Acropora STN

[Labridaedicted]

Ok, so I think my course of action is going to be to take all media offline (gfo and carbon already off and take bp offline) and I'll dial the calcium reactor back a hair.

Growth was going wild for a while so I had alk up and the rapid growth must have sucked up all the nutrients.

Thanks for all the input, guys, I really appreciate it and I'll keep you all posted. It's amazing that our equipment has gotten so efficient this is a problem, now. When I got in the hobby, I couldn't keep my nutrients low enough, haha

 

[Labridaedicted]

How long have you had these pieces?
The first picture the coral is dead already.
Second the coral is near death.
You can try fragging but from the images you have posted I doubt you will get any surviving frags.

I've had them both for about 3 months. Its a pale green acro, so I understand it looks a bit washed out in these pics. You can see the polyps extended and the normal color on the left of the colony.

 

[jda]

The biopellets and/or GFO sucked up all of the N and P. Coral do not need that many and cannot really "suck up" enough to move a level.

This is where something like .1N and .005-.01P is enough... but you go 5-10x lower to .01N and .001P and you have problems. The only way to get that low is with Organic Carbon (biopellets), GFO or LC. Water changes, chaeto, 'fuge cannot really take you too low.

 

[reefwiser]

That is about the time I would expect to see a piece that size go south on me. I have dealt with a bunch that size since 1990 and some three times the size of those back in the day. Use to fly out to LA and hook up with my buddy Steve Tyree. Bring back 50 pieces at a time. Ah those where the days.

 

[BoomCorals]

The biopellets and/or GFO sucked up all of the N and P. Coral do not need that many and cannot really "suck up" enough to move a level.

This is where something like .1N and .005-.01P is enough... but you go 5-10x lower to .01N and .001P and you have problems. The only way to get that low is with Organic Carbon (biopellets), GFO or LC. Water changes, chaeto, 'fuge cannot really take you too low.

ATS is another good option that can take you low without going too low.

 

[Sabellafella]

Ok, so I think my course of action is going to be to take all media offline (gfo and carbon already off and take bp offline) and I'll dial the calcium reactor back a hair.

Growth was going wild for a while so I had alk up and the rapid growth must have sucked up all the nutrients.

Thanks for all the input, guys, I really appreciate it and I'll keep you all posted. It's amazing that our equipment has gotten so efficient this is a problem, now. When I got in the hobby, I couldn't keep my nutrients low enough, haha

From what I've put together. Nothing looks out of the ordinary(except if your tanks medium is young). Those colonys you bought may have not been healthy although they lived for 3 months in your tank. Dont let this discourage you, try your hand in the future with a aquacultured acropora. Maybe something like a red planet,or tort for example.

 

[thaveteran]

The hardest thing to do is buy colonies and keep them alive. You might be changing all this stuff for nothing. Honestly, I would stop messing with stuff, find a few frags of something that's been around a long time like red planet, green slimer, pink lemonade and see how those do. Let those corals be your control group. If they do ok and you are still losing colonies, chalk the deaths up to wild colony stability issues. It's hard to pinpoint an issue when changing everything at once AND dealing with something as finicky as wild acros. Honestly, I change nothing if a coral or two starts dying. If everything else is healthy I'm not shocking my tank and upsetting everything else in it for one or two corals. Touch nothing and start with hardy aquacultured corals.