Acropora tip recession (not carbon or high alk)

tunedtank · Mar 8, 2017

So recently I had a episode of tip recession on almost every acro in the tank...it has went and passed and I still can't seem to figure out what contribbed to this...I have been keeping sps for a few years now and I know the general consenses with tip burn is high alk low nutrients....so my question is what do you contribute tip recession to when your alk is 7-8dkh and no3 is 10-25 and po4 .00-.02? The only thing that changed as the corals made there comeback although some died completely was the addition of some cheato in the sump that began growin very quickly and some large water changes?? I'm so stumped by this I would like to know what caused it or atleast a general idea.. everytime I lose an acropora it starts at the top and I have always kept lower alk and plenty of nutrients in the water...and never carbon dosed??? Thanks all

swnoob · Mar 8, 2017

What salt mix do you use and what do you consider a large water change? What percentage of water was changed?

Bps619 · Mar 9, 2017

Where are you getting your water source? A lot of guys here in San Diego are dealing with chloramines in the water leading to coral stn.

tunedtank · Mar 9, 2017

I use regular io salt and was 20-30g every other day for about a week....the total water volume is probably 120G... I did these wc after the problem started.

Also the water source is from an rodi unit with 0 tds at outlet before the di resin... I am located in Alabama I guess I could still check with the water works if they have done anything differently during that time....thanks

swnoob · Mar 9, 2017

tunedtank said:
I use regular io salt and was 20-30g every other day for about a week....the total water volume is probably 120G... I did these wc after the problem started.

Also the water source is from an rodi unit with 0 tds at outlet before the di resin... I am located in Alabama I guess I could still check with the water works if they have done anything differently during that time....thanks

Do you add muriatic acid to your newly mixed water to lower the alkalinity? I've had IO mix as high as 12-13 in alk. I have the same size tank and also low in nutrients and also try to maintain my alk at 7. I went through something similar and I actually did more damage then good with large water changes because of the alk.

I cut back to 10 gallon change daily for a few weeks and everything seemed to settle. My corals went through rtn and stn. Never figured what caused the tank to almost crash but i was told everything from an imbalance in dosing, high magnesium, low nutrients and chloramines.

What worked for me was uping my nutrients. Minimum of .04 phosphates and nitrates at 10. My tank is way to sensitive to any alk swing (plus or minus 1)at lower nutrients.

tunedtank · Mar 9, 2017

Thanks for the info swnoob, but see that's the thing all of this street before I was doing the large wc before I was doing just doing about 5g a week...and this system has never showed ulns like nutrient levels..nitrates always been 10-20, although po4 had tested 0 several times and now and then would jump up to .01-.02 and then back down to zero...I feed it daily to every other day...to my understanding every time some one post about tip burn it's almost always due to low nutrients and high alk but this tank has never had alk over 8.2 or so since the original drop after setting it up 6-8 months ago....this tank is more the opposite, low alk and high nutrients so what would be the blame for tip burn in these settings??? Thanks for all the thoughts on it

zachtos · Mar 20, 2017

I've been told too high of alk will do this, and have been lowering my alk slowly to try and stop burned tips. I was told high alk and high nutrients go well together, and that's what I used to do, but this time around I'm going high light, ULN and was running ALK too high.