First off this is affecting like 2-3% of my corals. I am diligent in inspections and I have just noticed a strange "trend" in some of these corals. I am having a very slow recession mainly on the dimly lit side of the coral. And it is recessing very slowly. Like 3mm per week. On some other corals this might move at only 1mm per week. I currently have two colonies that are going much faster ( RR Pink Floyd and PacMan) but oddly enough secondary colonies of these (in the same system!!!) are doing just great. here are my tank parameters:
600 gallons total, 6 tanks total connected to the same sump.
Par for acros: 1,200-400
Lighting is mostly hybird (MH and LED, T5 and LED, a couple of tanks are T5 only. The LED lights are light bars only. Nothing fancy.
Circulation is what most would consider "high" but not direct blasting.
Red Sea regular salt is used.
Inverts such as snails and shrimp are doing great.
Softies and LPS are doing fine.
Alk: 7.0-8.0 95% of the time. Right now it is at 8.3.....in a 600 gallon system it takes a long time to change (max 0.1 per day). Alk is never outside of 6.5-8.6 (over the course of a full year).
Ca: 450
Mg: 1380
NO3: detectable around 0.5
Phosphates: 0.10-0.15
Zero ammonia or nitrites
I use carbon 1 week out of every 4 weeks. If i change something in my tank (new wavemaker, new plumbing, etc) I will run carbon for a week. Incase there is some residue on it.
My RO/DI water is around 1.0-2.0 TDS
95% of my corals are growing at 0.5"/month on their tips and are rocking! color and growth are killer.
Before we go down the path of pests: I have a QT tank I use for everything. I have a 3 dip system i use for all incoming coral that takes over 3 weeks to complete. I own inspection glasses and inspect all my corals and the left over of my dips. Every month I pick 5 random corals and dip them to observe what dies. I look at them under a microscope for positive ID.
So more on that Alk....it has gone up recently from 7.7...and my Calcium Reactor has been dead constant: 160ml/min and pH of 6.45. So I do know that there is "stress in the water". The corals currently affected are: green slimer, rr pink floyd, pacman, and upscales microlados, and a tich on my GARF bonsia.
Could this be bacterial? Any other ideas? Any suggestions? I am very proactive on this so I have caught this early.
600 gallons total, 6 tanks total connected to the same sump.
Par for acros: 1,200-400
Lighting is mostly hybird (MH and LED, T5 and LED, a couple of tanks are T5 only. The LED lights are light bars only. Nothing fancy.
Circulation is what most would consider "high" but not direct blasting.
Red Sea regular salt is used.
Inverts such as snails and shrimp are doing great.
Softies and LPS are doing fine.
Alk: 7.0-8.0 95% of the time. Right now it is at 8.3.....in a 600 gallon system it takes a long time to change (max 0.1 per day). Alk is never outside of 6.5-8.6 (over the course of a full year).
Ca: 450
Mg: 1380
NO3: detectable around 0.5
Phosphates: 0.10-0.15
Zero ammonia or nitrites
I use carbon 1 week out of every 4 weeks. If i change something in my tank (new wavemaker, new plumbing, etc) I will run carbon for a week. Incase there is some residue on it.
My RO/DI water is around 1.0-2.0 TDS
95% of my corals are growing at 0.5"/month on their tips and are rocking! color and growth are killer.
Before we go down the path of pests: I have a QT tank I use for everything. I have a 3 dip system i use for all incoming coral that takes over 3 weeks to complete. I own inspection glasses and inspect all my corals and the left over of my dips. Every month I pick 5 random corals and dip them to observe what dies. I look at them under a microscope for positive ID.
So more on that Alk....it has gone up recently from 7.7...and my Calcium Reactor has been dead constant: 160ml/min and pH of 6.45. So I do know that there is "stress in the water". The corals currently affected are: green slimer, rr pink floyd, pacman, and upscales microlados, and a tich on my GARF bonsia.
Could this be bacterial? Any other ideas? Any suggestions? I am very proactive on this so I have caught this early.