coral wasting away... I.D please

My guess if flow. Because of the cup shape Pagoda have a nasty habit of collecting detritus and sand. I would try to sightly increase the flow and blow water over the coral every couple of days. You can also try target feeding

J

 

A pagoda wont bleach under those kinds of lights because its getting too much light. Corals can bleach for a number of reasons(too much light, too little light, bad water chemistry, shipping shock, etc etc), but bleaching doesnt = too much light. And for a cup coral, 120w is nothing, I've set-up systems with multiple 400w mh's with cups and scrolls near the top. And as its been happening for over 2-3 weeks, its most likely a water quality issue of some sorts, ie; phosphates, low calc.

 

If you take a coral that has been under PC lighting, older bulbs, or positioned in an area of lower lighting and put that corals under newer T5 lighting or MH, I am pretty sure it will have color loss to some degree. I myself have personally bleached a couple corals while acclimating them to new bulbs. Most things in this hobby are not absolute. JM2C

 

the tank the cup coral was in had twin 400W MH. it was twice as deep as my tank is. I have a long 55G 4ft X12''X18'' i believe is the measurement.

My water parameters have been untested for months and here's how it came in last night

ammonia- 0
nitrate-0
nitrite-0
P04- between 0 and .25ppm (hard to tell)
PH 8.4
Cal-400
Mag-1300
alk- dkh 10

I think it's pretty good I have a steady regimen of 1 small water change a week, combined with a consistant dosing and regular carbon insert changes.

I think Jason might have been right because the only thing i noticed is the cup coral was in a low flow area...likely the reason when i had cyano outbreak that it covered the cup. I moved it to the outter edge of the tank where my lighting is less intense and aimed a power head at it. Ill post back when and if change occurs.

thanks for the help everyone

 

That could be it.

btw, what exactly are you dosing for? just calc/mag or are you dosing anything like "trace minerals"?

 

I dose alk booster, calcium, and magnesium. I also use a vitamin and amino acid suppliment

 

Small change....the polyps are coming out of their holes but they are not extending very much, staying very small and stumpy. I target fed them with a baster using some brine shrimp. some of the polyps had some food stick to them..(looked like they were puling food into their mouths). kinda hard to tell. Not sure why its behaving like this, everything with my water seems to be ideal...