I've been running my 25 gallon peninsula tank on an AI Prime 16 HD light for about 3 months, a new tank. Ran it for 12 hour photo period with 60% across the blue spectrum and 15% cool white.
Things in the tank were fairly stable, I more or less skipped the ugly phase. No nuisance algae to speak of. I keep my nitrates and phosphates under control, My two clownfish are mostly fed frozen food and I do weekly 20% water changes. Coralline algae was growing pretty fast, SPS corals in the tank were surviving but not really thriving, with exception to a rainbow montipora.
Then I got it in my head that I wanted an Ecotech XR15 G6. The result has been a steady decline in the SPS corals on my tank. Bleaching from the base spreading up to the tips. I've lose one entirely and now I'm in damage control mode. I realized the change in the power of the light was probably the reason, so I dialed down the intensities to 40% across the blue spectrum and zeroed out the others. I'm trying to further mitigate the damage by dosing some amino acids, but it doesn't seem to help much.
The question is, where should I go from here? Should I switch back to the old AI Prime? Or do I ride this out with lower intensity on the G6 and hope for the best? My instinct tells me to switch back, but I get the feeling that too much is changing too fast in the tank.
Also here are the water parameters, which i measured yesterday:
Phosphate: 0.09
Nitrate: 3.8
Calcium: 405
Alkalinity: 9.7
PH: 8.4
Salinity: 1.026
Recent changes to the water besides water changes are I dosed a little sodium carbonate to bring up the alkalinity, which had dipped to 7.6 before dosing, and dosing calcium.
Things in the tank were fairly stable, I more or less skipped the ugly phase. No nuisance algae to speak of. I keep my nitrates and phosphates under control, My two clownfish are mostly fed frozen food and I do weekly 20% water changes. Coralline algae was growing pretty fast, SPS corals in the tank were surviving but not really thriving, with exception to a rainbow montipora.
Then I got it in my head that I wanted an Ecotech XR15 G6. The result has been a steady decline in the SPS corals on my tank. Bleaching from the base spreading up to the tips. I've lose one entirely and now I'm in damage control mode. I realized the change in the power of the light was probably the reason, so I dialed down the intensities to 40% across the blue spectrum and zeroed out the others. I'm trying to further mitigate the damage by dosing some amino acids, but it doesn't seem to help much.
The question is, where should I go from here? Should I switch back to the old AI Prime? Or do I ride this out with lower intensity on the G6 and hope for the best? My instinct tells me to switch back, but I get the feeling that too much is changing too fast in the tank.
Also here are the water parameters, which i measured yesterday:
Phosphate: 0.09
Nitrate: 3.8
Calcium: 405
Alkalinity: 9.7
PH: 8.4
Salinity: 1.026
Recent changes to the water besides water changes are I dosed a little sodium carbonate to bring up the alkalinity, which had dipped to 7.6 before dosing, and dosing calcium.