Shrinking Palys and reduced polyp extension

[ryberg21]

Hello all,
I've noticed that my palys have shrunk. I've also noticed reduced polyp extension on several hard corals. See before pics from about a month ago compared to now. The before and after pictures for the palythoas have a different rock, but the palys all came from the same mother colony.
My water parms:
Ammonia - undetectable
Nitrites - undetectable
Nitrites - 0-2.5
Ph - 8.4
Alk ~1.5-2.0 meq (i think, my test kit is so hard to read on this one)
Calcium - 350 (trying to raise this see below)
Here's the three things that I've intentionally changed since then.
1) Switched from conditioned tap water to RO water.
2) Started dosing two part additive. I've been dosing 10 ml of calcium and 10 ml of buffer every two days or so. Haven't seen either Calcium or Alk change much, but I'm trying to take it slow and easy.
3) The compact flourescent ballast died on my light (it also has two 150 watt MHs). It took about a week and a half to replace the ballast and bulb. I noticed the reduced polyp extension then, but just thought it made sense because the lighting had switched. Now that I go back and look at the 'before' picture on the montipora, I see how different it is now...
Thoughts on what could be causing this?

 

[coral hind]

Any improvement in the corals?
David

 

[flower]

A few possible causes:
Chemical warfare....run carbon in the filter
Not enough food...stop skimming 24/7 and only skim maybe 4 hours once a week and add some microvert or phtoplankton.
Sudden light changes are too strong...cut back on lighting so coral can adjust

 

[reefkprz]

by the look of the algae battle on the rock with the neomeris annulata losing out to the cotton algae I would say the lack of enthusiastic polyp extension in your montipora is probably excess nutirents. in spite of the low test results something is fueling the growth of the algae. I would check your phophate levels, high phophates inhibit calification and can damage your SPS.
the protopalythoas look like some I have singed with lighting in the past. though thats not conclusive.
how old are your bulbs? did you recently replace them? did you move the protos?

 

[ryberg21]

All -> Thanks for the inputs! In emailing with a friend locally we decided the flame angel is to blame. I didn't mention him in the initial post, because I added him before the "before" picture. I think it just took a while for him to begin this bad behavior. After watching him carefully, I see that he's got his little routine of nipping at corals (only some specific ones though). So, my goal now is to remove him (I hate to do it I *love* that fish!) and verify that he's the culprit.
CH -> nope not yet, I haven't gotten him out yet...
Flower -> I run a little carbon every week or two weeks. Yeah, I do skim all the time. I've thought about trimming that back? I wonder if it's possible to put a skimmer on a timer?
reef -> Oh, yes, I've got a ton of hair algae (hence the switch to RO). My guess is that there is phosphorous in the tap water that I had been adding. I've added two more emerald crabs (bringing my total up to 4) and I've been using RO for the last 2 weeks or so. I've noticed that the hair algae seems ever so slightly less thick. I'm assuming it'll take a good 2-3 months for the RO to make a difference on the hair algae... My bulbs -- yup, I recently replaced one of the compact flourescent bulbs and ballast.
I'll let you know how things look when I'm able to catch a certain flame angel (hopefully w/o tearing everything apart)

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by ryberg21
http:///forum/post/3183404
I run a little carbon every week or two weeks. Yeah, I do skim all the time. I've thought about trimming that back? I wonder if it's possible to put a skimmer on a timer?
the amounts of algae in the tank suggest cutting back on skimming would be counter productive.

 

[ryberg21]

That makes sense.
Now that I'm looking at the pictures, reef, I see why you think the neomeris is losing out to the algae. I was manually removing the neomeris -- it was/is growing like crazy. So the reduction in neomeris from "before" to "after" was 'cause I spent quite a bit of time plucking them off of the rocks... I'm was worried that the neomeris will soon cover *everything*!

 

[ryberg21]

Okay, so I finally caught the flame angel. I'll take some pics of the corals tomorrow for a baseline and then hopefully things will start getting better in a couple of weeks.
Thanks to all for the help, advice and input.