Hammers turning white, but on the non light side

kkircher

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Hello reefers,
I have 2 hammers both with about 5-6 heads that over the past 3 weeks have started to turn white. My first thought was bleaching from light, but the odd thing, they are bleaching on the underside not facing the light. My tank is mostly euphilia and my lights haven’t changed in months. I have spent a lot of time getting the corals happy with light and random flow.
My Params:
Alk: 8.95
Ca: 478
Mg: 1349
No3: 9
Po4: 0.2
Salinity: 1.026

I have a trident and the alk swings about .3 a day depending on which time test is. I am auto dosing Aquaforest component 123. I know my po4 is high but has always been that high, my nitrates have fallen over last few weeks as my chaeto has been growing like crazy. Tank has been running for 18 months.
The strange thing, the corals are separated by about 2 feet, there are no bailouts, but polyp are receding. There are other hammers unaffected so far.

here are some picts, some with lights, some without. Sorry for poor pictures. Will bust out dslr if needed. Any help would be appreciated.


0184754F-EE9E-44FA-A061-D465828D50D4.jpeg
1BCF429C-59FA-4351-8B46-189AA9C07C83.jpeg

F84F2208-B125-40C7-ABE1-E6E2E30D075E.jpeg

C31CF084-5828-45E9-AA6F-9294E6BF37FB.jpeg
 

Dburr1014

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So the underside where there is no light is turning white? Is this your question?

As it grows it will split and the coral "ball" will get bigger. Unfortunately, the heads not getting light will not survive.
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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So the white is slowly taking over the entire coral, just starting on underside. They do get ambient light but not direct. I think it is something wrong with the corals. I just don’t know where to start if the bleaching isn’t from too much light.
 

Dburr1014

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So the white is slowly taking over the entire coral, just starting on underside. They do get ambient light but not direct. I think it is something wrong with the corals. I just don’t know where to start if the bleaching isn’t from too much light.
How much light are they getting? Par meter? What light par did they come from?
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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Think we need to know also other parameters of the tank.
Po4
no3
Alk
Cal
All the general stuff.
Think we need to know also other parameters of the tank.
Po4
no3
Alk
Cal
All the general stuff.
All was provided in original post. Only thing really changing lately was nitrates going down over course of 6 weeks or so.
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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Oh sorry, missed them.
So what light do you have? What settings?

My hammers do well in about 150/200 par.
I have 4 of the Red Sea Reefled 90's. I run the blues at 65%, and the whites change throughout the day. The white start at about 25% and come up to 70% for a period (wife hates blue lights) then drop back down. I know this means nothing in terms of par, but if you are familiar with the lights at all, you know this isn't that bright. I do have about 4 other hammers not having issues, 5 torches, and 2 frogspawn. My assumption is, if bleaching from light, wouldn't it start at the top of the coral where the light is directly hitting, not at the underside polyps, and work its way up?

If anything, I think there might not be enough light because everything else is at such long extension. It seems to me ( no expert in anyways) that they are losing their Zooxanthellae.
 
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Dburr1014

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I am not familiar with this lights but did see a mixed review of them. Perhaps they are not bright enough.
Nothing in your parameters sticks out other than the po4 being high.
You have other coral doing fine and these for what ever reason went south. Are they lower in the tank? How is your flow in those areas?
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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I am not familiar with this lights but did see a mixed review of them. Perhaps they are not bright enough.
Nothing in your parameters sticks out other than the po4 being high.
You have other coral doing fine and these for what ever reason went south. Are they lower in the tank? How is your flow in those areas?
They are all roughly the same depth down in the tank, I can get a better picture with DSLR when lights come on. Both in very different locations for the flow, but both in moderate flow. I would have thought corals next to them might be affected, if this was a bacterial or flow problem. Both corals are near other corals that don't have any effect.
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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Here are the additional photos using dslr. I included a tank shot to show how far away they are from each other. I don’t think they are sharing a disease. Could temp swings do this? Been swinging between 77-79 with hotter days.

0A1A171E-E362-4059-A11C-4E6AC85BE5F8.jpeg

9BDA50A6-9100-4E16-A404-00A75A01CA1F.jpeg

E0E48AB1-763D-4C60-B54A-AB3FCA6F38AE.jpeg

9C2BE6E2-2466-4BA5-9705-96686868996B.jpeg
 
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kkircher

kkircher

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You I would think that they would all be affected if it was temperature issues.
You might want to do a cipro treatment at this point. Just to make sure.
I thought about that, but does this look bacterial? This tank is 200G, could cipro be detrimental to anything else without clear indication of a bacterial issue?
 

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