Most of my corals stopped opening up...

[BigTruck6o2]

the past month or so my corals have began to not open up, my starburst coral i would say only about half of it comes out..mushrooms dont get bigger at all like they used to, some of my pumping xenia is dying, its turning white and just dies and my polyps arent opening anymore.

i tested everything in my water, and the only thing i noticed was my alkalinity was low instead of normal so i just did a waterchange and am in the process of getting it up to normal but other then that everything was good.

only thing that has changed since i saw it starting to act weird was i dont have my protien skimmer anymore, i broke it and am in the process of getting it fixed, and im starting to have more algae growing only thing i can think of is because of the protien skimmer, i shortened the lighting cylce and that didnt help so i dunno, anyone know what would cause my corals to stop opening up?

 

[Hara]

water quality, which you are working on. Lighting, are the bulbs old? do you have as much circulation in the tank as before?

 

[BigTruck6o2]

bulbs are probably 4 months old are so, theres 3 175W MH. circualtion is the same, i got 4 little power heads, and the 2 main ones comming from my sump. im just wondering if its something with me not having a skimmer since it seems thats when things started to change...

 

[Hara]

It could be, as that would affect your water quality, what are the readings in your tank?

 

[DragonForce]

As long as you have a 3-4 inch sand bed and plenty of LR you can live w/o a skimmer. The site admin runs skimmerless.

 

[melosu58]

There is not any current running through the tank is there? No shorts in any of the power heads. Just a suggestion

 

[Hara]

As long as you have a 3-4 inch sand bed and plenty of LR you can live w/o a skimmer. The site admin runs skimmerless

I still think the removal of the skimmer can be a contributing factor as it has changed the quality of the water from what the corals were used to. Are you doing additional water changes to make up for the loss of the skimmer? Either way, I would do a few additional changes and see if they don't perk up a bit. I would also return to your lighting schedule when the corals were happy.