What can affect P.E. ?
 

I am looking for some ideas into my recent lack of PE. Everything was fine up until about 1 month ago, had PE up the wazoo. Now I have almost nothing, not even my Milli's, they just look pretty much like bare sticks. At first I thought maby everyone was taking a little break, but it has been at least a month now. Not everything is affected, it seems to be only the Acro family. All of my Monti's, birdsnests, polli's etc are growing great and have great PE.
The Acro, Milli, Prostrata, etc have virtually nothing in the PE department but all have great colouring and amazing growth. At night the big polyps on the tips come out in full force but the rest of the coral is pretty much pathetic. The polyps are there just really small.
All of my parameters seem good and I have increased my WC to 15% per week but its not helping. Running new Carbon and GFO also.
Initally i thought it was related to a possible overdose of Mag or the addition of fresh garlic to the food but both items have been corrected. Also I have looked very carefully for parasites but have found none.
I am open to suggestions and ideas.

PE up the wazoo! That's gotta hurt!
Darren I have this same thing happen every now and then for no apparent reason. Do the Acros have PE after lights out?

Darren what fish do you have? That's what first clued me when my regal angel started picking on corals

Yes but pretty much only the big ones on the tips.

That's just what I was going to say if PE is only after lights out. :biggrin:

PB Tang, Purple Tang, Kole tang, Lawnmower Blennie, True Perc Pair, Cleaner Wrasse, Coral Beauty. I spent alot of time watching the tank to see if there was a coral snacker in there but nothing.
Funnily enough the first coral I noticed was the one I got from you. Purple acro with big amazing green polyps. It was doing absolutely fabulous, growing like crazy, PE so big you almost couldnt see the purple. Now its a purple acro with teeny tiny little green dots on it that dont even get any bigger even after lights out. Christys frag is doing great but I think mine is more purple.

If it is a fish bothering your corals, I would suspect the Coral Beauty.

Also I had all of these fish except for the PB before it happened and it was like an overnight occurance.

I did too but have watched it very closely and never seen it pick at a coral, only the rocks.

My Coral Beauty tends to nip at my Brains if I don't keep him fed enough.

I have 4 angels and all 4 of them eat acros....I don't trust angels as far as I can spit

*edit*It was an overnight occurrence with my regal angel too. She lived with the corals for months before deciding to start snacking

Did you have decent PE with this tank previously?

$20 says its evil red bugs :neutral:

Are you feeding your corals? I had fading PE extension problems as well, especially acros and milli's. Pursued ULNS to the nth degree and ended up starving my corals. Since greatly increasing my coral feeding PE is way better.

something new electrical or something started leaking stray voltage ? maybe test with volt meter

Some thing i did to increase PE is heavy skimming, run GFO and carbon. Also notice that phos xtra, coral snow, and other KZ products made a difference as well.

What brand of salt do you use? And have you purchased a new bucket/bag at all recently?

Yes It was awesome for several months until I added the PB tang and had the resulting Ich problems. If I remember correctly I did a waterchange and started adding garlic. I seem to remember thinking...HMMmm it seems "Marie's" coral doesnt like garlic, the pollyps have all closed up. coincidence?

Nope I dont feed them, I am not running a ULNS system at all. I feed 2x a day, flake/ pellet/ bbs/ homemade mix.

no but its a possibility. Wouldnt that affect all of the corals tho? How do you check it?

I am skimming pretty good, also running new gfo and carbon and taylored aquatics phos destroyer.

I used to use IO but cant get it anymore so I switched to Seachem reef, but not sure when although it may have been around the same time. Because i remember checking the Mag content of the first batch and thinking it was really low. Turns out my mag kit was going bad and I was getting low readings on the tank too, thus causing my possible Mag overdose. I have let it lower itself slowly by not adding any new Mag suppliment for a month or so. I have switched now to Seachem marine salt to see if perhaps the last pail may have been bad.???

I've read of a couple instances of people using Seachem Reef salt and having disasters with their SPS. I have used it for the past year and haven't been thrilled with it. I recently purchased a bag instead of a bucket because I plan to change salts and have started to experience STN in a couple mini colonies. I certainly can't say for certain if it's the salt but I don't plan to keep assuming it isn't - I'm changing salts.

I tried the seachem a few years ago and lost some SPS (and I was only doing 10gallon waterchanges at the time). I immediately went back to IO and eventually mixed the two to use up the rest of the bucket. I've also heard from others that they had problems as well as people who love the stuff. Not sure what was wrong with my batch.

I switched over to Seachem a few years ago. My tank did not like it either. Went back to IO after 2 pails of the SC and tank started to turn around for the better.