Coraline Algae problem

[themartins]

Hi There,

We have noticed that quite a bit of our purple coraline is being eaten or dying. Our LR was all purple and now it has some large patches of white. What do you think could be wrong?

 

[Ingy]

What lights and kH?

 

[Flaxon-Waxon]

Following. Same problem...

 

[themartins]

Lighting is a 4 bulb T5 HO fixture w/ lunar LEDs. KH is 8 degrees.

 

[Mrc8858]

Could be your calcium levels as well. Think of your coraline as another coral in the tank in the way it uses calcium like sps and lps corals.

 

[uh.oh...]

Coraline is also a big user of magnesium, so maybe run a check by your lfs

 

[jeffaquarius]

Your calcium level must be too low. To raise it to a proper level, there are 2 things you need to check first. Make sure your magnesium is satisfactory (within 1300 to 1500). Magnesium has a tendency to have an inverse effect with PH. Meaning higher PH will result to lower magnesium. Changing water with the right mixture will correct your PH and magnesium then you can start adding calcium formulas.

 

[themartins]

Cal. is 480, don't know about Mag. - We'll have to pick up a test kit ...PH is 8.0

 

[jeffaquarius]

Why not crank up your PH to 8.2 with salinity 1.025?

 

[CleverBs]

You cal is very high, sounds like your issue is probably a inbalance between you KH and Calc. Try to lower your calc. And imo there is no need to adjust your PH.

 

[themartins]

TY. Salinity is 1.026. We do not dose our tanks, we just use IO Reef crystals. Using this method, is there any way to reduce our cal?

 

[jeffaquarius]

If you are changing water religiously you should have no problem with parameters since the reef salt has a balance mixture. As I mentioned magnesium has inverse effect with PH level while calcium relies on magnesium and KH is directly proportion with PH. This means higher PH will have a tendency to lower your calcium. However, your calcium is in the meridian (400 to 500 normal) but your KH is too low (8 to12 normal). You need to crank up your PH to increase your KH then your calcium will drop down a little bit.

 

[themartins]

I do weekly 25% water changes in all our tanks. Thinking.......I have done this with our livebearer FW tanks with very good results. Should I begin adding a small amount of baking soda (1/8 tsp. per 2 gal.) with our water changes to help raise our KH (Alk.) and PH?

 

[jeffaquarius]

How about when topping off your DT? You need to adjust the fresh water PH to match your DT before filling it. I use API Proper PH and matching the temp with air stone for at least an hour. You can slowly raise the PH by following similar steps.

 

[uh.oh...]

I would say that buffering your top off is probably a good idea, imo it never hurts. I use Kalkwasser for mine, but you could use baking soda. However, you'll want to do all the math. I.e. If i have a 5 gallon ato and I dose it with 4 tsp of baking soda, what will be the kh, and ph, and what will that raise my tank by over the course of topping off. With doing water changes its important to match salinity, ph, and temp, bu with ato it shouldn't be that important. 1.) because true ro/di will have neutral ph, and thus not effect your aquarium, 2.) if you are going to buffer your ato to keep up with alk and calc requirements, then by nature there is very little chance it will match up with your tank parameters.

 

[jeffaquarius]

My anemone is too sensitive to water parameter. They shrink whenever I top off with a plain RO/DI water even very slowly. After I matched the PH, and temp they stopped doing it.

 

[uh.oh...]

That's interesting. How were you adding the top off, and where? And what size tank? I'd suspect that a sudden addition of a large percentage of total water volume would certainly irritate them, but use of an ato via timer or float switch should keep parameters normal, or at least undetectable by animal means. Then again, with a smaller aquarium almost any change is noticeable.

 

[jeffaquarius]

i have a 60 gal DT with 10 gal sump. I have an auto top off in sump that is set for 1/4 gal per cycle. My top off pump is 3 gal/hr.

 

[uh.oh...]

Well I'm glad you got that solved, it would have stumped me. I've never seen my corals retract from my ato , but it's a 90g dt and a 40g sump. I also haven't delved into anemones. Then again, my ato runs at night, so most of the corals are retracted anyways. If the op doesn't have any anemones I'll vouch to the safety of ato with baking soda and corals, provided the math is done first

 

[jeffaquarius]

Just so you know the PH of fresh RO/DI is less than 7.0. If you mix it directly to your tank with a PH of 8.0, complete absorbtion does not take place that quick. Those live stock sensitive to parameter and closest to your return nozzle will pick up the uneven PH. While you keep adding that RO/DI to your tank for several days without a matching PH, it will gradually go down unless you follow it up with a buffer.