- Joined
- Aug 6, 2018
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I've had this 40 breeder going for about a year, and up until now all my SPS has been doing great: growing like crazy, colorful, polyped out all the time....
Now I'm having problems. It started with a few frags turning white around the growth edges of their bases, an progressed to corals fading, polyps withdrawn, and some have a brown stringy substance forming on them.
My first response was to test my alk. It was 9.9 dKH, which is higher that I usually keep it at, at 8.6. This tells me I've had a reduction in consumption, because I've been pretty stable at that level for a long time. I took my dosing pump offline, and have been letting it fall naturally over the last few days. I'm now back to 8.6dKH
I went and got a Hanna checker for phosphate because salifert PO4 tests suck. I tested everything, and my results are as follows:
sg 1.025
Temp: 79°F (inkbird controller)
Alk: 8.6 dKH (salifert)
Ca: 435 (salifert)
Mg: 1440 (salifert)
NO3: 5 (salifert)
PO4: 0.04 (Hanna)
I'm already planning some water changes, since I've verified that my nutrients aren't too low.
Recent changes:
About 2.5 months ago, I added Chemipure Blue rated for 35 gallons
Last month I switched out two really old T5 bulbs for new ones. Spaced that out 1 week between bulbs
A couple weeks ago I upgraded my flow. I actually suspect this might have been the trigger, but can't be sure. I went from minor flow to some pretty major flow all at once. I've since throttled it back a little hoping it will help.
Here are a few pictures. The appleberry monti was one of the brightest green, healthiest looking corals a few weeks ago. Now this. Same with the green acro frags in the second pic. The two faded ones on the left are from the big mother on the right. Same coral, same location, smaller frags affected but mother to a lesser degree. The last one is a Leng Sy cap. It dulled when I first put it in here, then it colored up and was getting bright green, now all of a sudden this. Could too much flow have done this?
Now I'm having problems. It started with a few frags turning white around the growth edges of their bases, an progressed to corals fading, polyps withdrawn, and some have a brown stringy substance forming on them.
My first response was to test my alk. It was 9.9 dKH, which is higher that I usually keep it at, at 8.6. This tells me I've had a reduction in consumption, because I've been pretty stable at that level for a long time. I took my dosing pump offline, and have been letting it fall naturally over the last few days. I'm now back to 8.6dKH
I went and got a Hanna checker for phosphate because salifert PO4 tests suck. I tested everything, and my results are as follows:
sg 1.025
Temp: 79°F (inkbird controller)
Alk: 8.6 dKH (salifert)
Ca: 435 (salifert)
Mg: 1440 (salifert)
NO3: 5 (salifert)
PO4: 0.04 (Hanna)
I'm already planning some water changes, since I've verified that my nutrients aren't too low.
Recent changes:
About 2.5 months ago, I added Chemipure Blue rated for 35 gallons
Last month I switched out two really old T5 bulbs for new ones. Spaced that out 1 week between bulbs
A couple weeks ago I upgraded my flow. I actually suspect this might have been the trigger, but can't be sure. I went from minor flow to some pretty major flow all at once. I've since throttled it back a little hoping it will help.
Here are a few pictures. The appleberry monti was one of the brightest green, healthiest looking corals a few weeks ago. Now this. Same with the green acro frags in the second pic. The two faded ones on the left are from the big mother on the right. Same coral, same location, smaller frags affected but mother to a lesser degree. The last one is a Leng Sy cap. It dulled when I first put it in here, then it colored up and was getting bright green, now all of a sudden this. Could too much flow have done this?
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