Heartbreaker Acropora Browning Out

[Piker]

I've just come out the other end of a Dino outbreak. A 9 month old frag of WWC heartbreaker that I thought dead started thriving.

Then I followed through with a plan to upgrade my lighting. Changed my lighting completely.... went from 2 to 4 radion xr15 pro, and from 2 ab plus and 2 coral plus t5 bulbs to 4 ab plus as well as changing the lighting from led all day, t5 only during peak to led only during peak and extending from 10 to 12 hours.

I expected setbacks during the change, but wonder if there is anything I should do regarding this frag? The frag is at about 250 par peak 150 off peak... that hasn't changed. It's still mostly green, but brown is deffinatley coming in and polyp extension is no longer there.

I've also cleared a bit of sponge from the tank, between that and the dino i have literally been turkey basting the rock daily to keep it from coming back. I am not completely through the Dino, still have spots in the sand daily. So I'm afraid to stop my daily blowing off of the rock at this point.

I probably should have changed my lighting more slowly, but... too late for that now. Any advice is appreciated. I have 3 monti doing fine, a lobo that's great and acan that seems moderately annoyed of late.

A bit of backstory... Lost my entire first batch of acropora due to some bad source water and let the tank go, so neglect kind of brought on the Dino. Using this coral heartbreaker as a gage for when the tank is ready for more acro.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Effects are usually:
Too much flow
Too much light
High alk
Low calcium
Temperature too warm
Insufficient nutrients

 

[Kyle_bania]

Effects are usually:
Too much flow
Too much light
High alk
Low calcium
Temperature too warm
Insufficient nutrients

In my tank it was to much amino acids

 

[ScottB]

What is your PO4 (Hanna) ?
Nitrates?
ALK?

I am not sure PAR of 250 is high enough to upset an acro too much. Especially if you set it to acclimation mode.

Assuming your base elements are all in line, I would just let adjust.

I have one acro colony that browned out after dinos. I believe it was from going fromm a super low nutrient situation to a very high level of phosphates in particular. Once I got things smoothed out nutrient-wise, it returned to being pink/yellow/green.

 

[Piker]

Alk may have pressed 9.4, has been 8.6 since I started the tank, flow hasn't changed. I can't imagine light being too high, my lps seems fine. Calcium has dipped, but only from 440 to 410. Phos and alk have remained semi stable near but not zero.

I'm wondering if I should move it to higher lighting... tbh, but its entrusting into the rock so that'd mean par levels of up to 400 in the tank in some areas.

 

[Piker]

What is your PO4 (Hanna) ?
Nitrates?
ALK?

I am not sure PAR of 250 is high enough to upset an acro too much. Especially if you set it to acclimation mode.

Assuming your base elements are all in line, I would just let adjust.

I have one acro colony that browned out after dinos. I believe it was from going fromm a super low nutrient situation to a very high level of phosphates in particular. Once I got things smoothed out nutrient-wise, it returned to being pink/yellow/green.

.03 phos, struggling to keep nitrates above 2ppm. Alk I'm switching back to red sea blue bucket source to lower it, I've turned my calcium dosage down very low to try and get it from 9 current back to 8.6. (I know that's a small difference, just being thorough with my answer)