All SPS does well except the easy ones...Anyone else?

JCOLE · Mar 2, 2020

I have 66 pieces of SPS in my tank. Acro's, Montipora, Stylos, seriatopora, etc. All pieces are doing well with good growth and colors except Seriatopora and Stylo's.

I dosed Vibrant about 5 months ago for a month. During the month I noticed my Purple Milka Stylo lost its white tips and looked weak. I had two decent birdsnest that started to have tissue necrosis. I ended up removing the stylo and birdnest and moved them to my frag tank.

They have never looked good ever since. I mounted a piece of purple stylo and birdsnest in my DT and they just don't look good. I just tossed all birdnest frags and big piece of stylo from my frag tank. I am going to remove the birdsnest and stylo from my DT tomorrow.

Again, all other pieces look good. Anyone else experience this and if so, what could this be and could it spread to my other pieces?

Hemmdog · Mar 3, 2020

Looks like shadowing from those pics.

JCOLE · Mar 3, 2020

Hemmdog said:
Looks like shadowing from those pics.

Well up at 3:30am because a snail decided to take a trip down my drain causing my Apex to blow my phone up. It's a good thing though.... might as well get on R2R.

Yeah sorry for the quality. These pictures were on the fly with my phone. The white parts are actually necrosis setting in and the flesh is no longer there.

Hemmdog · Mar 3, 2020

h2oh2o said:
Well up at 3:30am because a snail decided to take a trip down my drain causing my Apex to blow my phone up. It's a good thing though.... might as well get on R2R.

Yeah sorry for the quality. These pictures were on the fly with my phone. The white parts are actually necrosis setting in and the flesh is no longer there.

Oh no! Lol.

Yeah I see the necrosis, but it looks to be in a shadow, have you had the corals in full light? The shadowed parts on my birdsnest dies too.

x2uranium · Mar 3, 2020

Possible fish eating. I have rogue damsels that devoured a 10” style colony in a matter of two days... I would watch him. Physically rip the polyps out with every pass by... interestingly enough one of my tangs was learning from him and respectively doing the same after a little bit.

ycnibrc · Mar 3, 2020

Most people think birdness and stylo are easy corals but in a way they are not. If your tank still have problem with algae they will be the one to die first. They are sensitive to nutrients change since their polyps are thick when retract the bare base are prone to bleach due to higher intensive light without the polyps to shield it. If your tank has algae problem it will grow on to the bleach part very fast.

Nburg's Reef · Mar 3, 2020

ycnibrc said:
Most people think birdness and stylo are easy corals but in a way they are not. If your tank still have problem with algae they will be the one to die first. They are sensitive to nutrients change since their polyps are thick when retract the bare base are prone to bleach due to higher intensive light without the polyps to shield it. If your tank has algae problem it will grow on to the bleach part very fast.

I agree. I think people say they are easy because they grow so fast, I had some grow from frags to pretty large bushes. Then I had a tiny alk swing and they started to die and never recovered. All of my acropora showed no sign of stress. I think they are finicky with nutrient and alk changes.

JCOLE · Mar 3, 2020

Hemmdog said:
Oh no! Lol.

Yeah I see the necrosis, but it looks to be in a shadow, have you had the corals in full light? The shadowed parts on my birdsnest dies too.

Yes. I had the original colony up high around 500+ PAR and it grew to the size of a volleyball then started to STN. This piece is a frag off of that colony.

JCOLE · Mar 3, 2020

x2uranium said:
Possible fish eating. I have rogue damsels that devoured a 10” style colony in a matter of two days... I would watch him. Physically rip the polyps out with every pass by... interestingly enough one of my tangs was learning from him and respectively doing the same after a little bit.

No fish are eating it. I had about 30 frags of it in my frag tank which doesn't have any fish. The frags started to STN as well.

JCOLE · Mar 3, 2020

ycnibrc said:
Most people think birdness and stylo are easy corals but in a way they are not. If your tank still have problem with algae they will be the one to die first. They are sensitive to nutrients change since their polyps are thick when retract the bare base are prone to bleach due to higher intensive light without the polyps to shield it. If your tank has algae problem it will grow on to the bleach part very fast.

I agree. Easier meaning these are usually the beginner corals to try out. My birdsnest and Stylo were doing great until I dosed Vibrant which I think messed with the nutrients. This would make sense. However, I haven't dosed Vibrant for 4 months and they still have not recovered. They aren't Bleached. The polyps and flesh are shedding in an STN state.

JCOLE · Mar 3, 2020

If this was nutrient-related then would it affect the whole colony and every piece I fragged from the colony? I had two different types of Birdnest along with a purple stylo. All of them started to look rough after Vibrant. Every other piece of SPS didnt show signs of stress. Both birdsnest colonies started to show signs of STN at the bases working up into the colony. I fragged the colonies and had about 50 pieces of frags. All of which had good color and growth for about 2 months then started to show signs a month ago of STN and loss of color.

Could this be nutrient related or an issue with the coral itself?

old salt reefer · Mar 3, 2020

100% fine with SPS and LPS. 50/50 with Zoas go figure.

JCOLE · Mar 7, 2020

Think I might have found the issue or an issue. This started happening with Vibrant when nutrients dropped. Dinos kicked in and my nutrients were showing low so I started dosing Sodium Nitrate to get my NO3 up. I use Red Sea for my NO3 test. It has always showed a color of around 8-12ppm. I decided to try something and grabbed my old API kit which hasn't expired yet. I tested NO3 and the color was almost red up around the 100ppm mark! I ordered a Salifert kit to give that a try and it tested with the color around 80ppm! Well that might be an issue if my NO3 has been this high for a while... smh

Marc2952 · Mar 7, 2020

ycnibrc said:
Most people think birdness and stylo are easy corals but in a way they are not. If your tank still have problem with algae they will be the one to die first. They are sensitive to nutrients change since their polyps are thick when retract the bare base are prone to bleach due to higher intensive light without the polyps to shield it. If your tank has algae problem it will grow on to the bleach part very fast.

Pretty much this, when i had a dino problem my purple birdsnest was the first to go, and pretty fast too.

Bacon505 · Mar 7, 2020

Usually when birdnest and stylo starting to die, it’s an early sign that something changes in the water. If not corrected then other sps will soon suffer.

JCOLE · Mar 7, 2020

Bacon505 said:
Usually when birdnest and stylo starting to die, it’s an early sign that something changes in the water. If not corrected then other sps will soon suffer.

Hopefully it isn't something I can't correct. I just did a 30% water change which I haven't done in a couple months and order an XL AquaMaxx Bio Reactor to help lower Nitrates.