Coral Dying with Good Water Quality
 

Hey guys, I've posted here before and thought I would try so again. I have a 60 gallon cube with a 10 gallon sump. My lighting is an Oddyssea 6 bulb 144 watt T5 fixture.I have two Hydor Koralia 1400's for flow and a skimmer.

I have a mixed ref system with a couple of SPS, LPS, and soft corals. I have a yellow tang, 2 chromis, one wrasse, bicolor blenny, blenny, midas goby, and a coral beauty angelfish.

For some reason my tank has suddenly started doing bad. About 2 years ago I would never dose and everything went well. I had a 40 gallon tank and upgraded to my current 60. Before my T5's I had a kessil a350w and i moved over to t5 because I was not happy with the color.

My sps are all turning white throughout their body in spots. Some corals are doing very well like my birds nest, blue enchinata, and stylophora. The tank is pretty well filled. In the last two months I had problems with alkalinity and now it has been lowered and all other levels are doing well.

I am going to perform a wateriest in an hour or two and post some pictures when I am done. If someone has went through this can you please help me.

How old are your bulbs?

have you checked your tank for electricity leaching from a powerhead or cord?

all the bulbs are brand new. They are about a month and a half old
All ATI

Blue
Actinic
Coral
Blue
Actinic
Blue

There are thousands of possibilities, water parameters are the likely culprit. You need to test more often so you constantly know where the parameters are.

There are a lot of possibilities, including that they new lights may be giving off too much/not enough light. But most likely it's the water, what are your calcium levels?

What are your water parameters, specifically calcium, alkalinity and magnesium?

Yes, those would be a good place to start.

I may be wrong about ati bulbs but actinics are the same as blue bulbs. Most set ups I've seen have about a 50/50 between blues and whites (actinic and daylight). Could it be your corals aren't receiving enough/correct par to maintain themselves.

It's a bit unclear for how long you've been running this tank without any major upgrades and/or changes. The new lights(bulbs) could be a reason. Spotty bleaching is a good indication of light overdose. It could be your water parameters combine with lights... We need to know more.

:beer:

if you did have an alk issue - sps some times have a rebound effect or delayed effect to alk

OK I just checked my water right now

This is what I had five days ago
Ca: 445
Mg: over 1600
Alk: 9.1
ph: 8.3
Phosphate: less than .25

This is what I have now
Ca: 440
Mg: 1600
Alk: 9.2
ph: 8.2
Phosphate: less than .25

I used to have an extra coral plus on my tank but replaced it with the actinic. It looked too white and felt as though my corals were getting blasted with too much light.

Nitrates? (my first guess)

Salinity, refractometer? how often do you check. (second guess) How much does your salinity vary throughout the day/week?

You are using API for phosphates less than .25 is not accurate enough for a good reef tank. Get a better phosphate/nitrate test kit. (not that API aren't good quality, it is that the scale is too high to be of any use for an SPS tank) you want .03 levels of phosphates which can't be judged by a 0 or .25 scale.

I don't test nitrates because they are always at 0 And my salinity is at 1.026. Does not fluctuate. I check at least every day or every other day with a refractometer

I'm betting it's the change in the lights.

This tank has been running for about eight months already. The only thing I could think is causing all this are the new lights. The new lights have only been on for about 2 1/2 months. I will post pictures as soon as the lights turn on in a few hours and everything opens up.