got a hurting coral could use some advice.

[cracker]

Hello,I have another coral that's looking bad. (Some of You may know I just lost an open brain).
Anyway it appears to be receding & showing white skeleton. To be honest I don't even know what type of coral this is. Could You tell me what this condition is and what I can do. This one isn't a gonner yet. As you can see the hammer next door looks pretty good. I can answer just about any questions ,recent parameters etc. Thanks !

 

[Mal11224]

Hi. That coral is a "Lobo". You may be running rich on something you are supplementing into your tank. You hammer should be more pronounced than that. Are you dosing? Have you checked you nitrates, calc, all, mg, etc... see above... I have two hammers in the pic. They are fully extended. Are you using carbon?

 

[cracker]

Mal. thanks for the reply. This tank is 75 gallons.19 months old. Yes on the carbon. I'm using regular red sea salt I use kalkwasser with my ato. Parameters are stable until I do a water change then they drop. I have to dose Mg & stump remover for some trates. Your hammer looks a lot better than mine ! my stony lps are slowly fading. the corals just look lack luster. not growth just living. I had a used steve's led fixture,it died. So I hung some 165 box's . Until I could afford a better light. I just ordered a T5 fixture,should have it mid next week. Hopefully it will be "good" lighting. I'm just working on one factor at a time to get this right . Thanks agains Everybody.
sal 1.025
No3 less than 4 (I have to dose stump remover)
Po4 0 ( this happens every water change, been feeding 3 small fish pretty heavy)
Mg 1260
alk 7.0
Ca 375

 

[Flippers4pups]

Alkalinity is a little low. Try keeping it around 8-9 dkh.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

How much light are you running.

 

[Mal11224]

The lighting might be an issue. The T5 should be a good light for a 75 gal. Red Sea salt usually has higher calcium than what you are reading above. I think 425-450 ppm is good. Mine is about 475 for calcium. 11dkh for alk and 1360 for mg but I have a mixed tank. Water flow is important. Many corals do not like to be moved around either.
Seems like there are a few things you can do to see if it will help. Lighting can be the issue. Your tank is not new so the flow is probably not an issue. You may not be dosing enough and may need to increase it slowly and get the parameters higher. It's tough to say what the issue is.
I use a sock, skimmer, marine pure ceramic balls and a fuge in my sump with a carbon/gfo reactor. I also use Red Sea supplements. Wish I had a more direct answer. But you can try increasing you parameters and take it from there.

 

[cracker]

Thanks Guys I'll get back tomorrow with par readings, I gotta crash now.

 

[cracker]

Good evening ! so I have a simple Apogee par meter. Set on sun mode. I got an average of 90 at the bottom. Of course less under the brace & the edges where the light doesn't reach . So about 3/4 up at the top of my rock I get an average or 120 t0 190 . I have a couple of zoas there they are spreading ok. A favia that is hurting also. I have a plan & will offer it up for review from You soon on how to Lively up this tank ! Please let me know what Ya think & thanks again !

 

[Mal11224]

120 is on the low side for an area near the to of the rocks with no obstruction. That could be your problem. The thing is that corals do not need very high par readings nor do they need long hours of lighting. But, your alkalinity is important to the growth of corals and should be higher. There are videos on YouTube that explain the relationship of alk and light absorption when it comes to coral growth. I run 2 kessil a160 lamps about 10 inches above the surface of my tank and Max out at 65% intensity between 11am and 4pm, then I ramp down. This is not high output at all but my alkaline is between 10.5-11 dkh, which has been ideal for my tank. You will have to adjust some things to figure it out. Your parameters are low, so there's a start. Be careful with the lighting. you don't want bleaching.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Set it on electric mode.

 

[cracker]

will do on both suggestions .

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I'd love to know what the par is near the two troubled corals.

 

[cracker]

I remember that the setting was important but blew it ! I had a chance to go fishing today so no tank today I'll get on it tomorrow for sure. I have a 3rd favia also ! LOL I'm looking for ward to the new T5 fixture. So the light pars now will be needed for proper height of the lights. I expect them to be a good bit brighter. This fixture is dimmable but the guy from ATI says I gotta burn the bulbs on high for 50 hours 1st. I will also tell you guys of my plan to boost the low parameters .

 

[cracker]

Ok Gentlemen, I have more accurate info for You tonight. So I set my meter on elect mode. & got much higher readings. I also unplugged the return to have a calm water surface. So at the bottom where the Lobo is I got a average reading of 135. At the top of the rock. I have a reading of 200 from the left fixture. On the right where I have 2 hurting favia. I got a reading of 230 .
So here is my plan to fix these issues. I will install this new T5 fixture. I have to run them on high for 50 hours before I can start messing with the dimming . I will mount them as high or low as required to not freak out the corals . Then I want to dose the water change barrel to proper levels then add this to the tank. Hoping the kalkwasser will maintain these levels until next water change. It will take a couple of these changes to see some stable good parameters. If this doesn't work I will look into a dosing setup. What do You think ?
Again I can pretty much answer any more questions You may have.

 

[arch85]

Are you feeding these corals? Try hand feeding them at night once the lights go out. The first night or two they might not eat, but after that they'll get the idea and start devouring food. A combo of lower lights and feeding should help as long as your alk is stable.

I ran my tank at alk of 7-8 and never had any issues with lps or sps. But I also fed my tank A LOT! By a lot, I mean 5-7 times a day with a heavy bio load and heavy skimming.

Hope you sort this out soon.. try to change only 1 thing at a time as it'll help you diagnose the issue better.

Btw, have you seen any fish nipping at the corals?

 

[cracker]

Great advice Arch, I don't feed the corals much. I do feed the 3 fish I have heavy as my Po4,s are low with an oversized skimmer that kicks butt. I'm retired so pretty much home enough to feed 3,4 times a day. Of Course they are always begging for more. No nipping I have seen. I will make one change at a time to see what was the issue.

 

[Philly.b]

The hammer may be stinging it,they put out long sweepers at night.

 

[cracker]

Ok I got the 5t fixture today ! By far the nicest fixture I ever purchased . So I ran it thru the test mode everything worked at stated. It's getting late so I'll hang it tomorrow and work on setting up the break in period.

 

[cracker]

Allow me to say right off my abilities with controllers, is well less then it should be. Anyway, after some head scratching & a You tube video, I got it up & running . I like it ! There is no dim corner or back at all ! I got the 12 to 16 k package. It looks not so blue & still have good color. If I want more blue, I can get a uv strip or 2. It is a little too bright though. Like 400 par at the bottom LOL !
so I moved it up then up & again. it's over 3 foot off the tank & I still had to throw a couple of window screens over the tank ! So I got around 100 at the bottom. still more par than the corals are used to. So tomorrow I will cut on time down to 8 hrs, I was lighting about 7. Leave the fixture up by the ceiling and in a couple day I'll put the screens back in my windows ! It's so high I don't have to use the light switch in the room . Just need the 50 hours "burn in" time then I can lower the fixture to a better height.

 

[cracker]

So tonight I tested a new barrel of regular Red Sea salt,
MG 1300
Alk 8.4
Ca 370
I wasn't happy with the CA test. Seemed low to me. However I ran out of The regent. I'll have to get a replacement tomorrow. I knew I was about to run out but forgot to stop by the LFS. Will test again tomorrow.