Super inflated or stringy euphyllia

[ECLS Reefer]

Okay peoples! I have two torches and several small hammers that are rather shriveled or stringy. They also have been bloating some at different times during the day. The elegance coral is blown up like a blimp and then deflates to crumple in on itself. 
 

What’s changed? Got a new RedSea LED 90 light and since it bleached multiple SPS corals, I have it running at 10/15/25% and then back down in the same increment, total ramp up and down for 10 hours. 
 

Got a new ice cap gyre pump, the small one, and it’s set at 10% flow alternating pumps every 10 seconds. 
 

Water parameters have been stable. Water changes weekly of 10-12g. 
 

Can anyone tell me what’s making these corals act like this?

[Ratvan]

No idea, IME unless the head has a white or brown film over it, it usually pulls through. Mine sulk for a few days as well.

 

Could it be that they dont like the lighting or flow?

 

 

[ECLS Reefer]

3 hours ago, Ratvan said:

No idea, IME unless the head has a white or brown film over it, it usually pulls through. Mine sulk for a few days as well.

 

Could it be that they dont like the lighting or flow?

 

 

It’s possible but I’m trying to figure out which and see if someone has recommendations for it. I’ve already cut the light waaaaay back. The pump has never been on high settings.

[mcarroll]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:35 PM, Dirté Sanchez said:

Water parameters have been stable.

Stable-good, or stable-bad? 😉 

 

You gotta tell us the parameters!  Especially phosphates. 👍  (Hit all the Big 5 if you can:  ca, alk, mg, no3, po4)

 

Flow

You have to be able to use your judgement on the correct flow for the tank.  We can help potentially if you can figure out a way to "show us" what the flow is like....difficult usually, but give it a shot.  But if you think you have it right now, I'd trust you.

 

Lights

Available phosphates have a big impact on the presence and severity of bleaching.  But that's only one thing.

 

The main thing is that it's possible that you just didn't use a light meter to make the new lights perform as closely as possible to the old lights.

 

Get a lux meter on your smartphone....it's not the greatest light meter, or the greatest lux meter, but it's FREE and AVAILABLE NOW.  Test it out first to make sure it works well with your phone....for example a bright sunny day should register something close to 50,000-100,000 lux depending on the day and where you are.  This info on Illuminance has some other sample levels.  (Order a $7-$20 handheld lux meter from somewhere for future use.  I like ones with the sensor on a cord for easier reading.)

 

Use it to measure the intensity of your old lights, and then use it to calibrate your new lights to about the same intensity levels.  Try to make them about the same color too.

 

For some reason very few people still recommend using a light meter (I guess) because they think a $500 (or $100) PAR meter is all that will work.  🤨

 

Let me know how it goes with this, and don't forget to post your test results!  😊👍

[ECLS Reefer]

First, the torches are no longer stringy, just weirdly puffy with no tentacle extensions. But alive. They shrink and reinflate with the light schedule. 
 

Second, I have a light meter on my phone, but it might as well be speaking to me in welsh because I don’t understand what it’s telling me. 
 

here’s the light schedule and intensities:

 

Here are the parameters for roughly a month. Forgive all the screen shots- it isn’t sharing the data correctly for some reason. My nitrates always run in the 20-40 range (40 usually on Friday/Saturday when it’s due for its water change, and I test before changing water). I run a small reactor and I first had phosguard in it but wasn’t getting good results, so I recently changed to a GFO/carbon mix which is why the phosphates dropped. They’re higher today because I tested after dumping in four bags of pods. Other than that, the calcium, mag and KH have stabilized in the last couple of weeks. Iodide runs at 0.03 all the time. Those are all I test for.

[mcarroll]

15 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

Second, I have a light meter on my phone, but it might as well be speaking to me in welsh because I don’t understand what it’s telling me.

With no info on your light, I can't get any information out of those charts unfortunately.  (It's all relative.)

 

On the tables, it seems like your test levels have been OK other than "something" zeroed out your phosphates on 10/1 and 10/8?

 

Doesn't seem like you should be running phosguard – IMO that could be directly tweaking your coral with aluminum particles OR dissolved aluminum.  Use a PolyFilter on top of your phosguard (exit side; last) and  watch it turn aluminum color.  It's a good product, but needs rinsing (as per the instructions) and should be used with care like all phosphates removers.

 

Try out your light meter.  

 

Just take it out in the sun first to see what it says and post back here. 👍  Keep it simple.

 

Keep in mind that it probably has a setting to use the front OR back camera, so make sure that's the camera YOU are using as well. 😉 

 

It's also conceivable that the software is not compatible with your phone's light sensor....so if the readings make no sense and you're using the right camera, try a different app.  (And place that order for a handheld!  LOL)

 

You can see the unit I use here:

Beginner’s Lux

(I can't resist a pun apparently)