melev

I'm not sure what is going on, but some of my corals have lost their color. I tend to not overreact and deal with issues as they arise systematically. I've noticed certain corals are just lackluster in color, to the point I'd like to add food coloring to get it right again.

Last night I did the full battery of tests to figure out what was off, but surprisingly every single parameter came in correct:

pH: 8.01 (at midnight, so not a bit surprised) (Apex)
Temp: 78.8° F (Apex)
ORP: 296 (Apex)
Salinity: 1.026 sg (calibrated digital refractometer)
Phosphate: > .03 (Salifert)
Nitrate: 0 (API)
Alkalinity: 8 dKH (Elos)
Calcium: 450 ppm (Elos)
Magnesium: 1350-1400 ppm (Elos)

The skimmer has been offline for the past three days since I'm treating the tank for a minor cyano bacteria bloom. No skimmer means lower numbers in pH and ORP. I'll do a big water change tonight and restart the skimmer and get it dialed in as best I can before heading to MACNA.

The thing I've been encountering is a strange sludge in the skimmer for the past few weeks. I chalked it up to anemones spawning, but I'm starting to think this is some bacterial issue that has arisen. There's no trace of it in the tank itself, but inside the skimmer and especially in the collection cup and waste collector, it's some thick viscous stuff. Not the normal skimmate.

The surface of the water, while clear of any particulates, reminds me of being oily. It's so slick looking, wet and clear. It doesn't smell funny or feel funny, but it's not normal. I don't do frequent water changes nor are they big ones, so it's unlikely this is salt-related. Heck, it would be a deficit of some element due to my not changing water more often. Some corals seem perfectly fine while a few here and there are off. Take the colorful Lobophyllia. Its polyps are tighter, not as puffed up. Colorwise, it's less vivid. Most of the Euphyllias look fine, with the occasional head closed up. All the anemones are fully open, as is the Maxima clam. One chalice has changed color completely, or lost its color - however you want to look at it. Two favia maze corals have color shifted and not for the better.

I changed my MH bulbs a few months ago, and gradually ramped them up to the full 6-hour schedule so I doubt it's a light/PAR issue. After all, we so often say how we can never match the intensity of natural sunlight.

Tank temperature is consistent like clockwork, so overheating isn't a factor. See the lower graph for the past week in this screenshot.

Which leads me to consider perhaps it is biopellet related. A month ago I posted how the flow had become so restricted that I thought the effluent was toxic. If you recall all the anemones looked shriveled and sick, and a couple of SPS corals took a hit. Since getting that resolved, the anemones have healed back to normal. So why are there some issues still when they look 100% normal? Where is that sludge coming from? The inside body of the skimmer had a clear gel I wiped away with a sponge today as I get ready to turn it back on. The biopellet reactor is maybe 25% full, so it's not like I have too many pellets online although that has never been an issue in 3.5 years.

So strange. Here's the gameplan for now:

Big water change tonight to remove the cyano medication from the system now that the cyano is virtually gone.
Get skimmer back online.
Install fresh carbon.
Dose Prodibio.
Get some sleep, head to MACNA.
See how things look when I get back. The tank sitter will just be making sure the equipment is running okay while I'm gone.



As you can see, it's not all dire but it's concerning. I don't want this to spiral out of control on me.