Some corals acting funny

[Telefonica007]

Hello everyone.. I have a 90g reef tank that's been up and running for 3 yrs. Last week I noticed my 6head Duncan and 26 head frog spawn close up. My alk was low so since then I've been at it. These are my reading but they still aren't looking great. My Duncan looks much better but frog spawn isn't. Few acros have no extension...

PH 8.2
Cal 500
Mag 1400
Alk 8.4
Salinity. 024
Nitrates 0
Ammonia 0

I run my diy LEDs for 8 hrs for over a year now. Everything looked great 2 weeks ago. I run a sump w/ skimmer and dose bionic. Ideas?


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[revhtree]

Hmm weird! Hard to say I would think since your stumped! My friend had a colony with over 200 heads of frogspawn that went south in a similar fashion. He never figured it out.

 

[Telefonica007]

Only real change I made was lowering my light 2 inches but I've raised it back & new stronger power head. I may cut a head of that frog spawn and place it in frag tank incase.

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[bct15]

What was the alk when you noticed the issues (I'm assuming the parameters you posted are current parameters)? With salinity = 0.024 do you mean specific gravity is 1.024? What kind of fish are in there with it? I've heard of lps not opening when growing new heads, you see any sprouts? How fast did you bring the alk up?

If you just fixed the issues it might take a little while to see it make a turn around.


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[Telefonica007]

It was a 5.... Yes readings are from today. Yup 1.024 salinity .. Tank has sailfin tang, regal tang, 2 clowns, midas blenny & pinstripe wrasse.. Alk took a little over a week. I dosed just one part of bionic for alk. My frog spawn has been splitting a lot in the past 3 months. 24heads to 35. I've fragged a few. That was a month ago though

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[Telefonica007]

I'm thinking that also, just wait and see what happens... Give it time to adjust

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[Telefonica007]

OK... Checked water today.

Ph 8.2
Salinity 1.o24
Alk 8.2
Calcium 640!!
Magnesium 1600!!
I checked them twice. Had to move frog spawn to frag tank and it looks wayyy better. My torch also had shrank a lot! Moving that in few minutes. Not sure what's going on.


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[mcarroll]

Typically, high Ca isn't usually an issue. Same for Mag. I've accidentally had my Ca as high as 700 and the only perceptible side effect was a growth spurt and improved color for my SPS. (Your test kit is really only accurate to about 500 ppm, so you have to get creative to measure or calculate it higher than that.)

Unless you aren't sure what brought those numbers up so high I wouldn't worry and keep looking elsewhere for the problem.

OTOH, if you're not sure what happened and you just "have" really high Ca and Mg, then this could warrant some more digging.

-Matt

 

[Telefonica007]

I changed 2 power heads to just 1 that's stronger. And added 30pounds of live rock but that was 2-3months ago. Tank has been great till now

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[mcarroll]

2 pumps to 1 may have given you more flow in numbers, but the reality in your tank (Hello, turbulence!) may be different.

Being down to only one flow source (single point) can actually decrease overall flow due to the increase in dead zones - or areas that are somehow physically obscured from the "line of sight" of that one pump, thus now depending on "reflected" flow which is always going to be less powerful than the originating flow. Maybe half or less depending on the case. If you put any of that additional 30 lbs of live rock into the tank, you may have contributed to this effect. Depends a lot on the layout of the tank, placement of the pumps, and even what kind of pumps, but something to seriously consider IMO. (Some rules of thumb: More rock = less flow. Open rock structure is better than otherwise. Structures built away from the tank walls are better than those that touch them.)

Mine is a different scenario from yours, but I'll give you an example of how big a difference a small (to you or me) change in flow can make. I once re-glued a baseball-sized birdsnest coral back onto it's mount facing the wrong way after accidentally snapping it off at it's base during cleaning. It was an accident in the first place as the colony was pretty uniform, with only a slight lean to delineate "front" from "back" and the tank was cloudy from cleaning - I just couldn't tell....not really even when the water cleared. (And I was a newb.) Anyway, after remounting, its lean was now in reverse of how it had grown in, and as I came to discover it was now leaning right into a "flow shadow" of a big rock that was up closer to the pump on the side wall. Leaning the original way it was clear of the "shadow" and getting nice flow all the time - it must've been just on the edge of that dead spot the whole time though. That birdsnest was 100% dead 24hrs later when I got back from work.

I would do your best to try and recall how the flow was for each coral before changing pumps and see if you can find any places that used to be high flow that now may not be - really any place there is a big difference in the before and after. The good thing if you find this to be the case is that it's an easy fix. :)

Anyway, just some thoughts.

-Matt

 

[Telefonica007]

Sad to say I got home late last night after being out all day and the power was off. It was probably off the whole day but my fish made it. Most of the corals did not. I pulled what I thought could be saved and put them in my frag tank. Some have opened and some have not... No luck the past few days!!

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[mcarroll]

OMG that blows... :(

Even after a few days of being pretty dead-looking corals can sometimes make surprising recoveries. Look close and unless they are dead-bare skeletons, I would take my time throwing things out. Just restore conditions to how they should be and keep on truckin...maybe some more things will open up and recover.

Good luck!

-Matt

 

[Telefonica007]

Good idea. Temp has been stable at 79 all day, magnesium is 1400, calcium is 500, alk & pH are good also. I'll just keep it moving and have faith it will turn around. Thnx!

 

[bct15]

The 20-30 lbs of new rock may have caused a new cycle, the stress from it might just now be popping up.

Sucks about the power outage thing. I've had coral come back out of skeletons before, that seemed completely dead.


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[Wrx5803]

Deff. Dont chuck your corals yet unless you know they are dead. I had an issue a few months ago and my coral looked like they were gone. Tank was cloudy it smelled but after several big water changes It started to clear up. I thought everything was dead. There was zero color in my sps. But with just the blue leds on I noticed the smallest spec of color on the bases of some. A few weeks later most of them bounced back and after a few months look good as new. The crash came after I added a frag tank to my system I really dont know what happend but think the slightly colder new saltwater botherd my leather which then got stressed and dominoed into a massive issue.

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