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    bleaching,fading,dieing water test in . What now? HELP

    Over the last 6 months I have experienced bleaching or fading on my candy cane corals, hammer corals, and green star polyps and my zoas are melting and disappearing . I lost two different types of bubble corals also. Over the past 2 weeks three 7 year old clown fish died within 3 weeks, an extra large monticap died completely, and large colony of pulsating xenia has began deteriorating. Initially when I converted from vho's to t5's 12 months ago everything was brightly colored and crisp, but for the last 6 months everything seems like it is fading or bleaching more and more. For the most part everything else is doing well and growing. I have had my 80 gallon cylinder tank setup for 5 years. I have a standard 30 gallon sump tank with a Tunze DOC Protein Skimmer 9011. I have (6) 24" 24 watt t5 bulbs that are 12 months old ( 2 mid day and 4 actinic + ) . The 2 middays run from 9 till 7 and the 4 actinic+ run from 11 till 6. I also have blue led moon lights that run from 12 at night till 5 in the morning. All lights are about 10 inches from surface, but tanks is 20 inches deep. All corals that are bleaching are 10-20 inches below the water surface. I do 20% water changes per month with rodi water. I use bulk reefs 2 part alk/cal and solutions on dosing pumps and manually add their mag solution as needed.The only things I see are as follows: I switched from instant ocean about 12 months ago to marine enterprises intnl "crystal sea". Should I change back to Instant Ocean? I do not run carbon, gfo, filtersocks/floss etc. on my return water in the sump etc.. Just a protein skimmer. Do I need to add these things to my setup? I change my 3 stage ro/di water filters once a year, so it is hard for me to believe the rodi top off/water change water is the issue, but I am open to suggestions.
    Temp 79-80 Salinity 1.23-1.25 My tanks is mostly LPS and soft corals (leathers, zoas, xenias, brains, colt ,hammer, frogspawn, galaxea, monticap, etc.) I have 3 clown fish and a watchman goby and feed them rods original food every 3-5 days. Although I have always had a grounding probe I found stray voltage about a month ago and fixed that, but it has not changed any of these problems. Could my lights be worn out and cause such dramatic fading in 6-12 months? Could I be running the lights too long?
    Can you connect the dots between the test results and all the negative things happening in my tank? What should I do to bring the silca, molybdenum, strontium, and iodine down to acceptable levels?
    Ammonia (NH3-4) Good=0.000
    Nitrite (NO2)Good=0.005
    Nitrate (NO3)Good=0.6
    Phosphate (PO4)Good=0.01
    Silica (SiO2-3) High=0.6
    Potassium (K)Good=403
    Calcium (Ca)Low=229
    Molybdenum (Mo) High=0.2
    Strontium (Sr)High=12.3
    Magnesium (Mg)Good=1175
    Iodine (I ̄)High=0.14
    Copper (Cu++) Good=0.02
    Alkalinity (meq/L)Good=2.80

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    Hi there, I'm not sure about somethings your testing for. When did you last change your lighting?? Also how much flow is in your tank? Sorry cant be much of a help but other than them and your calcium, I'm not sure on much else, but pushing towards on mainly your calcium levels.
    Last edited by atlanticreef; 12-31-2011 at 02:27 PM.

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    Tenant atlanticreef's Avatar
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    Sorry as for the clown fish did you notice anything out of the normal with them, cloudy eye, swollen stomach things likes that?? Then I could possibly help you out with that I've read that clowns live between 3-5 in captivity, unless you got a captive bread clown then apparently they live between 15-20 years.. also was there any changes in your salinity over the last 4-5 months?? What is your ph at as you haven't said?

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    Re: bleaching,fading,dieing water test in . What now? HELP

    I see a few problems that stick out.
    Lighting is old. No matter what you have heard, T-5 should be replaced around 12months. Stick in a new lamp and you'll see what I mean.
    Nitrites, will tick off most corals, if not all of them.
    Silicates, WOW, those have got to go.
    Calcium is way to low. Should be 420-480. You might want to dose that up a bit.
    Hint of Copper??!! Ouch. You might want to run some Carbon in there for a bit to clear that up a bit.
    SKimmer working properly? When was the last time you cleaned out the entire unit? As far as bringing down those other levels, you might want to start doing more frequent water changes in a larger dose unitl they come down.
    Some things to help you out also.
    Top Phosphate (PO4) Removing Products to Eliminate Harmful Phosphate in Aquariums
    Calcium, KH, GH, pH, Electrolytes & Magnesium in Aquariums; Mineral Ions, Cations

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    Re: bleaching,fading,dieing water test in . What now? HELP

    ph is 8.1, did not notice anything odd about the clowns. Would old lights cause fading and bleaching in the corals? Salinity has been 1.24 consistently.

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    Re: bleaching,fading,dieing water test in . What now? HELP

    Quote Originally Posted by highpockets View Post
    ph is 8.1, did not notice anything odd about the clowns. Would old lights cause fading and bleaching in the corals? Salinity has been 1.24 consistently.
    Yes to the lighting question.


 

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