Non of my coral look healthy but I can’t find out why?

[Dinodanger]

Sps is pale with no polyp extension lps is shrunk like how it should be when the lights are off some zoas look okay other look deformed slightly so as a test to see if it’s stability I bought a torch coral and added to to the correct flow and lighting to rule out lighting flow and stability I have a correct salinity of 1.025
Dkh of 9.3
Calcium of 460
Magnesium of 1470
Nitrate is around 5ppm and phosphates at around 0.03
I run carbon so I doubt it’s chemical contamination?
Fish I only have one clown one neon dotty back and one royal gramma neither of them would nip at coral right?
I’m lost to why coral are responding this way it’s been like it for ages my old tank was was more successful using same water supply which is 0tds rodi, I have pretty bad cyano could this be a reason it getting on polyps and causing recession?

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's hard to say much based on the photos. The corals don't look that bad IMHO.

So how deep is your tank?
How long has it been running?
what light fixture do you have and what settings are you running?

 

[Luisreefmexico]

Hello.
Are you adding carbon source like nopox?
you need more light not only blue and if you have cyano maybe you have a dis balance of nutrients

 

[Dinodanger]

It's hard to say much based on the photos. The corals don't look that bad IMHO.

So how deep is your tank?
How long has it been running?
what light fixture do you have and what settings are you running?

In person it’s quite obvious somethings not right, the tanks 20inch deep with two ai hydra 26hds 10inchs above the water and here are the settings

 

[Dinodanger]

Hello.
Are you adding carbon source like nopox?
you need more light not only blue and if you have cyano maybe you have a dis balance of nutrients

I was using nopox that’s what’s caused the cyano since then I’ve discontinued nopox and are currently leaving nitrates to raise naturally whilst keeping po4 down with rowaphos to get the nutrients in balance

 

[Ron Reefman]

The light looks OK.

So how long has this tank been set up?

And yes, cyano bacteria will cause corals to be irritated.

 

[Dinodanger]

The light looks OK.

So how long has this tank been set up?

And yes, cyano bacteria will cause corals to be irritated.

Tanks been running around 1year total half way through I had serious Dino from bottoming nitrates out with a fuge nothing would get rid of the Dino so I move all coral and a did a 2month lights off period whilst dosing nutrients abit obsessive but i wasn’t taking any chances since then corals never really flourished

 

[Ron Reefman]

I'm at a loss.

#reefsquad

 

[Dinodanger]

I'm at a loss.

#reefsquad

See my confusion lol I have researched endlessly and like to think I had decent reefing knowledge but my results don’t reflect it

 

[Shirak]

In person it’s quite obvious somethings not right, the tanks 20inch deep with two ai hydra 26hds 10inchs above the water and here are the settings

Have you ever done any par meter checks? Noon to 6-7? with primarily royal blue? Why is the RB set so much higher than blue/violet/uv? I have the same lights and run about the same peak schedule with RB and B at equal amounts with V and UV about 10% less than the blues. A couple percent higher on the R G and about the same white. I also have more ramp starting around 9 am to noon and then 6 pm to 10 pm all channels ramp down faster than the RB and B so that it's mostly all blue in the evening with a little UV and V

I have 3 on a 48" tank 25" Deep, 6" from the water with diffusers. Mid day UV55% V65% RB&B75% GR7% W25% par on the sand bed is roughly 100-150

Personally I think your par is too low and the corals are slowly starving. Slowly tissue recession is a common symptom as the coral shrinks over time from not enough light.

 

[Dinodanger]

Have you ever done any par meter checks? Noon to 6-7? with primarily royal blue? Why is the RB set so much higher than blue/violet/uv? I have the same lights and run about the same peak schedule with RB and B at equal amounts with V and UV about 10% less than the blues. A couple percent higher on the R G and about the same white. I also have more ramp starting around 9 am to noon and then 6 pm to 10 pm all channels ramp down faster than the RB and B so that it's mostly all blue in the evening with a little UV and V

I have 3 on a 48" tank 25" Deep, 6" from the water with diffusers. Mid day UV55% V65% RB&B75% GR7% W25% par on the sand bed is roughly 100-150

Personally I think your par is too low and the corals are slowly starving. Slowly tissue recession is a common symptom as the coral shrinks over time from not enough light.

I have royal blue higher because it gives the best visual appeal for me and it can’t be lack of light because the torch has only been in the tank for 3 days corals take much longer than that to die from lack of light it would fluff up and extend for more light if it’s too low plus the coral come from a lower light system to begin with I haven’t done par test but it’s not the lighting causing the problem, Have Had same issue with much more white which would increase the light to nearly full capacity and two ai hydra 26hd is more than enough par output for lps coral if it’s anything to do with lighting maybe spectrum but I don’t think it would effect it that drastically would it?

 

[Scorpius]

If you started with dry rock it can take upwards of 2yrs to have success with sps. The biodiversity may just not be there. I'm going to also going to go out on a limb and say you need to either lower your light intensity or increase your nutrients, or both

Paling colors always signals to me that the intensity of my lights is to high or on for to long of a photoperiod and my nutrients were low. If you don't want to raise nutrients lower light intensity or the length of your photo period.
Try bumping your feeding schedule up to increase nutrients. An increase in algae is preferable to dead coral.

 

[maroun.c]

In the absence of a clear reason I'd do the following:
- send icp sample to see if theres some contamination or a severe shift in some element you are not aware of.
-do a few 30 percent water changes in 1-2 weeks and make sure water used has 0 TDS.
- check for anything that might have been dropped in the tank .
- maybe run some polyfilter
- check that skimmer is working fine and producing.
- check ur pumps and magnets for any rusted components.

 

[Dinodanger]

If you started with dry rock it can take upwards of 2yrs to have success with sps. The biodiversity may just not be there. I'm going to also going to go out on a limb and say you need to either lower your light intensity or increase your nutrients, or both

Paling colors always signals to me that the intensity of my lights is to high or on for to long of a photoperiod and my nutrients were low. If you don't want to raise nutrients lower light intensity or the length of your photo period.
Try bumping your feeding schedule up to increase nutrients. An increase in algae is preferable to dead coral.

Yeah okay I’ll reduce photo period as l don’t want to mess with spectrum and nutrients are increasing as I’ve nopox

 

[Dinodanger]

In the absence of a clear reason I'd do the following:
- send icp sample to see if theres some contamination or a severe shift in some element you are not aware of.
-do a few 30 percent water changes in 1-2 weeks and make sure water used has 0 TDS.
- check for anything that might have been dropped in the tank .
- maybe run some polyfilter
- check that skimmer is working fine and producing.
- check ur pumps and magnets for any rusted components.

Yeah I’ve just ordered a icp today I always run polyfilter and change it regularly I’ve been doing many water changes but no difference skimmer is fine but won’t rust come up as excess elements like copper and iron in the icp ?

 

[jstncoffman]

How old is your reef tank, and also what are your maintenance schedule like , water changes etc, i do find that chasing numbers can make things very frustrating as long as your as consistent as possible, water top off is one way of staying consistently successful, sometimes letting nature take coarse to a point helps

 

[Shirak]

I have royal blue higher because it gives the best visual appeal for me and it can’t be lack of light because the torch has only been in the tank for 3 days corals take much longer than that to die from lack of light it would fluff up and extend for more light if it’s too low plus the coral come from a lower light system to begin with I haven’t done par test but it’s not the lighting causing the problem, Have Had same issue with much more white which would increase the light to nearly full capacity and two ai hydra 26hd is more than enough par output for lps coral if it’s anything to do with lighting maybe spectrum but I don’t think it would effect it that drastically would it?

If you haven't done any par testing how do you know it's not the light settings? Your spectrum setting is quite a bit different than what's typically run for these lights which could drastically alter how the corals would react and what amount of par they are receiving. Have you watched the BRS video on the Hydra 26HD? Great info to give a baseline on what you might expect if you were to run similar settings, which yours are not...

Based on your settings I am still going with PAR too LOW not too high. But there is only one way to know... par meter.

BRS Investigates Hydra26HD

 

[Dinodanger]

How old is your reef tank, and also what are your maintenance schedule like , water changes etc, i do find that chasing numbers can make things very frustrating as long as your as consistent as possible, water top off is one way of staying consistently successful, sometimes letting nature take coarse to a point helps

Around a year I do water changes of 10% every Saturday I change filter floss around once every three days carbon every month gfo every two weeks roughly depending on po4 levels skimmer cup doesn’t get cleaned often as I don’t feed heavy so there’s not much to skim, I blow of rocks and cyphen sand often and clean glass little that’s all I the maintenance I can think off and I have a ato so fluctuations of salinity arnt a issue

 

[Dinodanger]

If you haven't done any par testing how do you know it's not the light settings? Your spectrum setting is quite a bit different than what's typically run for these lights which could drastically alter how the corals would react and what amount of par they are receiving. Have you watched the BRS video on the Hydra 26HD? Great info to give a baseline on what you might expect if you were to run similar settings, which yours are not...

Based on your settings I am still going with PAR too LOW not too high. But there is only one way to know... par meter.

BRS Investigates Hydra26HD

I think I’ve watched it in the past but I’ll rewatch it now

 

[Shirak]

And no I am not advocating for changing anything until you find out where you are at currently. If you do anything you could leave the lights as is and move the coral up?

What about flow in the tank? Cyano is typically an issue with low flow tanks