whats happening to my color / polyp ext.

KevinK · #1 06-06-2010, 04:08 AM

so I found out that over the last week my tips are not coloring anymore, and in my monty, the color in the center is fading as well,

cant find any bugs, have bin bihind the glass for a while checking

PoonTang · #2 06-06-2010, 05:10 AM

I too am battleing the same thing. I am currently pursuing the "I shouldnt have changed salt" theory. Really it can only be related to either/or Lighting, Pests, or water quality. Find out which one(s) it is and you have your problem solved. I have currently been working on mine for 2 months now

KevinK · #3 06-06-2010, 09:39 PM

interesting, as I have not added new products, nore changed salt / lights

PoonTang · #4 06-06-2010, 10:05 PM

Post some info about your system and we will try to help you out.

fishytime · #5 06-07-2010, 12:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PoonTang

Post some info about your system and we will try to help you out.

+1.....parameters please

Ron99 · #6 06-07-2010, 12:59 AM

I battled something similar that got progressively worse for months. I checked everything and finally found out it was stray voltage. I had even checked with a volt meter but that didn't read anything. Figured it out when I stuck a cut finger in the tank.

To make a long story short, I replaced the heater that was leaking electricity and added a ground probe for good measure and had polyp extension again within 12 hours. Corals are now doing great and even a few that i thought were goners have come back.

trinac · #7 06-07-2010, 03:22 AM

I've had a couple corals lately doing this as well, at first I thought it was because one of my powerheads died for a few days. All chemistries are great, but did feel a mild electrical shocks when working in the tank. Glad this idea was brought up! I checked all my equipment, determined its my heater, and changed it out to a spare. Hoping to see some positive results soon!!

What's with these heaters? It was a Rena that was electrocuting my tank. The spare is an Ebo, seems to be major wonky for accuracy but hopefully it will be okay for now. I'm going to have to set temperature alarms on my thermometer. Probably good idea to set that up in any case I imagine. For the thermometer I have I can set alarms for min / max, hopefully will prevent a possible heater catastrophe.

KevinK · #8 06-07-2010, 03:30 AM

nk background:

tank mesures 65x36 x30 deep,

about 1inch sugar fine sand on bottom and all live rock.

tank is next month 1 year (used LR and LS from old tank)

tank at this time has 4x 150W phounix + 2x 54 10.000K + 2x 54W act.

on the back of the tank I have a filter room, including a DIY 8 x 60 inch skimmer in a 65 gal sump, from there water flows in a 55 gal spare tank with about 6 inches of live sand, a 4 inch reactor with NP BIO PELLETS., skim is dark Broun, about 1.5 gal - week

from the 55 gal tank it flows back in the main tank., this loop runs about 600GH

in the display tank I run 7x Hydor kor. (3 and 4)

+ a sea swirl on a 600GH pump.

entire system is running like this for a year now, no proublems (only that I might try 4x 250 watt phounix in the future (everything is growing fine at this time, however dont know how much more benefit the 250 will be.

only thing I changed 2 weeks ago is the skimmer nek (had a 3 inch, and went to 5.5 inch)

all parameters are at 0 ore at undetectable.

KH = 9.5
MG 1300 - 1380
CA 430 - 450
N02 - 0
NO3 - 0
PHOS - 0,02

tank has mix of LPS, SPS and a few big mushrooms

fish load is very small ( 3x tang, 5x cloun, 2x fire fish)

I feed grinded mix sea foot from superstore + nori

under my profile there are some picÈs of the tank

I will try to measure for stray volt.

KevinK · #9 06-07-2010, 03:47 AM

ok so I tested my stray volt.

when I put the multimeter on V---_ at 2000M I read 380 to 390

PoonTang · #10 06-07-2010, 05:34 AM

I would say off hand that it may be your lights. 150W is marginal for a 30" deep tank. Are the corals near the surface doing better than the deeper ones? I know some of my acro's near the bottom of my 24" tank need to be moved higher, and i am running 250W 14k Phoenix bulbs.
Stray voltage should be 1 probe in the ground pin of a socket and 1 probe in the tank and then check for DC voltage. Lots of people report some stray voltage with no effects on thier tank tho.