Need help figuring out the cause ...

[Ed]

Have you checked your Magnesium levels?

[tony]

to add to what others have said more flow wont reduce the red slime (cyano). i cycle my tank 50 times per hour and still battle it

[alton]

How old are your MH lamps? I have seen DE lamps loose 50% in only 8 months! And you can not notice it by just looking at it. The first time I tried keeping SPS that's what happened to mine.

[eleyan]

the 20,000ks are about 3 months old. The 10,000k I just replaced a couple of weeks ago.

I have not tested Magnesium, I will try to take a sample to aquatech here in austin to test.

[Headless_donkey]

When you replaced to 10ks, did you replace a different spectrum? I had the same thing happen to me when I replace an old MH with a brand new one. The corals went into complete shock. Jennifer coined the name,"death tank." After work my first chore was to pull dead stuff (sps) out of the tank. I switched to PC and BOOM everything started doing great. In hindsight I should have acclimated the corals better to the new lamp.

Just a thought.

[sawarf]

When you replaced to 10ks, did you replace a different spectrum? I had the same thing happen to me when I replace an old MH with a brand new one. The corals went into complete shock. Jennifer coined the name,"death tank." After work my first chore was to pull dead stuff (sps) out of the tank. I switched to PC and BOOM everything started doing great. In hindsight I should have acclimated the corals better to the new lamp.

Just a thought.

So, how does one go about "acclimating corals to a new lamp?" I can't move the lamp further away or move the corals further away and gradually move them back. Do we adjust the photoperiod? By how much and for how long do we titrate back up?

Do anemones need acclimating as well?

Thanks,

Sean

[Headless_donkey]

Photoperiod can be adjusted. Raising the light also works. You can also put pieces of plastic window screen over the tank our around the lamp fixture. Then you remove a piece of screen each week.

The time it takes to increase the light to the full amount depends on what your corals are doing. If it is just a new lamp maybe a month. If you are moving to a much brighter type of lamp then the process could take longer.

I don't know about anemones.

[eleyan]

I replaced my MHs with the same spectrum and even the same brand.

[Ping]

Could high Phoshates be the cause of his problems? Sounds like he also has some Cyno.

[eleyan]

Well, I don't know what exactly did the trick, but I'm starting to see new growth on my monti caps and the red slime is gone. My button polyps are still closed up though. It might take them a little bit more to start responding. Here are all the things I've done over the past month:

- took out the auto feeder and started feeding by hand again.
- started adding vinegar to my kalk in my auto top off water (supposedly this reduces nitrates and phosphates)
- started running my diatom filter after each water change
- ran the protein skimmer wet
- ran carbon every week

Thanks for all the help