Corals Turning Brown and not blooming

[Bahamasmls]

Hi, i was wondering if someone could help me out with identifying why 2 of my hard corals have not been blooming for over 3 weeks now and the other is slightly blooming but turning a brownish color on the top.

One reason i may think is because i added a 4 eye butterfly fish that has been nipping at some of the corals. (not sure if this has anything to do with it) He is driving me crazy because he will not eat anything else that is feed to the tank.

All levels seems to be fine.

Temp 79-82
salt .0125

Thanks for the help

 

[crzytrace]

what are your other levels at? calcium, alkalinity, nitrates, phosphates, magnesium, nitrite, ammonia? how old is your tank? how long have you had these corals? what lighting and other inhabitants?

 

[Bahamasmls]

Calcium 430
Alkalinity 2.4
nitrates 25 or 5.0
phosphates i had no test
magnesium 1270
nitrate 0-0.05
ammonia 0-.25

Tank is about 8 months old

had the coral about 4 months

A few turbo snails and blue hermit crabs, sea cucumber.

 

[crzytrace]

your alk and mag seem a tad low but nothing too bad, as long as your amm and trite are actually 0. any amount in a reef is bad. I would guess its your butterfly munching on them, or possibly your lighting isnt strong enough? have you tried moving them up closer to the light?

 

[Bahamasmls]

I have the redsea 250 max and the lighting seems to be okay. But i will try and move them around see if that helps.


Thanks

 

[Gubernaculum86]

Butterfly's are corralivores in the wild, meaning they eat corals and not considered reef safe at all. So thats probably why ur corals are not out "blooming"Also 4-eye butterfly's are notoriously hard to get to eat in an aquarium.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+25+1312&pcatid=1312

 

[Bahamasmls]

Think I figured it out. On my red sea tank I had a problem with the electrical in the hood. They replaced it for free and since I switched the bulbs over to the new hood it only took one day for the colors to start blooming and turning back to normal color. I guess the lights were not properly working. Thanks