Acan Color Worries Me! Any Suggestions

[baseballkid5]

I have 3 acans 1 cherry red and 1 Green and Purple both from Lfs. Have had them for 4 months or so. The outer areas are a transparent color insted of the natural green and or Red. The Third Acan is a small frag doing grat color is good and just cant figure out the reason the colors are fading. So ill list my tank params.

75 gallon aga with Megaflow
2k 4s not shooting right on them.
Nitrate 0.0-0.3
Nitrite 0
ammonia 0
Ph 8.4
temp 78-79
Calcium 350
Alk 900-950
Any suggestions would be great i feed mysis couple times a week and they catch some artic pods as well. Located about 8 inches off the sand bed. and the lights are 6bulb t5s.
Thanks for any help

 

[baseballkid5]

One other thing is as you can see in one of the pics i have a green cap and its turning white in the middle is that bleaching and if so how can that be stopped.

 

[treehugger]

Have you had any quick changes in your alk or magnesium? Alk 900-950? When I nuked my tank with Mg to get rid of bryopsis, my acans turned like yours but with good water quality and proper feeding they colored back up better then they were within a month.

 

[baseballkid5]

I dont think so. I tested my cal and alk last night and everything seemed normal.I have to test Mag havent done that yet.Is the i believe Alk 950 i test with Elos and it took 18 drops and almost changed color with one more it changed completely thats why i wrote 900-950.

 

[treehugger]

when and how quickly did they start to lose color? You haven't dosed anything new lately? Do you dose two part or have a ca reactor or what is your method to keep your levels? Alk of 900-950 is that in ppm? what unit do those test kits test in?..I would think elos would be in dKH but I could be wrong

 

[WA coral]

I keep mine up closer to the light and feed with a turky baster at night or in the morning and fill them full of mysis and coral frenzy or what ever else I have to give them varity but I feed them heavy it almost looks like the alge insde of them is dieing could be an indicator of ph swing at night or possibly to much light I would be interested to kow if you are dosing anything as well

 

[apollothesun]

what type of lighting do you have, how old are your bulbs?

 

[baseballkid5]

I have 6 bulb 48" T5. And i do not dose anything. I just change water and all my tests have been normal from Barrier as well as my own testing. And for light they are closer to the bottom then the top. The lights are 2 months old.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I keep mine up closer to the light and feed with a turky baster at night or in the morning and fill them full of mysis and coral frenzy or what ever else I have to give them varity but I feed them heavy it almost looks like the alge insde of them is dieing could be an indicator of ph swing at night or possibly to much light I would be interested to kow if you are dosing anything as well

Agree. I have had great luck keeping them right in the sand with detritus drifting across them. They grew like crazy

 

[WA coral]

how long have the acans been in there?? if the bulbs are 2 months old I would suspect that this bleaching started soon after the new bulbs maybe 2-3 weeks after?? my frog spawn and some of my other lps would do the same thing after getting new bulbs untill I moved them down or in some cases to a shady area untill the bulbs burned in.. one other thought I had was one time I have the outside of a halide bulb break but the filament kept burning and if fried alot of my corals I know you have t 5s but you may want to check your bulbs for any suspect damage

 

[jezzeaepi]

Have you tested your salinity lately?(and checked your calibration on your refractometer?)

I too would recomend moving them to the sand.

 

[kgross]

From the specs you list, you need to increase the calcium, and double check the alkalinity.

Kim