What is going on with my reef tank?

[RiverChad]

Hi, first post here. I'll appreciate any feedback or advice on how to get my corals looking good again/ culprits to what is happening in my tank. A few of my acros are started to bleach a week ago and worried my other ones might start as well. My trachy is also not expanding anymore and kind of staying shriveled up. It still accepts feeding at night though. And I use to have a bunch of blue Coraline algae that seems to be disappearing and I have no idea why.
My tank is a 38 gallon AOI. I have 2 ai blades putting about 350-400 par on my acros and around 120-150 par on my trachy and other corals I keep at the bottom. The tank is about 3 years old. The acros and trachy have been in the tank for over a year and have grown quite a bit and used to be way more colorful than they are now. I dose all 4 reef, I use fritz rpm for my water changes and will do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks. I run sea gel and added carbon in my filtration that I replace every water change. Every 2 weeks I'll dose vibrant. I have a high flow rate. For the most part my parameters stay very stable.
Parameters:
Alk: 9
Calcium: 450
Mag: 1350
Salinity: 1.025
Phosphate: .06
Nitrates: 0
Ph: 8
Temp: 80

Tank inhabitants:
2 clownfish and long tentacle anemone
Coral beauty angelfish
Lyretail hawkfish
Cleaner shrimps
Emerald crabs
Snails and hermit crabs

Corals: acros, Duncan, hammer, candycane, gsp, Xenia, zoas, montis, chalice, fungia plate, lepastria, scolys and a few more i can't think of.

Additional info: I removed my sanded about 3 months ago and went with bare bottom. I didn't notice any signs of that stressing out the coral though. A lot of the easier coral (gsp, Duncan, Xenia, zoas) seem to be doing fine. My acros make up about 50% of my coral though so that's what I'm most worried about.

If I need to post anything else or if anyone has any questions just let me know. Thanks

 

[tbrown]

Nitrates 0 and phosphates 0.06 would be the first thing I see. Work on bringing those up a little bit - doesn't have to be a lot, but corals utilize those nutrients and when mine get too low (or sometimes even too high) SPS really seem to suffer.

 

[fishguy242]

agree on lack of nutrients, stop using the vibrant, I run trates above 50 , phos .10 at times higher

 

[Lavey29]

Removing the sandbed took out a lot of beneficial bacteria for your biome. Bottomed out nutrients mean your corals are starving to death. I also wonder if your par has changed to higher because of the reflection off the bare bottom now? Why do you dose a harsh chemical every few weeks?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

vibrant is an algae killer, don't forget that the xoo's in the coral are also algae which is being attacked by vibrant every 2 weeks.

 

[Dburr1014]

Do you run GAC? Sometimes mixed reefs are tough.

PO4 is low, could be closer to zero. How do you test?

Hi, first post here. I'll appreciate any feedback or advice on how to get my corals looking good again/ culprits to what is happening in my tank. A few of my acros are started to bleach a week ago and worried my other ones might start as well. My trachy is also not expanding anymore and kind of staying shriveled up. It still accepts feeding at night though. And I use to have a bunch of blue Coraline algae that seems to be disappearing and I have no idea why.
My tank is a 38 gallon AOI. I have 2 ai blades putting about 350-400 par on my acros and around 120-150 par on my trachy and other corals I keep at the bottom. The tank is about 3 years old. The acros and trachy have been in the tank for over a year and have grown quite a bit and used to be way more colorful than they are now. I dose all 4 reef, I use fritz rpm for my water changes and will do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks. I run sea gel and added carbon in my filtration that I replace every water change. Every 2 weeks I'll dose vibrant. I have a high flow rate. For the most part my parameters stay very stable.
Parameters:
Alk: 9
Calcium: 450
Mag: 1350
Salinity: 1.025
Phosphate: .06
Nitrates: 0
Ph: 8
Temp: 80

Tank inhabitants:
2 clownfish and long tentacle anemone
Coral beauty angelfish
Lyretail hawkfish
Cleaner shrimps
Emerald crabs
Snails and hermit crabs

Corals: acros, Duncan, hammer, candycane, gsp, Xenia, zoas, montis, chalice, fungia plate, lepastria, scolys and a few more i can't think of.

Additional info: I removed my sanded about 3 months ago and went with bare bottom. I didn't notice any signs of that stressing out the coral though. A lot of the easier coral (gsp, Duncan, Xenia, zoas) seem to be doing fine. My acros make up about 50% of my coral though so that's what I'm most worried about.

If I need to post anything else or if anyone has any questions just let me know. Thanks

 

[Dburr1014]

Hi, first post here. I'll appreciate any feedback or advice on how to get my corals looking good again/ culprits to what is happening in my tank. A few of my acros are started to bleach a week ago and worried my other ones might start as well. My trachy is also not expanding anymore and kind of staying shriveled up. It still accepts feeding at night though. And I use to have a bunch of blue Coraline algae that seems to be disappearing and I have no idea why.
My tank is a 38 gallon AOI. I have 2 ai blades putting about 350-400 par on my acros and around 120-150 par on my trachy and other corals I keep at the bottom. The tank is about 3 years old. The acros and trachy have been in the tank for over a year and have grown quite a bit and used to be way more colorful than they are now. I dose all 4 reef, I use fritz rpm for my water changes and will do a 20% water change every 2-3 weeks. I run sea gel and added carbon in my filtration that I replace every water change. Every 2 weeks I'll dose vibrant. I have a high flow rate. For the most part my parameters stay very stable.
Parameters:
Alk: 9
Calcium: 450
Mag: 1350
Salinity: 1.025
Phosphate: .06
Nitrates: 0
Ph: 8
Temp: 80

Tank inhabitants:
2 clownfish and long tentacle anemone
Coral beauty angelfish
Lyretail hawkfish
Cleaner shrimps
Emerald crabs
Snails and hermit crabs

Corals: acros, Duncan, hammer, candycane, gsp, Xenia, zoas, montis, chalice, fungia plate, lepastria, scolys and a few more i can't think of.

Additional info: I removed my sanded about 3 months ago and went with bare bottom. I didn't notice any signs of that stressing out the coral though. A lot of the easier coral (gsp, Duncan, Xenia, zoas) seem to be doing fine. My acros make up about 50% of my coral though so that's what I'm most worried about.

If I need to post anything else or if anyone has any questions just let me know. Thanks

 

[RiverChad]

Do you run GAC? Sometimes mixed reefs are tough.

PO4 is low, could be closer to zero. How do you test?

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't think this post went through. I use the Hanna checkers for alk, phos and nitrates. I'll have my ca and mag checked every couple months at the fish store to ensure they are still at the level they need to be since I use all4reef. I ended up calling my lfs out and they gave me a lot of similar advice as y'all. I ended up lowering my temp a couple of degrees. Starting dosing neo nitro as well as go a little heavier on feedings. Also I was told not to use vibrant excessively, which I'm starting to think was the biggest factor because sometimes I'll just be dumping that stuff in my system without exact measurements. Anyways, since making the changes all of my corals, except one acro seem to be doing a lot better.

 

[RiverChad]

vibrant is an algae killer, don't forget that the xoo's in the coral are also algae which is being attacked by vibrant every 2 weeks.

Thank you, no longer will be dosing vibrant. I'm a simple man, I see algae and I dump product in my tank without thinking

 

[RiverChad]

Removing the sandbed took out a lot of beneficial bacteria for your biome. Bottomed out nutrients mean your corals are starving to death. I also wonder if your par has changed to higher because of the reflection off the bare bottom now? Why do you dose a harsh chemical every few weeks?

I wasn't really thinking about it affecting my corals. I just want to get rid of the green algae that plagues my rocks. I'm done with the vibrant and will become one with the green algae. Also the par has remained the same after checking with a par meter