Acro growing without flesh!

[Therapy]

New to this forum. Think of myself as fairly knowledgeable. Been in hobby for 20 plus years. New to SPS. Have many new in the last 6 months. Most show no growth at all except my digi's which have doubled. Tank parameters seem fine and stable. 4ppm nitrate and almost zero Po4.
My problem is the few that have shown growth. The calcium skeleton is growing bu not the flesh. At first thought it was normal for "tip" growth. But not so. The calcium base is growing well but no flesh. Also have a milli which had a tip break off and regrowing with the same results. The overall growth of all SPS (excluding the 2 Digi's) is nearly nil. What does grow has no flesh.
I've tested all that I can and see nothing wrong anywhere.
Very stumped. Please help.

Tom

 

[AcroNem]

Usually "burnt tips" are caused by high alkalinity, has that changed recently?

 

[Therapy]

No. That has stayed very steady! I know rule #1. Consistently steady. 8.15 Dkh.

 

[Therapy]

Any thoughts entertained. I'm stumped. Maybe I missed something. Well water with 150GPD dual Membrane RO system. Always zero. A chance of any other nutrients, getting past? It is iron hard b4 RO.

 

[Tahoe61]

Hi Tom and welcome .

I have had sps grow so fast that it looked like there was no tissue on the tip, I believe there is tissue just not completely colonized with zooxanthellae, growth is out pacing coloration.

 

[Salty1962]

Welcome to R2R! Pictures would enable us to help better.

 

[Therapy]

can't figure out how to post images from my PC. Needs a URL. Not

 

[Therapy]

[/URL][/IMG] Sorry all. Trying to figure this site out. May be errors here. Here is the SPS. Second one is a couple months ago to show it is growth not just flesh dying off.

 

[Therapy]

Whew! It worked.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

#spsexperts please give your thoughts.

 

[mcarroll]

Are you dosing liquid carbon source? Doing this and having alkalinity ≥8 dKH can cause "burnt tips". I've seen this characterized as skeleton without flesh.

If your nutrient levels are very low – either NO3 or PO4 – then this can make conditions ripe for the effect.

How's light and water flow in his area?

 

[Therapy]

No carbon source. Not even doing any 2 part Calk/Alk because levels stay pretty good with weekly WC's. (20 gals) Not much in the tank.
4 ppm NO3 and nearly no PO4. Just registers but not enough for .25 on API test kit.

Lighting, it's near bottom of tank. When it was higher I thought it was getting burnt from light. Pair of 247's LED lights for 10 hours a day. 40% whites and 10% blues. Lights 12" from top and this coral 14" down from top. I moved it down (coral) a cpl months ago (second pic) when I had issues with some of my corals bleaching from too much light. I rate the lighting for it from the color of it. (brown, too little, vs. turquoise vs. bleaching, and no polyp extension) Which you can see it does extend even the part without flesh.

Decent flow from a Gyre pump IMO. The Gyre is what kicked some growth to the tank. But not all corals.

Thank you for your reply and questions. I will listen to any ideas out there. I SURELY don't have all the answers.

Tom

 

[mcarroll]

Lighting, it's near bottom of tank. When it was higher I thought it was getting burnt from light.

If you can find out how much light your tank (in particular where this coral is located) is getting and compare with where the frag was grown, you can dial your light in (or the location of the frag) to be more like where it came from.

Use a lux meter (like the "lx-1010b" I use) if you don't have anything. Tho a PAR meter is also nice if you can afford it.

What is flow like specifically where this coral is? And again, how would you compare with where the frag was originally grown?

 

[Therapy]

Frag bought at a frag swap/sale. Don't know how it was originally grown. Don't recall vendor I bought it from.

Is that Lux meter good for submerged use?

As for flow I consistently see polyps movement from the Gyre. Lets see if I can post a video.

I am so glad that I post questions. It forces me to do parameter tests. I usually test AFTER a WC. Just now I tested B4! As follows.
Calcium 450
PH 8.15
Mg 1420
Ready? DKH 6.1! I tested my make up water to confirm and that tested at 9.6 Dkh

Curious how the DKH can be so low yet the PH is 8.15. All Salifert test kits except Nitrates (API) and PO4 (API)
I am purchasing an APEX Classic as we speak so I can monitor this better.

Please chime in with thoughts.

Tom

 

[Rakie]

It's hard to tell without high quality HD pics. It may be so, so many thing, it's hard to pinpoint. If it's at the tips, or near the tips, sometimes new growth can be white. This happens when something is growing quickly. It may have been annoyed by a pest of some sort. I've had small frags get 'rubbed raw' by a snail that couldn't stop eating the algae near it's base..

For now, continue monitoring. If you can get better pix, I suggest that first. It could *also* be tissue loss due to low alk -- although it's rare that low alkalinity bothers corals like this. You can swing alk down, but swinging up can cause some rough times for SPS.