Coral head death

[Ballyhoo]

My tank is over a year old, and overall have a lot of thriving coral including some achro that do quite well, but I do not understand why some heads of my torch die, and I even have a hole colony portion of a hammer that i have long had a portion of which id dying. Not sure what it could be. nitrates at low value of 2. po3 .05, temperature 79, Ca 430. Alk is 7. I do have a phosphate reactor and I don't keep it on all of the time because I don't like to strip things out, so my phosphates could fluctuate From .02 to .13, but usually fall pretty much in between there on the lower end.

 

[Rocks reef]

What are you dosing? What is your magnesium level?

 

[Ballyhoo]

i do not test Mg. I test Ca so it's 420. every day i dose about 5Ml of AFR. So I have not tested magnesium, because I would think that I'm getting that from the AFR.

 

[Uncle99]

What fish in there?
Any shrimp or crabs?
Does death happen overnight or overtime?

 

[Ballyhoo]

Overnight. I just measured my magnesium. It's at 1080. These things occur overnight.

 

[Rocks reef]

i do not test Mg. I test Ca so it's 420. every day i dose about 5Ml of AFR. So I have not tested magnesium, because I would think that I'm getting that from the AFR.

A lot of reefers make that mistake. AFR is for Alk/Cal, it adds minimal Magnesium. I have seen numerous 'crashes' and coral deaths on R2R from people dosing AFR and not adding additional Mag. I would test Mag as soon as you can my friend.

 

[Rocks reef]

Overnight. I just measured my magnesium. It's at 1080. These things occur overnight.

That's because they were dying from the inside, the visible death you see was a process that was already in full effect. I can bet it was due to your mag levels. I keep my mag level around 1350-1400 by dosing Magnesium in addition to AFR.
Also, low mag with throw your alk/cal off causing an imbalance.

 

[Ballyhoo]

I just tested magnesium. It's at 1080. But I have not dosed my AFR yet today.