Losing a neon birds nest and hydronaphora frag

[Veetz89]

A little history before I list everything:
I measured nitrates and kept getting 0 so I decided to remove 75% of my chaeto ( I hadn't collected it for a while) During this time frame, I upped my 2 part dosage to compensate a .5 dkh daily consumption. Was originally .4
After 7 days I retested and found my alk had climbed from the usual 8 to 9.7. Upon inspection I found my hydronaphora frag had brown and white tips forming. I stopped dosing to naturally bring my alk down. Now I'm seeing a birds nest showing signs of tissue loss. Again my alk climbed very slowly and I let it drop slowly. I decided to recheck my nitrates and found 20 ppm!

Other things that have changed this month is my lighting. I added t5s to my leds but matched the current par to the past par.

Light schedule:
8 hours of t5 on
Kessil a360we ramp up and down peak for 6 hours with t5s of 30%

Display tank:
90 gallon w/sump

Filtration:
Skimmer 24/7
Chaeto with reverse light schedule
Filter floss

Live stock:
Foxface
Sailfin
Hippo
Clownfish
Combtooth blenny
Scooter dragnet
Adorned wrasse


Parameters now:
Dkh 7.8
calcium 415
magnesium 1400
nitrates 20ppm



The birds nest is a month old
The hydronaphora has been with me for a couple of months

Could my nitrates have caused this?

TIA

 

[rkpetersen]

I'd suspect the alk swings first for tissue loss.

Your nitrate presumably went up after you removed the chaeto nutrient sink. Might contribute to browning, but shouldn't cause regression.

What's your phosphate? This can have a pretty big impact on some corals, too high or especially too low.

Adding T5s to the LEDs shouldn't cause any problems, especially if you matched the PAR. With my hybrids, I left the LEDs alone and gradually increased the T5 photoperiod starting with a couple hours.

 

[ChicagoNanoGuy]

What is your flow like and where in the tank is the BN placed in that flow, SPS dominant need what would seem like over kill but they love it. Ever scuba and felt how strong the currents are over the SPS reefs you don't even have to kick you just move along like your flying and ig it can move a 200 LBS human imagine it across unmovable objects? good luck and a picture would help just found this forum. Good Luck
Chi

 

[Veetz89]

What is your flow like and where in the tank is the BN placed in that flow, SPS dominant need what would seem like over kill but they love it. Ever scuba and felt how strong the currents are over the SPS reefs you don't even have to kick you just move along like your flying and ig it can move a 200 LBS human imagine it across unmovable objects? good luck and a picture would help just found this forum. Good Luck
Chi

It was in direct flow

 

[Veetz89]

I'd suspect the alk swings first for tissue loss.

Your nitrate presumably went up after you removed the chaeto nutrient sink. Might contribute to browning, but shouldn't cause regression.

What's your phosphate? This can have a pretty big impact on some corals, too high or especially too low.

Adding T5s to the LEDs shouldn't cause any problems, especially if you matched the PAR. With my hybrids, I left the LEDs alone and gradually increased the T5 photoperiod starting with a couple hours.

My phosphates were .03 on the hanna checker and undetectable with salifert. This was a while ago, I havent checked it with the hanna yet because I was conserving test reagent. It comes with like 3. Pretty lousy.

 

[rkpetersen]

My phosphates were .03 on the hanna checker and undetectable with salifert. This was a while ago, I havent checked it with the hanna yet because I was conserving test reagent. It comes with like 3. Pretty lousy.

That level is obviously fine. I'm curious whether it has also gone up, with your nitrate.

And I know, they should tell you to just buy a pack of refills at the same time. ;Shifty