brain bleaching but puffy

[wakefick]

I have an open brain, used to be red rimmed, green inside, with about 3 mouths. I have had it for three years. It has gotten bigger and been relatively happy. In the last four months I guess, it has gotten progressively whiter or see through. It still extends, it's just lost it's color. It had not been moved, no change in water, lighting, tankmates, nothing. It was midway in the tank and I took it down to the sand in the last month. Maybe a little better, I can't really tell. I have a 30 gallon tank, I've had the brain about the same amount of time as the tank. It does not take food as readily as it has in the past (shrimp).
Any thoughts?
My brain would appreciate it.

[GMAX]

Water parameters please.

[wakefick]

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
pH 8.0
just did an additive to up the pH to 8.2 this past weekend

[GMAX]

Alk?

Calcium?

phosphate?

[shaggydoo541]

How old are your bulbs? Also what kind of lighting are you using? I had an open brain do this at one point and after moving it closer to the lighting it was happy. Normally this is not the case w/ these red brains as they generally like low light but its a thought.

[splateee]

What is you water temp? Reason i am asking is that we also have a red/green open brain that looked great for about a month or so and it started to loose all the red color and started to bleach as well as our frogspan and hammer. It turned out that the temp was hovering around 86 degrees and was causing the corals to slowly bleach. I have since corrected the temperature and the brain is coloring back up nicely and the frogspawn and hammer look good agin too. Also do you feed your brain/corals?

[Justin74]

In the meantime you can at least act on what you do know. Raise the pH up to 8.2 at least and shoot for the sweet spot between a high of 8.4 a few hours before the lights go off and 8.2 a couple hours before they come on. But you want to keep it at least at 8.2 that way it will be one less stress. Dripping kalk at night is a very viable suggestion to help accomplish this, if you dont already.

Water perameters aside, sounds like a light or food issue. Whats been different about your lighting within the past 3 months? What kind of lighting are you using? Since it obviously doesnt doesnt have enough zooxanthella to support its nutritional needs, manual feeding/supplement is very important, and could very well be necessary for its survival. Mysis,cyclopeeze,rotifers are all a great start. Lots of food and very close eye on your water perams to compensate for the heavier feeding and it should be good as gold assuming there was no issues that resulted from lighting,if so, then those issues would also need to be addressed as well. Good luck :)

-Justin