Blue Tip acropora color fading! help

[Milez803]

anyone know what is the cause of the acropora color to fade. i'm currently running a 250 watts 14k JBJ MH and 2x65 watts power compact with blue lights, in a 55 gallon hex tank. my PC lights turn on 2 hour before the MH and 2 hour after the MH turn off. total of 8 hours. i dose my tank with cal, stro, iodine, coral accel. not sure why some of my sps coral are changing color. i'm barely new into sps coral. any advice would be a big help. thanks

milez

 

[podboy]

Sps are sensitive to any changes in water chemistry. How long have you had them? They will also lose color from the stress involved in transport, or changing from one environment to another. If these are recent additions, then the color fade is likely due to the change.

Are you testing for your calcium levels, alkalinity, etc?

Are your nitrates low enough to support sps?

Do you have enough flow to support sps?

Also, I'm not sure how tall the hex is, but it could also be not enough light depending on how far your corals are from the light.

 

[kevinpo]

Hello,
Most often color changes in the tips of Acropora corals are due to lighting intensity and/or photo period. Aging of the halides and changes of water clarity can have a large impact on light intensity. A halide photo period of at least 8 hours is recommended for most blue tipped Acropora corals. Be sure to note that the loss of the blue tips is not a sign of coral health just an adaptation to environmental changes.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[saltyreefguy]

is this a new specimen recently added to the tank?

 

[Milez803]

thanks for the information.. guys i will increase my 250 watts halides to 8 hours and cut the PC lights into 2 hour prior to the halides. my blue tip acro just die, but i recently pick up a new blue and greenish acro. hoping to keep this one alive, as of right now i don't have a calicum reactor, but i do have a phos reactor and a sump with decent amount of plants. nitrate level should be low, no fish in the tank beside 2 shrimp. i do dose calicum daily with marine kent part A & B. let hope my new sps coral survive, not sure why the blue tip die, my other sps are doing fine.. thanks for the information thou guys

 

[Herefishyfishy]

For all your daily dosing, do you have a high coral load? How long has the tank been up? What all is in the tank? Much mature live rock? Water changes? Do you use test kits and if so, what are the readings?

 

[Milez803]

Another failure in turquoise acropora was bleaching and might not survive. My tank have been develop for about one year, but the live rocks have been move from my 2 year 40 gallon tank. the 55 or 65 hex tank is tall 24 inch and i'm using jbj metal halide lights with 2x 65 (white and blue) power compact lights.
my tank consist of:
Coral
colt leather coral
3 colonies of zoo
6 pieces of montipora cap (2 to 3 inch)
2 pieces of oct frogspawn ( one 4 head & another 8 head)
4 large colonies of pom pom xenia
Birdnest (2 to 3 inch)
branch flowerpot ( pretty large colony)
Star galaxy
7 frag of different sps coral
2 inch stylpora ( wrong spell)
2 green acropora( one bleaching a bit, but look like it have stop)
1 turqoise acropora or some kind of sps
fish:
3 chromis
2 peppermint shrimp
1 mandrian goby
1 corisa warssa ( never see him) girlfriend said only seen in the morning

chemical dose:
marine kent calcium buff (part A & B)
purple up
coral accel
cyclobreeze (copepods)
marine kent Iron
marine kent Lugol iodine
i hope with this information, you guys can give me some more advice, i really want to maintain sps, so i wanna learn to keep these sps coral. i do plan pick up a calcium reactor soon, i assume that might be the issue so far. the way i'm spending money on buying sps coral and dying is very costly. Especially for a college student. thanks for the advice so far.

 

[BCT182]

Are you testing your calcium and alk? Daily 2 part solutions is quite abit for your load.

 

[Milez803]

so do you think i'm overdosing my tank for calcium?

 

[podboy]

If you are not testing for any of the critical supplements you dose,(such as calcium/carbonates), the likelyhood of overdose/underdose is very high.
It's also possible to overdose iodine.

If It were me, I'd stop buying any more sps untill I was sure that my tanks parameters were in the range they need to be.

 

[kevinpo]

Here are some target numbers for SPS corals:
Calcium 380-420ppm
Magnesium 3x your calcium ppm.
Alkalinity 2.90-3.5 meq/L
Nitrates 0-10 ppm.

HTH,
Kevin
PS: I never dose additives that I don't have test kits for.

 

[Holygral]

chemical dose:
marine kent calcium buff (part A & B)
purple up
coral accel
cyclobreeze (copepods)
marine kent Iron
marine kent Lugol iodine

You are putting in a lot of supplements and have yet to post your actual water parameters. If you do not know what the parameters are you are just creating a chemical soup and your current problems are probably just the beginning. You do not need most if not all of these supplements if you do regular water changes. It is real easy to over dose Iodine and the Purple Up will screw your balances way off. Do a 20-25% water change and test all of your parameters 24 hours later with a good test kit like Salifert, and stop adding all the supplements until you know what is going on.

 

[Milez803]

today i actually brought a master test kit, which i haven't test anything beside the calcium, its was reading at 850 mg/L in my tank, i might have overdose on calcium daily. =P i will attempt to do a water change tomorrow to reduce the amount of calcium in the water. today i will test the phosphate and Alk. and i will post the result of my water parameters.. thanks alot guys for the information..

 

[Milez803]

after using the reef lab test kit, my water parameters

Kh( cabonate hardness) -12 dkh
Nitrate(NO3) - 0
Phosphate - 0
Calcium- 850
Magnesium - unknown (will buy test kit tomorrow)