Torch issues

[Caruso86]

I left for vacation for a week and my tank was looking great. I have a small section dedicated to torches and all were extended and growing extremely quick. Fast forward to being back for a week and they all look like this and have for a week. I did a 20% water change and nothing seemed to change. After testing I know I need to raise my PH and Alk for sure but is that causing this issue? You can see the difference of before and after. No new additions, I also don’t dose calc do not sure how it’s so high. Any insight would be amazing. I’ve turned my skimmer off all week assuming it was low nitrates. I’ve also noticed my Goni isn’t fully opening either.
Ph 7.3
PO4 .5
alk/kh 7.7
Nitrates 2
Calc 500

 

[Caruso86]

Today

 

[Duncan62]

Today

Omg. Did something big die? What's causing the cloudy water? Run your skimmer to oxygenated the water. Run carbon and check main parameters. Nice torches. Good luck!

 

[Caruso86]

Omg. Did something big die? What's causing the cloudy water? Run your skimmer to oxygenated the water. Run carbon and check main parameters. Nice torches. Good luck!

No nothing has died at all, I actually just fed heavy with macro to all the corals, and the side glass is dirty. My hammer and frogspawn look great too… just took these pics

 

[Salty2021]

Like said above check your parameters. Your nitrates might be going up.

 

[Caruso86]

Like said above check your parameters. Your nitrates might be going up.

My parameters posted in the original post are from today.

 

[undermind]

Not sure why everyone's asking for params since you have those in the original post. Do people read entire posts?

You mentioned that you need to get PH up but what is it normally?

Your params don't look terribly strange except for PH. But what's more important than what they are today is trends. Looking at what your tank normally is, how do these compare?

Do you check pH with a test kit or probe?

Are fish breathing fast?

Are you certain that the water isn't cloudy?

 

[Caruso86]

Not sure why everyone's asking for params since you have those in the original post. Do people read entire posts?

You mentioned that you need to get PH up but what is it normally?

Your params don't look terribly strange except for PH. But what's more important than what they are today is trends. Looking at what your tank normally is, how do these compare?

Do you check pH with a test kit or probe?

Are fish breathing fast?

Are you certain that the water isn't cloudy?

Apparently no they don’t. I am not great about testing to be completely honest. I test about every 3 weeks and this dip seems to be new. Here is a current full tank shot. Slight haze? Yes

 

[Caruso86]

Not sure why everyone's asking for params since you have those in the original post. Do people read entire posts?

You mentioned that you need to get PH up but what is it normally?

Your params don't look terribly strange except for PH. But what's more important than what they are today is trends. Looking at what your tank normally is, how do these compare?

Do you check pH with a test kit or probe?

Are fish breathing fast?

Are you certain that the water isn't cloudy?

Sorry I didn’t finish answering
All fish are totally normal and all tests done with salifert

 

[CoralB]

Alk and nitrates low and phosphates too high!!! Phosphates should be .05 ish. Not .5

 

[undermind]

So I’m kind of wondering about the accuracy of the testing.

A pH of 7.3 is actually unusual. PO4 at .5 and NO3 at 2 is a pretty significant imbalance. Not sure what you feed, but with LRS frozen food for example, the nutrients should be balanced so that with a nitrate of 2, you would expect phosphates at .02 or so. And also strange to have calcium at 500 if you don't add anything that would raise it.

All of these things make me feel like testing could be a bit off. If you don't test too often, do you feel confident in your techniques when you do? There's also some of those params that you probably don't do very frequently maybe?

Sorry, I don't mean that in a negative way. But it would be good to get confident results in order to get good help.

I would suggest testing again if the torches still look bad. You could also check for other obvious things like stray voltage, broken heaters, cracked magnets, etc. You'd probably see other issues if there's a problem with one of these, but you never know.

 

[ADAM]

Was someone watching/feeding the tank while you were gone?

Retest for starters to be sure of your levels.

The receded tentacles with seemingly inflated body would lead me to think the torches were (highly) aggravated by the lighting. The high/low parameters would generally effect all the other corals as well, or they would at least have visible signs of stress also. Stray voltage and leaking magnets while good to check for would effect all corals as well. Leaving the skimmer off would reduce the pH and the house being closed up for a week while you were gone would have an effect on pH too, but again, I would expect to see signs of stress on other corals if a sudden drop in pH was the issue.

I would put the lights in acclimation mode to reduce the power by 20-25% for the next two weeks and see how the torches respond.

 

[Caruso86]

So I’m kind of wondering about the accuracy of the testing.

A pH of 7.3 is actually unusual. PO4 at .5 and NO3 at 2 is a pretty significant imbalance. Not sure what you feed, but with LRS frozen food for example, the nutrients should be balanced so that with a nitrate of 2, you would expect phosphates at .02 or so. And also strange to have calcium at 500 if you don't add anything that would raise it.

All of these things make me feel like testing could be a bit off. If you don't test too often, do you feel confident in your techniques when you do? There's also some of those params that you probably don't do very frequently maybe?

Sorry, I don't mean that in a negative way. But it would be good to get confident results in order to get good help.

I would suggest testing again if the torches still look bad. You could also check for other obvious things like stray voltage, broken heaters, cracked magnets, etc. You'd probably see other issues if there's a problem with one of these, but you never know.

Sorry about the late reply.
I’ve checked my test multiple times and they were all the same. I took action and started correcting and it seems things are reacting positive. I slowly started adding kalkwasser to my ato to bring the ph up slowly, I added some xport blocks from brightwell for po4 and I’ve been dosing some neonitro to add some nitrates. Torches have all slowly been looking more normal. So far no losses and things are coming into acceptable ranges slowly. I appreciate everyone’s feedback. I think lack of testing and lack of dosing necessary things threw everything out. 100% my fault but that won’t be happening again

 

[Caruso86]

Was someone watching/feeding the tank while you were gone?

Retest for starters to be sure of your levels.

The receded tentacles with seemingly inflated body would lead me to think the torches were (highly) aggravated by the lighting. The high/low parameters would generally effect all the other corals as well, or they would at least have visible signs of stress also. Stray voltage and leaking magnets while good to check for would effect all corals as well. Leaving the skimmer off would reduce the pH and the house being closed up for a week while you were gone would have an effect on pH too, but again, I would expect to see signs of stress on other corals if a sudden drop in pH was the issue.

I would put the lights in acclimation mode to reduce the power by 20-25% for the next two weeks and see how the torches respond.

Yes I had someone feeding the tank. All torches have been under this lighting for 3 months to almost 3 years. No changes in lighting were made and no one has access to change them. They are older gen 3 xr30s so can’t be changed unless plugged into the computer. I appreciate the input