bleaching coral

[goulding.c]

I just recently bought a lavender rock with some mushroom like corals on it. They were brown withblue dots on the tenticles at first but over the last 2 weeks they have been slowly bleaching to pure white. I run pcs and average 3 watts per gallon. I am new to the reef thing with this being my first tank since I retired from breeding discuss. The tank has been up for one year but I am not doing very well at keeping corals I have lost a disk and gonopora and a clam. I also have a hard time keeping my salt below 1.026, is this to high? all other water test are good. Any help would be great. I have a 55 gal refugium with 3"sand and caulerpa. I want this tank to look as good as all the ones I see you guys have here. What advice can you give me before I buy anything else?
CG

 

[thomas712]

Salinity of 1.026 isnt bad, we normally target 1.025 or 35 ppt.
What are you using to measure salinity?. Hydrometers can be unrelyable, refractometers are much better.
Are you topping off with just plain water without salt?
What about alkalinity and calcium?
What about nitrates?
You don't have the lighting for gonopora and clams. You will need to upgrade if you want to keep stonies and clams.
With a 125 you should consider MH lighting.
Thomas

 

[joesox]

As the water evaporates from your tank the salinity will rise. Make sure that you are using plain RODI water for topping off your tank, otherwise you will be continually adding salt to your tank. Also, Goniapora have a very poor survival rate in captivity, and clams require strong lighting to survive. Hope this helps.

 

[goulding.c]

I am using 2 differant hydrometers, a floater and a fillable cup with indicator. I use all ro water and am constantly pumping fresh ro water into tank. I guess I just underestimated the evaporation rates. Is there any way I can add more lights to my existing ones. It seems If I am to upgrade to MH I will have to scrap my PC's. My calcium is always around 350 400, ph 8.1-8.3, nitrates 0, nitrites 0, amonia 0, I use the 2 part balancer for maintaining calcium levels and alkalinity which is 3. I have plenty of water flow, almost to much, my sand bed changes shapes like desert sand dunes.
CG

 

[goulding.c]

Does anybody know why my lavender rock is turning white? My starpolyps are doing fine, and other coral is ok too. One person suggested that my pcs are to bright since the tank it came from at lfs was dimly lit. Any ideas?:notsure: