Please Help - Everything is Bleaching
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Surfandturf
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That's weird then. From everything I see, it's too much light. I disagree with another poster's comment about waiting an extra week for a water change. If it were me, I would start doing at least 30% a week for a few weeks.
TexasTodd
Valuable Member
If you had a pro from WWC come to your house; do what that person says. What did they say to set the light at? And, how to change it as in first setting immediately and change per week up to XX etc.
Do a send off water test anyway. Your home kit could be off.
I still say put a couple new corals in there. If they stay looking good, you're on the way. The damaged corals could take a long time to show improvement. Decline happens fast, recovery slowly.
Do a send off water test anyway. Your home kit could be off.
I still say put a couple new corals in there. If they stay looking good, you're on the way. The damaged corals could take a long time to show improvement. Decline happens fast, recovery slowly.
@Daniel Waters @TexasTodd @Bullnose @Surfandturf @Dana Riddle
Thanks to all of you so far for everything.
I think you guys got it backwards. I was using 10% of overall brightness and they said that it wasn't enough. My tank is really, really deep. I had 3 professionals including 2 managers coming to my house and all of the said the same thing. Tank super clean, not enough livestock, huge skimmer (rated for 300-350 gallons), chaeto dying e too too much filtration.
They told to right now forget about the numbers, wait the icp test, bump up the lights to 35% (just blues for 3 weeks then 5% white), run the skimmer 12 hrs per day.
From their point of view the tank is starving even thought is shows
Nitrates - 25
Phosphates - 0.11
Best Regards
Dana Riddle
2500 Club Member
Dana Riddle
2500 Club Member
If you're feeding the corals, they're probably not starving. I think ReefRoids was mentioned in this thread. This is one of those situations where there is conflicting advice and it would be easy to get confused. In the end, you'll have to make a decision on what you think is best.
Your corals aren't starving given the way you are feeding and your nutrient numbers. Your corals had a severe stress event that made them bleach. This may have been partially due to light or a confluence of factors or some random thing we just don't understand or could observe. Turning your lights down slightly and continuing to feed are prudent steps to helping your corals recover (down from your original lighting). However, you dropped your lights a lot compared to where you were. Thus, going back to 35% but with just blues for 3 weeks and adding in a bit of white in a few weeks later should be good given the par numbers you shared earlier when you weren't running your lights so low (when the WWC guys visited).
Once again, I'd like to see what a Triton test reveals. If all comes back okay, I think you could try another Lps coral and see how it does. Your current corals will take some time to recover. A new coral addition may be helpful in that regards to give you a better gauge to see if things seem to be on track.
If you do choose to feed even more than you are, I think you should monitor your nutrient levels accordingly. It's easy for the WWC to say you are starving your tank b/c maybe they think you were keeping your lights that low from the beginning (which you weren't doing).
Once again, I'd like to see what a Triton test reveals. If all comes back okay, I think you could try another Lps coral and see how it does. Your current corals will take some time to recover. A new coral addition may be helpful in that regards to give you a better gauge to see if things seem to be on track.
If you do choose to feed even more than you are, I think you should monitor your nutrient levels accordingly. It's easy for the WWC to say you are starving your tank b/c maybe they think you were keeping your lights that low from the beginning (which you weren't doing).
The reason I said lights was because of the bleaching of your meaty corals. They don't look to be receding and still inflate. I have a wellso and some favias that will not tolerate ANY direct light. He is under a plating monti, and any part under the lights will start to look pale just like that. ~ a week in the shade and the color comes back. My Euphyllia are not very sensitive to light on the other hand, so I can't really explain that. Hope you get to the bottom of this soon. Keep us posted. Good luck!
Hey Guys,
Amazing news...
First I huge shout out to @Dana Riddle @Daniel Waters and everyone else for helping me.
My ICP test came back. A couple things I would like to mention before sharing the test. My new pieces that I bought are still doing great. I started FUEL and kept REEF ROIDS.
Here's my test for my RO/DI water and TANK SAMPLE:
Amazing news...
First I huge shout out to @Dana Riddle @Daniel Waters and everyone else for helping me.
My ICP test came back. A couple things I would like to mention before sharing the test. My new pieces that I bought are still doing great. I started FUEL and kept REEF ROIDS.
Here's my test for my RO/DI water and TANK SAMPLE:
Odd that you are showing copper. I wonder if that is within the tolerance level of the test. I'm not even sure if elevated copper is an issue or not. Elevated aluminum is odd, although I dont think that's necessarily harmful either (I use marine pure blocks and get elevated aluminum readings but it does not seem to bother my corals). I don't see anything that jumps out at me, but I'm not a water test interpretation expert by any stretch!
If your new corals seem to be doing well, I still stand by my original diagnosis that a bit too much light and maybe some other unknowns stressed your LPS and is to blame. I would expect a full recovery for your older corals in time.
By the way, I read in another post recently that you were thinking of using GFO or making some other changes? I would highly caution making any changes for a while. Furthermore, I dont like the idea of you feeding more to keep elevated nutrients only to turn around and try to strip those same nutrients back out via chemical means (such as using gfo). Find a healthy balance of feeding and water changes to get to the nutrient levels you want, but dont feel like you need to chase numbers. My tank runs 10 nitrates and I've stopped worrying with it, as the amount of effort it would take for me to try to drive it lower seems counter productive or likely to cause unforeseen problems. Note, I still monitor my nutrient levels, but I look for stability and trends and try not to focus on a specific number, unless something gets way off.
If your new corals seem to be doing well, I still stand by my original diagnosis that a bit too much light and maybe some other unknowns stressed your LPS and is to blame. I would expect a full recovery for your older corals in time.
By the way, I read in another post recently that you were thinking of using GFO or making some other changes? I would highly caution making any changes for a while. Furthermore, I dont like the idea of you feeding more to keep elevated nutrients only to turn around and try to strip those same nutrients back out via chemical means (such as using gfo). Find a healthy balance of feeding and water changes to get to the nutrient levels you want, but dont feel like you need to chase numbers. My tank runs 10 nitrates and I've stopped worrying with it, as the amount of effort it would take for me to try to drive it lower seems counter productive or likely to cause unforeseen problems. Note, I still monitor my nutrient levels, but I look for stability and trends and try not to focus on a specific number, unless something gets way off.
Hey Daniel,
Yeah I'm really confuse about the silicon, copper and phosphorus in the RO/DI. Regarding the BRS Dual Reactor I'm assuming you saw that I have 0.32 - PO4 and 15 Nitrates. So if you think I should use these reactors what's your suggestion to remove them? Like an algae scrubber? Because clearly water changes are not doing anything.
Florida Sunshine
Well-Known Member
I just want to chime in on something that was mentioned earlier on but not really addressed and that is your cheato dying. I believe that happened because it was not tumbling or moving around enough. I have seen a number of cases where cheato in relatively still water dies off and decays sometimes rapidly.
I will leave the test results evaluation to those that know a lot more than me. I just know how to kill cheato.
I will leave the test results evaluation to those that know a lot more than me. I just know how to kill cheato.
I think running carbon is fine. GFO is fine for short term use in my opinion but you need to use it cautiously and in moderation because it can aggressively strip your phosphate levels very quickly.
If it were me, I'd stick with trying to grow chaeto. It should thrive with those nutrient numbers.
As far as your test results, I didn't realize one was your RO/DI water.
If your corals are looking good, do you care what your phosphate numbers are? Are you having algae issues.
If it were me, I'd stick with trying to grow chaeto. It should thrive with those nutrient numbers.
As far as your test results, I didn't realize one was your RO/DI water.
If your corals are looking good, do you care what your phosphate numbers are? Are you having algae issues.
I just want to chime in on something that was mentioned earlier on but not really addressed and that is your cheato dying. I believe that happened because it was not tumbling or moving around enough. I have seen a number of cases where cheato in relatively still water dies off and decays sometimes rapidly.
I will leave the test results evaluation to those that know a lot more than me. I just know how to kill cheato.
Thanks a lot for pointing that out brother. I'll keep moving my chaeto as muck as I can
I'm thinking since I already bought the dual reactor use both of them for carbon split the dose between both canisters and for phosphates all the guys at BRS told to go with an algae scrubber. According to them is the safest and natural way of removing PO4
Just to be sure we are both on the same page, when you program your lights through ecosmart, you click on each reference point. You have the ability to set a % for each color channel (blues, uv, violet, whites, green, red, etc...). You then have the ability to set the intensity for those color channels. After you save it, the graph will show an overall intensity % for that light point based on the % for each color channel and intensity % you selected.
Changing the white channels by 3% should be fine. Changing the INTENSITY for the light point by 3% might be too much. You want to keep the OVERALL light intensity changes very minimal. To give an example, say you are running your blues, uv, violet at 100%, whites, green, and reds at 15% and at a 25% intensity. Your overall intensity for that light point will show as 16% on ecosmart. You would not want that overall value to change that much. A change from 16% to 20% for instance is not just a 4% increase...it would represent a 25% overall increase in light intensity (4 / 16 = 25%)! So just be sure any changes you do are truly small changes.
I think earlier in this thread, several of us had advocated turning your lights down slightly, but you wound up turning them down significantly. You may have meant to do that, but your overall light schedule before did not seem that far out of line based on the par values you shared. LPS are not going to need a lot of light
I don’t want to throw a bunch more info into this but I too believe your lighting is the issue. My suggestion is to start with s know schedule that works for your coral types. With Radions the AB+ schedule is great. I run it at 70% but I always follow the idea of acclimating. So in this case I started out at 40% overal intensity and worked up to 70%.
I always point this out because I don’t see it said enough. It’s not just led lighting itself that makes it easy to fry corals. It is specifically the white led channel that is the killer. With my radion g4 anything over 30% with the white channel and lps and softies start having issues. That powerful white light channel is probably only needed higher if your running sps.
I always point this out because I don’t see it said enough. It’s not just led lighting itself that makes it easy to fry corals. It is specifically the white led channel that is the killer. With my radion g4 anything over 30% with the white channel and lps and softies start having issues. That powerful white light channel is probably only needed higher if your running sps.
I would say your ramping up to your peak setting very fast and holding there for a long time. I like to build up to my peak more gradually.
Right now you probably don’t have enough white light. I run my white channel at 25% and the overal intensity is 70%. I know if I go from my settings to your I will get browning and bleaching of corals. Sometimes too much light and too little light cause the same look.
What did your schedule look like before this recent change to lower intensity?
Right now you probably don’t have enough white light. I run my white channel at 25% and the overal intensity is 70%. I know if I go from my settings to your I will get browning and bleaching of corals. Sometimes too much light and too little light cause the same look.
What did your schedule look like before this recent change to lower intensity?
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