Acros fading away

[Charlie’s Frags]

Anybody have any experience with acros looking dried up and then the tissue just fades away? Not rtn or stn. Almost like it’s drying up.
Alk 7.5
Cal 460
Ph 8.2
Mag 1300
Nitrates 10-15
Po4 0.05-0.10

 

[DIvid]

Anybody have any experience with acros looking dried up and then the tissue just fades away? Not rtn or stn. Almost like it’s drying up.
Alk 7.5
Cal 460
Ph 8.2
Mag 1300
Nitrates 10-15
Po4 0.05-0.10

How much par are these corals receiving? Photos would be helpful

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I don’t have a par meter but the light program I’m using is supposed to have 350 6” below the water surface and 175 on the sand bed. Light is an AI hydra 52 over a sca 24”x24”x20” 50 gallon cube. Photo period is 1.5 hr ramp up 5hrs peak and 1.5 hr ramp down, 8 hours total.

 

[miPapareef]

How stable is your chemistry and lights? Besides being in acceptable range they need to be stable. Particularly alk swinging can give you that stn starting from base.

Also what flow do you have in the tank? Both overall quantity and randomness is very important for sps.

 

[Mattrg02]

This is what happens to mine. They start good for the first week, then the polyp extension goes, then they “dry up”, then rtn takes them out. Whole process takes 1-2months.

Parameters are stable, no swings. Only thing I can think of is some kind of poison in the water, which I run carbon and poly filter for, or my lighting (hydra26hd) is too weak (corals don’t bleach) or my flow is too strong or flow pattern is bad.

Or God doesn’t my tank

 

[jda]

"Dried up" is a good description. I have seen this with salinity issues (check your refractometer), too much bad light from LED, ammonia or nitrite poisoning, nitrate and/or phosphate poisoning (they need to be REALLY high) or you are nearly peeling the tissue off of the corals with too much flow.

Usually too-weak lighting has really good color and PE while slowly dying from the bottom.

 

[RedneckReefer68]

I have a couple frags looking like this while the rest look fantastic

 

[Mattrg02]

I wonder if this is a deficiency of some sort? We need zinc and iodine to repair our own skin, right? Maybe something is missing in our tanks, for whatever reason? I use bright wells neomarine salt.

Edit : Zoas and palys aren’t showing any signs of stress. Seems ammonia and the like would take out everything, not just acros.

 

[BoomCorals]

This is what happens to mine. They start good for the first week, then the polyp extension goes, then they “dry up”, then rtn takes them out. Whole process takes 1-2months.

Parameters are stable, no swings. Only thing I can think of is some kind of poison in the water, which I run carbon and poly filter for, or my lighting (hydra26hd) is too weak (corals don’t bleach) or my flow is too strong or flow pattern is bad.

Or God doesn’t my tank

Have you done an icp test?

 

[Mattrg02]

Have you done an icp test?

No, I need to. Just hate how long it seems to take to get one done.

 

[BoomCorals]

No, I need to. Just hate how long it seems to take to get one done.

Do the ATI one. Much faster. I used to do the triton one but it takes two weeks. ATI usually just a few days.

 

[Mattrg02]

Do the ATI one. Much faster. I used to do the triton one but it takes two weeks. ATI usually just a few days.

Where are you ordering from?

Edit: Found it on MarineDepot and ordered one. Watch it tell me that my water is high in bad luck.

 

[BoomCorals]

Where are you ordering from?

Edit: Found it on MarineDepot and ordered one. Watch it tell me that my water is high in bad luck.

If you ever can’t find them I can get them for you too.

 

[Mattrg02]

If you ever can’t find them I can get them for you too.

Didn’t realize you sold them too. I’ll go through you next time.

OP- How long have you been experiencing this for? Also, do you have a lot of Coralline algae growing? Are you running your UV leds at 100%?

 

[Jaysushi]

@Mattrg02 Is running UV led at 100% bad? I have a Radion XR30W Pro Gen4 and my UV led is at 100%. Not sure if I should turn the % down on UV

 

[Mattrg02]

@Mattrg02 Is running UV led at 100% bad? I have a Radion XR30W Pro Gen4 and my UV led is at 100%. Not sure if I should turn the % down on UV

I’ve read that it can be really harsh, but I’ve also read that the uv leds that are common to these fixtures aren’t contributing in any meaningful way to be dangerous. It’s just a shot in the dark at what could be amiss. Maybe the really harsh camp are on to something? Mine are only a couple of watts anyways. UV scatters in air I believe, so I’d guess that little is making it into the tank.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

No, I need to. Just hate how long it seems to take to get one done.

I bought one from my lfs from called marinlab. Sent it off 10 days ago to Deepwater aquatics in Florida and I haven’t heard anything back yet. The phone number I found is not a working number.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

"Dried up" is a good description. I have seen this with salinity issues (check your refractometer), too much bad light from LED, ammonia or nitrite poisoning, nitrate and/or phosphate poisoning (they need to be REALLY high) or you are nearly peeling the tissue off of the corals with too much flow.

Usually too-weak lighting has really good color and PE while slowly dying from the bottom.

Salinity is 1.026 checked with 2 refractometers. I didn’t know it was possible to have too much flow besides having an acro right in front of the vortec. I have 1 mp40 qd pulsing at 70% power and then I have 2 of the random flows nozzles on my locline returns.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

This is what happens to mine. They start good for the first week, then the polyp extension goes, then they “dry up”, then rtn takes them out. Whole process takes 1-2months.

Parameters are stable, no swings. Only thing I can think of is some kind of poison in the water, which I run carbon and poly filter for, or my lighting (hydra26hd) is too weak (corals don’t bleach) or my flow is too strong or flow pattern is bad.

Or God doesn’t my tank

That’s interesting because this started when I put a polyfilter in the sump

 

[Mattrg02]

That’s interesting because this started when I put a polyfilter in the sump

Mine have been doing this since long before I started the poly filtering. I’ve since upgraded my tank size to a system with 2.5times the water as the old one. I’m wondering if my new rash of drying out is from too much poly filtering, filtering out some trace minerals?

Edit: Too much flow could be a problem if there is something else amiss. Same for too much light, normally not a problem unless the coral is ticked already.