Coralline bleaching/die off

[jadavis01]

I recently purchased a 29 gallon nano reef pretty much all inclusive. The liverock was transported about 3 miles to my house in 5 gallon buckets with tank water. It has been setup about 4 days now and I notice significant bleaching and die off of corraline algae. Other inhabitants seem to be okay, leather coral and bubble corale really opening up nicely. Peppermint shrimps, green emerald crabs, snails (bumblebee, turbo, etc.), hermits and sally lightfoot all doing well. I tested the water parameters and they are as follows:

Temp = 79.5 - 80.1
PH = 7.8
Ammonia = 0.0 (on test kit)
Phosphates < 0.2
Alklininty = 8.4
Salinity 1.025
Calcium = 480

Other test kits (iodine, etc.) on the way but
not available yet.

I would say I have lost 1/3 of the growth already and what is left is much lighter.

I am concenered about the fairly low pH related to the alkalinity too.

I am running 2 x 55 W PC lights 12 hours a day (1 6500k and 1 7100k).

I am using a BakPak 2 skimmer and 2 Maxijet 400 powerheads on a wavemaker.

One speculation I have is since the tank was emptied and cleaned of algae that maybe the snails, hermits and/or crabs are eating the coralline. I have a small amout of Caulerpa too, which seems to be okay.

The other speculation is that the pH is too low and or iodine.

Maybe it is just a stage after the transplant and it will come back.

I don't have a lot of corals yet so I was hoping the coralline would keep it pretty.

I have about 40 lbs. of liverock in the 29 gallon tank.

Any thoughts as to what is happening?

Thank you!

[Alice]

Is the alkalinity measured in Meq/L or dKH? If it's the first, you've got a real overload, it's it dKH you're doing ok. If it's Meq/L and you're adding a buffer you'll want to stop! You also may want to consider the age of your test kit..old kits give bad readings and make sure that you take the pH in the evening when th pH level will be highest due to photoshynthesis.

If all the other factors work out, I would say that the change over is more than likely the cause of the coralline die-off, is it even possible that you've got the rocks turned a different way than they were in the previous set up and you're seeing areas of rock that didn't have much coralline before now growing new?

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Reefkeeping is my life; I can't afford a hobby too!

[This message has been edited by Alice (edited 11-23-2000).]