Only some of my corals are declining in health

[Palegic]

Some of my corals are declining in health but I cant seem to put my finger on why.

Temp: 80.5
Sg: 1.026
Ca: 450
dKH: 8.5
Mg: 1440
PH: 8.15
NO3: 0.01
P04: 0
Nh4: 0

Lighting is (2) 90w ReefLED fixtures. 11 hrs with 1 hr ramp up morning and 1hr ramp night. Lights are currently turned down to 70% blue & 10% white after noticing my hammer bleaching but not so sure that thats the reason. As my frogspawn is now starting to loose color.
Flow is fairly high flow with a large gyre pump.

Upgraded to a Reefer 250 from a small 29g cube about 4 months ago. Swap over all inhabitants and liverock. Started adding corals a couple of months ago. Some are doing awesome mainly those who made it over from my original cube. Others are doing not so hot. List below:

Red Digita: Growing can see nice white new growth at the tips with bright pink/red polyps. However the majority of the frag the polyps are not bright and not fully extending.
Green Birdsnest: medium to low growth, fully extended polyps. More white the further you get toward the toward base.
Zoas: Razzmataz, blue hornet, rasta, blood sucker, scrambled egg. All doing very well. Razz came from my old tank and they just exploded in growth.
Green Mushrooms: Randomly located, came from my old tank. Also doing awesome.
Ultra Green Sinulara: Doing well. Seems to be growing in size over a month, polyps never seem to fully extend. Very bright green. Photos seen of this coral look wildly different.
Kenya tree: Have had this for over 2 months. Never grown, never fully expands, shrinks at night a lot but always looks very shrunken otherwise consistent. No decline or growth.
Small purple torch frag: Had for 2 weeks. Steady decline, almost dead, receding flesh, shrinking. Some skeleton showing.
Hammer Frag: Single head, always opened. Not super puffy like it was in the shop. First week it looked great, the next few weeks it seemed to slow decline in color bleaching. Some color seems to be coming back but still doesnt look right.
Frogspawn: 12 heads. Bright green awesome coloration for the first week. slowly starting to loose color. Always open and full otherwise.
Duncan: 3 head frag. Doing awesome. Two new heads grew in the past month.
Green Pearl bubble frag: Doing Average. Always opens. No change in size over the past month. It has lost maybe a little color hard to tell. Otherwise remains the same.

 

[BighohoReef]

Any pictures of the tank setup? I might suggest moving the euphyllia to the sandbed for a time to let them acclimate a little in lower light and maybe lower flow.

 

[Palegic]

Any pictures of the tank setup? I might suggest moving the euphyllia to the sandbed for a time to let them acclimate a little in lower light and maybe lower flow.

Sorry yeah they are pretty much as low as they can go. This picture is from a few mornings ago when the lights first started coming on so not every thing is fully opened.

 

[Justin Cook]

What are you testing your PO4 & NO3 with? When I set up my new frag system, I used old water and everything was fine for a while. As I started to do water changes, the colors started to fade. Eventually I realized that my PO4 and NO3 levels were almost zero. I started doing water "Swaps" with my display tank and adding those two nutrient back in to the frag tank and the colors started to get better. Oddly enough, I had a few different corals that didn't seem to be effected at all.

 

[Palegic]

What are you testing your PO4 & NO3 with? When I set up my new frag system, I used old water and everything was fine for a while. As I started to do water changes, the colors started to fade. Eventually I realized that my PO4 and NO3 levels were almost zero. I started doing water "Swaps" with my display tank and adding those two nutrient back in to the frag tank and the colors started to get better. Oddly enough, I had a few different corals that didn't seem to be effected at all.

Interesting. I am testing with Salifert for all tests, and double test Ca, Dkh, and Mg with redsea pro kit once a week. I had an issue with bubble algae on the tank I broke down and swapped to this. So I was in the middle of treating vibrant during the tank swap. I added a carbon GFO on the new tank and levels have been constantly zero. Worried about algae so I have been doing weekly water changes and keeping feedings to every other day so my levels stay zero.

I do however dose AB+ once per week.

 

[DC Reefer]

What are you testing your PO4 & NO3 with? When I set up my new frag system, I used old water and everything was fine for a while. As I started to do water changes, the colors started to fade. Eventually I realized that my PO4 and NO3 levels were almost zero. I started doing water "Swaps" with my display tank and adding those two nutrient back in to the frag tank and the colors started to get better. Oddly enough, I had a few different corals that didn't seem to be effected at all.

I have had similar experience w/ low PO4 and NO3, some corals were thriving while others started to die off. Increased the PO4 levels and NO3 levels and the corals have started to recover without adverse effects for the other corals.

 

[Palegic]

How do you increase those levels accurately?

 

[Justin Cook]

I confess, I was trying to make myself look smarter by describing the issues I was having as if they were a one time event. Honestly, things would start looking better, I'd start doing regular (new) water changes and the colors would fade. I would test NO3 & PO4 and they were around 0 and I would start doing the water swaps. Then the colors would come back. I'm a little embarrassed that it took me a few times over the course of a year to just keep doing the water swap.

The most obvious color fade was seen in my green slimer acro, purple people eater zoas and my euphyllias. The base of the green slimer would fade from bright green to an almost tan color. Purple people eater's would be very, very light purple. The euphyllia's tentacles would fade except for the green tips. It was odd, the parts of the tentacle going from the skeleton to the green tip is normally a nice dark color that contrasts wonderfully with the bright green tip. When my nutrient would get low, that dark color lightened up quite a bit and it really didn't contrast the green tips all that much.

Blastos, acans, some zoas, leptastreas and most montis were not effected at all that I could see.

 

[BighohoReef]

Sorry yeah they are pretty much as low as they can go. This picture is from a few mornings ago when the lights first started coming on so not every thing is fully opened.

I might suggest raising your gyre a bit higher in the tank, just enough so that it's not creating some disturbance at the surface, help to get some oxygen in your water column, it'll help reduce some of that movement you have in your substrate as well. Your euphyllia should be fine in a moderate flow so as long as they aren't being blasted they should be fine. I'd probably say it's something with your chemistry like mentioned above, I'd try adding some more food to your tank do you have benepets or reefroids? AB+ should help as well, try spot feeding a 3-4 times a week.

 

[Palegic]

I might suggest raising your gyre a bit higher in the tank, just enough so that it's not creating some disturbance at the surface, help to get some oxygen in your water column, it'll help reduce some of that movement you have in your substrate as well. Your euphyllia should be fine in a moderate flow so as long as they aren't being blasted they should be fine. I'd probably say it's something with your chemistry like mentioned above, I'd try adding some more food to your tank do you have benepets or reefroids? AB+ should help as well, try spot feeding a 3-4 times a week.

I recently moved the gyre down a bit because it was splashing water. I am getting surface agitation. I can try moving it again its worth a shot.

I literally just starting dosing AB+ once a week. But not target feeding with it.

I only feed every other day. Rotate between LRS Reef Frenzy, Piscine Mysis, and NLF pellets. So I definitely have room to increase. I do have reef roids and target feed with Jullians thing once a week.

 

[Justin Cook]

As far as testing goes, I use the Hanna Ultra Low Range Phosphorus (HI-736) for the phosphate and Salifert for the nitrate. Hanna has come out with a new PO4 meter that doesn't require the conversion that the older phosphorus one does. In my case, the water swaps and minimal dosing with Tropic Marin's NP+ got me where I want to be. I also added a few fish to help keep the nutrient levels up above zero.

 

[ScottB]

IME hammers are the most finicky of the LPS species so I would judge your situation based on their reactions.

That said, unless you are frequently feeding, running low/no nutrient is hazardous to many coral. Of course if you have a tank full of algae, then you have nutrient, but it is getting bound up in the algae. Your pic shows a pretty clean looking tank.

I would dirty it up a little bit. More feedings and maybe spread out your WC schedule a tad. Slow change.

 

[Palegic]

IME hammers are the most finicky of the LPS species so I would judge your situation based on their reactions.

That said, unless you are frequently feeding, running low/no nutrient is hazardous to many coral. Of course if you have a tank full of algae, then you have nutrient, but it is getting bound up in the algae. Your pic shows a pretty clean looking tank.

I would dirty it up a little bit. More feedings and maybe spread out your WC schedule a tad. Slow change.

Okay maybe I will start doing bi-weekly WC. I already anticipated needing to start feeding more. Just worried about going overboard.

 

[ScottB]

Okay maybe I will start doing bi-weekly WC. I already anticipated needing to start feeding more. Just worried about going overboard.

Some gradual changes should not get you in trouble.

Realizing I had a typo above. I meant to say "IME hammers are the most finicky of the LPS species so I would NOT judge your situation based on their reactions. "

 

[Palegic]

Thanks all. Going to start feeding daily again. Don't really want to mess with dosing P04 at the moment.

Not looking forward the cleaning the detritus from the sump

 

[Palegic]

So wanted to post a little update. I have been feeding twice a day and dosing ab+ once a day. Upper reef roids to 2 times so far this week and already seeing an improvement in some of the corals.

I did basically loose the purple torch frag but it didn't do well the moment I put it in the tank so there may have been something wrong with it to begin with.

Still can't get my digi to extend its polyps fully.

Hammer seems to be getting some of its color back and opening up. Also seems to be a branching tyler hammer or frammer.

Frogspawn color is maintaining.

Kenya tree has been more opened then ever.

All the others seem to be doing well same as before.

 

[Flux Capacitor]

Are you still running the gfo?

 

[Palegic]

Are you still running the gfo?

Yeah still running the carbon and gfo. I'm due for a swap so might just use full carbon this go around

 

[Llyod276]

You know if your dosing, might wanna stop carbon... otherwise you're nuetralizing the doses. Also, I have three Kenya tree drags and they dont like light, the best frag I have is in maybe 25-30 par, it's fully extended and has grown like 2"in the past 3-4? Months I've had it. The one that's doing the worst is the one getting killed slowly by the bta, but it refused to be relocated and well its paying the price. The other frag is in a 200 par zone and its turned from tree to bush, often only half open, stopped growing and generally appears like an embarrassed kid, wants to melt into the rock...