Joshua M Hall
Active Member
Okay, so my tank is approximately 8 months old now. It is a IM20 and I do weekly 2.5 to 5 gallon water changes. Approximately 20 lbs of rock. I has been very solid and I am extremely OCD about EVERYTHING. I mean everything! From testing almost daily, logging daily, cleaning, feeding, etc... I won't even stick my hands in the water unless I have rinsed them very well with tap water, dried them completely, then rinse and scrub them with 0 TDS RO/DI water and then dry them off with another separate clean paper towel. I have the Neptune DOS and I am currently dosing 3ml/day Seachem Reef Fusion Part 1 throughout the day and 2 throughout the night. My test results are as follows and are ALWAYS these results: Temp 77.6 - 77.9, S.G. 1.025, PH 8 night - 8.3 day, KH 8.7 - 9.1, Ca 415 - 430, Mg 1260 - 1300, NO3 4ish after water change - 10 prior to water change, PO4 .03. I feed Frozen Mysis Shrimp 99% of the time with occasional feedings of Reef Roids and Acropower. If I am in an absolute pinch I will conservatively feed dried Mysis Shrimp pellets. So, shortly after setup I decided to put in a small stick of cheap, but pretty, Green Acro to use as a litmus test if you will. After a day or so I noticed it had red bugs on it (rookie mistake) so I decided to pull it, dip it (Seachem Reef Dip), scrub it (lightly) with a soft tooth brush and I placed it back in (ok, so I may have also did a very quick dip in fresh water to rinse off prior to placing back into the tank. I would rather have a dead coral than red bugs). Results, No more red bugs! Unfortunately the stick hated the process and almost immediately lost it's color. Although it was not happy with it's bath, it's polyps came back out after a few hours and after a few months started to color back up. When I could tell it was going to make a full recovery I decided to glue it where I wanted it and in doing so I accidentally broke off a tiny little piece from its base. I decided to glue that tiny broken piece right in front of the stick just for the hell of it. Fast forward 4 months or so the stick seemed happy, was growing and continuing to color up. It put down a very solid base. About 2 months ago I added a second XR15 because I noticed a lot of shaded areas in my tank. After I installed the second light I reduced the overall intensity to compensate for the additional light. Unfortunately, I did not reduce it enough and after several weeks my corals started to show signs of fading. I immediately reduced the light down from 29% to 20% intensity (not brightness) using a modified AB+. All the corals have shown very positive signs and coloration. Thankfully I did not lose a single piece. At no time did any of the corals start to die and as a matter of fact they actually looked very happy minus the lack of color. Now for the confusing part. Remember the Green Acro that had the red bugs and the broken piece? Well it went from fading from the additional light, to starting to color up, and now to almost completely browning out. But... oddly enough the broken piece that is literally right in front of it and actually a tad lower is looking beautiful. what the heck!!! Same coral, same location, one pretty much completely brown (but with happy polyps as you can see) and the little broken piece with same or possibly even a tad less PAR is perfect color. Anyone have a clue why this could be happening?. All of my other Acros (same level and location) are not showing any signs of light deficiency at all. I understand that some Acros require different light than others but if that was the case here then the tiny broken piece should be showing the same browning. Both piece are directly under the lights. Additionally the brown piece has a very pretty green growth ring on the base?!?!... What gives? Please help! Here are a couple pics and a short video. In the first pic you can see the small green triangle, that is the broken piece. The green you see to the right and left of the broken piece is the growth ring around the base of the stick. Thanks everyone!
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