Corals opening and closing daily

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RMS18

I keep water chemistry as my hobby
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I have hit a wall with coral health/behavior... I believe it has to do with lighting but I'm not sure. They will not open fully some days and others open fully, then throughout the day at times they will close up. Attached are pictures of them at the moment, lights are not dimming yet and some are closed up. From what my lfs said my pars were to low about 60 on sand bed, 80 middle and about 100 up top. So we raised my light level to about 95ish on the sand bed, 110 middle and 120 high. My anemone hasn't been coming out, my orange shroom is shrinking on a daily basis, so one would think I have to much light. However zoas weren't opening and my acans were very wide open with tenticles out during the day, which should mean the light is to low.
Since my levels will be asked for here they are as of this week:

Salinity 1.027
Mag 1320
Alk 9.8
Cal 420
Nh3/nh4 0ppm
No3 0ppm
PH 8.0
N02 0ppm
Po4 0ppm
Temp 78

30 gallon tank running 2 ai primes
Deep Blue 65%
Blue 50%
Violet 50%
Uv 45%
White 12%
Green 4%
Red 4%

The tank doesn't have any fish, there are no bugs or worms only copods, none of the inverts are bothering anything. I had a huge Alk swing 2 weeks ago from what I think was from going with ac all summer to windows and doors being open. Alk went from 11.5 to 9.8 now. Usually when things act up I do a water change and all is good but I have done 1 each week for 2 weeks and nothing.

I'm out of ideas, I need some advice. Thanks.



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I've had things look like that with 0 no3 and po4.. It's like corals go semi-dormant when nutrients aren't high enough for their liking. Since these are all soft/lps corals I would add some planktonic food and ease off whatever is removing the no3 and po4. I've found my mixed tank tolerates and grows quite well with 3-5 ppm no3 and .06-.1 ppm po4.
 
I had the same problem on my 15g a little while back when my nutrients hit zero. Zoas were acting just like you described but my SPS were doing great. I started feeding my fish and corals more and they are slowly coming back around. Don't know why I am having a hard time keeping nutrients in the tank. I even shut my skimmer down for two weeks and no water changes.
 

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