Some help

jerl77 · Jan 5, 2025

So my sps are turning brown and white I know my phosphate was highly and nitrate is high
Phosphate was sitting around .28
Nitrate 38
I got them down with gfo and water changes but I am not seeing an improvement in the sps.
I dipped a sps today and found no signs of bugs
They just look off

crazyfishmom · Jan 5, 2025

Did I read that right? Nitrate is 0.38? If so, that’s very low. I would suggest 5-10 for nitrate.

Would you be able to provide more parameters and explain your lighting and flow?

In my experience, 0.28 phosphate is not enough to cause issues with browning in SPS; browning tends to be a response to lighting that’s not high enough. The algae living in the coral tissue starts to reproduce in order to be able to make the energy the coral needs to survive. It can also be a stress response so if alkalinity has been swinging some corals may turn brown.

If you’re able to, can you provide more information and a whole tank shot?

jerl77 · Jan 5, 2025

Sorry 38

jerl77 · Jan 5, 2025

crazyfishmom said:
Did I read that right? Nitrate is 0.38? If so, that’s very low. I would suggest 5-10 for nitrate.

Would you be able to provide more parameters and explain your lighting and flow?

In my experience, 0.28 phosphate is not enough to cause issues with browning in SPS; browning tends to be a response to lighting that’s not high enough. The algae living in the coral tissue starts to reproduce in order to be able to make the energy the coral needs to survive. It can also be a stress response so if alkalinity has been swinging some corals may turn brown.

If you’re able to, can you provide more information and a whole tank shot?

Running 8 bulb t5 for 12 hours blues and 6 hours white. 3 mp40s and 2 gyre on top

crazyfishmom · Jan 5, 2025

You have a beautiful tank!

Is it possible your bulbs may be ready to be changed?

It does look like some of the browning is happening in acros that are at the bottom of the tank.

Any recent instability?

In tanks like yours (full and healthy), I really don’t think those nutrient levels would lead to browning unless your nutrients have been considerably lower all along and rose all of a sudden leading to stress.

Uncle99 · Jan 5, 2025

jerl77 said:
Running 8 bulb t5 for 12 hours blues and 6 hours white. 3 mp40s and 2 gyre on top

How old are the T5’s, at one point, they shift colour more to the red.

jerl77 · Jan 5, 2025

crazyfishmom said:
You have a beautiful tank!

Is it possible your bulbs may be ready to be changed?

It does look like some of the browning is happening in acros that are at the bottom of the tank.

Any recent instability?

In tanks like yours (full and healthy), I really don’t think those nutrient levels would lead to browning unless your nutrients have been considerably lower all along and rose all of a sudden leading to stress.

Thank you I just rebuilt the ati fixture so bulbs are 2 months old only thing I can think of is maybe too much light ?

jerl77 · Jan 5, 2025

Uncle99 said:
How old are the T5’s, at one point, they shift colour more to the red.

2 months

KrisReef · Jan 5, 2025

jerl77 said:
So my sps are turning brown and white I know my phosphate was highly and nitrate is high
Phosphate was sitting around .28
Nitrate 38
I got them down with gfo and water changes but I am not seeing an improvement in the sps.
I dipped a sps today and found no signs of bugs
They just look off

Just because you changed the parameters the corals are not going to color back up any time soon.. Stability is a long term thing. The corals coloration is a response to average conditions they experience for the past 2-6 months in the tank. 1 month is just enough time for them to figure out what they want to do next.

When you change water, or bump parameters, or change light schedules everything in the coral has to reset to adjust internally to make the best of the current situation. Keep changing it and the coral will struggle in place.

crazyfishmom · Jan 5, 2025

I think it’s possible that this is a reaction to the switch in lighting. Everything looks really healthy so more likely than not in a few months you’ll see color return to what it was. Unfortunately with browning it does take a few weeks for color to return to normal. I have one coral in my tank that works as my canary in a coal mine; don’t even remember the name. It turns brown when my phosphates get above 0.45 and then goes back to blue/green when below that threshold. Has done it 4 times already in the past year.