 

[Mr. E Wrasse]

If your water is too clean, then the chalices will die. My phosphates are at .02 and they love it. Imo you need to dirty your water up!

 

[CraigG]

I agree with Mr. E. Yes, mag needs to be in check to maintain ALK and Ca. I'm a believer of staying pretty close to NSP.

 

[Mattyice008]

Wow really? I NEVER thought I'd hear that. So maybe go back to changing water every 2 weeks? I mean there is algae in the tank and its a little dirty..but I just do so much work in keeping it as clean as possible

 

[CraigG]

Keep your water changes up, just feed more and if your using GFO maybe lighten up a little. If your getting algea add some turbo snails they work great.

 

[Mattyice008]

Yea I have a great cleanup crew and my extra 30gal tank houses a bunch of hermits and snails for when I need to resupply my mantis shrimps tank.

 

[Mattyice008]

Hey now that I think about it...my problem did start around when I installed my bubble magus curve 5 protein skimmer..which keeps my water very clean and pulls a bunch of crap out

 

[CraigG]

Yep, you could tune the skimmer were it pulls very dry skimate. That should help leave more in your tank.

 

[Reef4reef]

Bring Salinity to 1026 or 1027 , chalice love high Nitrate feed feed

 

[reef life]

+1 on 1026 salinity and feeding the chalice. What are you using to feed the corals?

 

[reef life]

Majority of the times for chalice to die is Alk swings. What test kit are you using?

 

[Mattyice008]

Majority of the times for chalice to die is Alk swings. What test kit are you using?

I'm using the red sea test kits for mag/alk and when I feed my lps corals I just use mysis

 

[glb]

I'm using the red sea test kits for mag/alk and when I feed my lps corals I just use mysis

I have that test but I find it very hard to read. I wonder if there's another one out there that's better. I use API because its easy to read but I don't know how accurate it is. I don't have chalices though. Good luck!

 

[Acanholic]

Have you upgraded to LED lately? That thing can seriously hurt chalices

 

[Acanholic]

Shade them and try to feed with Fauna Marin for acans and polyps size. If they accept the food they will live

 

[Paul C.]

IMHA lets not forget these are living creatures. Sometimes, they do just "melt" in front of ur eyes. I dont disregard anyones advice/opinion. Stability is key, we know this. I will agree that chalices like a "dirtier" water, what that number is from person to person differs. I will NOT tell you what my tank runs for Phos numbers. I would be told by many that my numbers are too high. But i can show you pictures of very expensive pieces that continue to sprout eyes. I do have some pieces that are under the frag rack, in the shade and very little flow areas. Some recover, and some don't. It is part of the hobby that we all enjoy. Continue your routine, monitor the parameters, and try to maintain. Best advice I could give you. Paul C.