Coral woes continue...

[carbon]

I ham having some weird stuff happening to all of my soft corals my red mushroom coral (elephant ear) were extremely upset looked like coral mucus and the likes was starting to form yesterday, today they seem better, now my Kenya trees polyps are not opening on all of the branches of my trees. I had some bad juju going on with a cyano outbreak just did a 50 % h2o change, and manually removed the cyano, would be the second water change this week. is it normal for these coral to go in to dormant states, could it possibly be ther is not enough food or phytoplankton to sustin them.. I have cut down feeding and reduced nitrates drasticly over the period of a few weeks in an atempt to better my system, I also have been removing my bio balls at the discretion of this site and the LFS (im at 50 % less as of this week).. I read that puting phytoplex or aditives of the like for coral food is like pouring a jug of nitrates in to your tank is there anything I could cultivate in my refugium to feed coral? any advice would be greatly apreciated..

ph 8.5
swg 1.25
amonia 0
nitrates ~2ppm
Phosphate ~0.25
nitrite 0
temp 75 deg F

 

[melosu58]

I would move your temp up slowly about 4 or 5 degrees. 75 is slightly cool. What type lighting do you have?

 

[Ziggy953]

Your pH seems a bit high. 8.0-8.2 is pretty much where my tank stays. Doing large PWCs can cause leathers and similar corals to close up and look unhappy for a couple of days.

How long are you mixing the SW up before doing your PWC? It is best to let new water mix for at least 24 hours before using. You want to match temp, sg and pH for sure in the new SW to what is in the tank.

I have mushrooms leathers and all kinds of corals and I don't feed them. They get what they need from the water and the lighting.

 

[carbon]

Thanks for the reply guys;
I'm running 2 65 w compact 50/50 antic/regular lights 12 hour light cycles (which im thinking of cutting back to 10 hr to control algae) I n addition I always cure my salt water 24 hours with a spare powerhead and heater I match relative PH temperature and gravity..

 

[megos1]

How is your water flow? Cyano tends to cling to dead areas in the tank where there isn't much water movement.
I don't feed my soft corals either, however I occasionally see a mushroom grab a piece of brine when I target feed nearby corals!
I don't know if this is true for all mushrooms but mine will crunch up like yours sound like they're doing whenever there is any kind of pH or KH change in the tank.