Acans faring poorly

[saltwaterwannabe]

I am sure there are at least a dozen things I am doing wrong to cause this, but my acans have been shriveling for a few weeks.  I run a mixed tankcusing ULNS methods, and have thus far been rather successful by my own observations until recently.  The acans are currently very colorful stumps at this point and tonight I noticed my hammer coral is shrunken to near stumps from it's norm as well.

I have been reducing my Alk and Ca dosing gradually for 5 weeks to see if I can bring my numbers back to normal standards (see below), but I certainly did not expect the acans to react this way.  I have also started using Reef Energy, although sparingly at two doses thus far over 2 weeks.  I did not notice the acans receding this much one week ago and the hammer has been fine until tonight.  I generally try to run an ULNS with decent success from what I can tell with a very recent uptick in PO that is likely from the Reef Energy as expected.  My water parameters from 8 days ago and yesterday are as follows:

Measure - 8 days ago - yesterday - test method

Alk - 10.08 - 9.3 - Hannah checker

Ca - 520 - 501 - Hannah checker

PO - 0.00 -  0.06 - Hannah checker

Ph - 7.99 - 8.01 - Average of 2 Apex probes showing 0.05 difference (calibrated 2 months ago)

Salinity - constant 35 using refractometer calibrated at each use

Mg - 1600 @ 12 days ago from LFS test.  (I never test Mg and asked LFS to do it.)

The PO is always steady at 0.00 and I attribute the slight rise  to the Reef Energy but I have been told the PO increase is normal with Reef Energy and is common or desirable in most reef tanks anyway.  I do nothing for the Ph other than monitor it and observe it is steady from 7.9 at its lowest to 8.2 over the past 6 months.  I have gradually reduced my Alk and Ca dosing from 35 Mg/Day to 20 Mg/Day since my Alk and Ca levels seem high.

As mentioned, I am probably doing a dozen things wrong.  My SPS look great, it seems to be the softies that are suffering.  Any suggestions?

 

[bhodges82]

I noticed you did not mention your tank temperature, had it changed with the recent weather? Have you changed the flow?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

The temperature log does not show anything out of the ordinary.  Now that you mention it, I have made a couple of changes to flow.  I changed the amount of flow running through my UV from 100% to around around 25% last week.  As a result of the decreased head loss I did have to reduce the power of my return pump from 85% to 50% to maintain the same water level in my sump, which should be a good indicator of the same turnover flow.

I moved my two main power heads about 6 weeks ago from the ends of the tank to the back wall, bouncing the flow off the front glass.   I also thought there was enough flow so I moved a very small powerhead to the overflow box after vacuuming it out.  As a result of the changes, the acans are exposed to a little more upflow than side flow that they had before.  I will move all the powerheads  back  tonight to see if it makes any difference.

 

[Trizzino]

My acans love medium to low flow and medium to low light. And when i changed my flow I lost one and almost lost the other and had to move it to lower flow. When was the last time you did a water change? I have noticed even if my tests are in line and normal for my tank but i am seeing unhappy corals a water change always does wonders and just seems to give the corals a refresh.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

I do a 10 gallon water change weekly.  I did skip one weekend change a two weekends ago since I was sick but followed up with a 20 gallon water change this past weekend in preparation for Irma.

I also changed my salt some time ago and have thus far run through a little over 160 gallons of water changes since changing salt.  I went from Instant Ocean to Aqua Forest Reef Salt.   My oldest acans  have seemed stunted since upgrading to the 90 gallon tank but started coming around after changing salt.  My newer acans started looking great after changing salt but recently took a nose dive.

I suspect it could be the flow for both acans and possibly light for the older acan since it is about 1/3 from the top.  I did not get around to moving the pumpheads last night.  I will move the old acans and pumpheads this weekend then see what happens.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

No changes to the acans since moving the power heads back to the ends of my tank and moving the high one to the sand.  They were both on their original plugs which were placed in carved out holes in rocks so the plugs were hidden.  One of the plugs came out of the rock yesterday when I was fragging and spreading some of my newly acquired coral, so I left it on the sand bed with the plug for now.

All other coral including the new coral looks great.  The only other softy that was doing poorly was a zoa that was shriveling.  I believe I was over feeding the zoa so I stopped feeding it and finally came around to it's normal size yesterday.

Another thought is that the pellets I started using recently may be too large or too much for the acans.  My zoas eat the pellets fine and the acans seemed to love them the first few feedings.  I used to feed brine and mysis to my older acan until about a year ago and it has never grown as large since.  I may go back to mysis if I can ever get the acans to open up enough to eat them.  One of the acans has a lot of black on it now, so it may not make it.  Any thoughts on what a proper feeding regimen is for acans?

 

[roberthu526]

I ran into the same situation. My acan did fine for the first month or so because I fed it heavily. But then life caught up and I stopped target feeding and the health went down hill pretty quickly. My system usually runs pretty low nutrient with 1 or 0 nitrate and less than 0.2 phosphate with ULR Hanna checker.

I fee this maybe one of the biggest challenge with keeping a mixed reef. SPS requires low nutrient when LPS and softies needs more. And also running high nutrient means higher risk of algae bloom. Finding the sweet spot and keep the parameters steady is the key I think. I am still trying.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

After trying a few things, I pulled one of the acans out and took a closer look at it outside the tank.  I did not realize how many worms had made a home on the plug, so I cut everything off but the acan itself and left it in a container that I am using to re-atach mushrooms a couple of days ago.  While certainly not a recovery, there seems to be a bit more color and shape to the acan now, so I am guessing it was bothered by the worms and maybe other inhabitants of the tank.

I had an issue with shrimp bothering my older acan and am guessing that maybe it is happening again.  I moved my other acan a bit further out from the area my peppermint shrimps hide.  Once again, not a full recovery but there seems to be more color and shape than I have seen in a few weeks.

Removing the peppermints seemed to work the last time my old acan was having issues, although the new owner of my old peppermints has not had an issue with them like I did.  In my old tank I had to really pay close attention to how much I fed to avoid issues with no skimmer or significant transport mechanism so I thought the peppermints were just hungry.  With my new tank, I am feeding tons more without other issues, so I am sure the peppermints have plenty to eat.  I will monitor for another week or so.  If there is no major improvement, I will see if I can catch the peppermint(s) and QT them for a bit.