Am I Losing This Acro?

[AKL1950]

This is a Paradise Tenuis I’ve had for about 5 months. About a month ago, it started losing it’s color and showing white areas. I don’t have a picture of it before this started, but it was a nice blue color and encrusting it’s post nicely. If I put a black light on it at night, it still fluoresces green, but it’s definitely showing more white as time goes along. STN comes to mind, but I’m not real familiar with how STN progresses. It’s in an area where the PAR is about 220-250. The change happened fairly quickly, but since then it’s been very slowly showing more white. The other Acro’s close to it all look fine and are growing well. This is the only one that is doing this.

Temp 79-80
PH 8.02-8.25
salinity 34.8
NO3. 10
PO4. 0.04
Alk. 8.3
Ca. 460
Mag. 1500

Am I losing this one? Could it be something that might affect other corals. I.e., should i take it out, or let it try to recover. I could move it to a Frag rack in a lower PAR area If you think it’s getting too much light in its current condition.

Jetson

 

[DanyL]

It can be caused due to high PAR light with no enough acclimation time,, bacterial infection, Vibrio or a pest.
Unfortunately at this stage I have low hopes for this little guy, even though I had some success saving acros and regrowing them back to colonies from tiny pieces of living tissue before, but it is rare.

You may try to use chemiclean as an anti-bacterial dip, some reefers claim to have great success stopping an on going STN event with it, personally I found that an Iodine dip is enough most of the time, but it's not always effective.

It is generally a good idea to move stressed acros to a lower light intensity area, I found that in most cases high PAR in these situations does not help and may contribute to the accelerated rate of tissue loss.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

The PAR should be fine. I'd blame it on the PO4 being too low.

 

[DanyL]

The PAR should be fine. I'd blame it on the PO4 being too low.

0.04 phosphates isn't low though, it's perfectly fine.
I would however be a little worried about the high Magnesium levels.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

0.04 phosphates isn't low though, it's perfectly fine.

It's context dependent. If you don't have a lot of suspended particulate foods the corals can eat, the coral could be starving. In this context, more PO4 could be what it needs.

It also depends what you think the "right" number for PO4 is. If you think the right number is 0.03 ppm, then 0.04 ppm is fine. I keep my PO4 between 0.15 and 0.2 ppm. My acros didn't start thriving until I did. So 0.04 ppm is very low to me.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I won't make it but it won't effect your others, just leave it maybe it will come back who knows for sure, if your water is absolutely perfect it could come back.

 

[DanyL]

It's context dependent. If you don't have a lot of suspended particulate foods the corals can eat, the coral could be starving. In this context, more PO4 could be what it needs.

It also depends what you think the "right" number for PO4 is. If you think the right number is 0.03 ppm, then 0.04 ppm is fine. I keep my PO4 between 0.15 and 0.2 ppm. My acros didn't start thriving until I did. So 0.04 ppm is very low to me.

Acros can thrive even with very small amount of testable phosphates present in the water.
It was used to be very popular to keep undetectable phosphates and nitrates for quite a long period of the hobby, with thriving Acro forests and highly successful tanks in general.
It is only in recent years when the trend of keeping nutrients detectible and even elevated got popularized, and there is nothing wrong with it either.
It's just not the reason why this Acro is dying though.

 

[AKL1950]

It can be caused due to high PAR light with no enough acclimation time,, bacterial infection, Vibrio or a pest.
Unfortunately at this stage I have low hopes for this little guy, even though I had some success saving acros and regrowing them back to colonies from tiny pieces of living tissue before, but it is rare.

You may try to use chemiclean as an anti-bacterial dip, some reefers claim to have great success stopping an on going STN event with it, personally I found that an Iodine dip is enough most of the time, but it's not always effective.

It is generally a good idea to move stressed acros to a lower light intensity area, I found that in most cases high PAR in these situations does not help and may contribute to the accelerated rate of tissue loss.

Thanks Danyl. I’m not sure what happened, because it was in that spot for 4 months growing fine, encrusting well and then just boom, it started down hill. I guess some loses are to be expected, but this is my first and only Acro loss and I can’t see anything that would make it just all the sudden turn south.

It's context dependent. If you don't have a lot of suspended particulate foods the corals can eat, the coral could be starving. In this context, more PO4 could be what it needs.

It also depends what you think the "right" number for PO4 is. If you think the right number is 0.03 ppm, then 0.04 ppm is fine. I keep my PO4 between 0.15 and 0.2 ppm. My acros didn't start thriving until I did. So 0.04 ppm is very low to me.

There might be something to this. I’ve pretty much maxed out the corals I can keep in the last month or so. My phosphates keep bottoming out Now so I’m dosing NeoPhos and am having to increase that weekly just to keep it at 0.04. I also feed Reef Roids once a week, but at about 25% of recommended amount. Really don’t want to dirty up my tank, because it is still fairly new and the tangs, snails and urchins are barely being able to stay ahead of the algae growth. I could easily bump the PO4 up to see if that helps. A little more Dosing and double the Reef Roids each week.

 

[DanyL]

Thanks Danyl. I’m not sure what happened, because it was in that spot for 4 months growing fine, encrusting well and then just boom, it started down hill. I guess some loses are to be expected, but this is my first and only Acro loss and I can’t see anything that would make it just all the sudden turn south.


There might be something to this. I’ve pretty much maxed out the corals I can keep in the last month or so. My phosphates keep bottoming out Now so I’m dosing NeoPhos and am having to increase that weekly just to keep it at 0.04. I also feed Reef Roids once a week, but at about 25% of recommended amount. Really don’t want to dirty up my tank, because it is still fairly new and the tangs, snails and urchins are barely being able to stay ahead of the algae growth. I could easily bump the PO4 up to see if that helps. A little more Dosing and double the Reef Roids each week.

STN can sometimes randomly occur on well established tanks as well, I had colonies that for no apparent reason started to bleach.

That being said, new tanks are more susceptible to events like this due to the lack of bacterial maturity.
A well established system will have a broad bacterial diversity that works similarly to an immune system and is more likely to better handle situations like this.

As for your phosphates bottoming out, you do want to maintain stability.
You don't need to elevate your levels however, it's perfectly fine to be where you at.

 

[Dburr1014]

I tend to agree with chipmunk. It is on that hairy edge. If it was 0.03, I would say for sure to low.
As for the magnesium, my system has been north of 1500 for months. Last tested it was 1575. I have seen it closer to 1700 in the past. It's the arm extra coarse with high mag content. I need to switch it out to another brand. So I really don't think it's that.

 

[AKL1950]

I tend to agree with chipmunk. It is on that hairy edge. If it was 0.03, I would say for sure to low.
As for the magnesium, my system has been north of 1500 for months. Last tested it was 1575. I have seen it closer to 1700 in the past. It's the arm extra coarse with high mag content. I need to switch it out to another brand. So I really don't think it's that.

My magnesium has always been a bit high, but stable. The only instability is my PO4 and this coral started looking bad about the same time my PO4 started bottoming out. I probably went too fast adding corals and didn’t keep the food supply increasing to compensate for the increased mouths to feed.

I'm going to move this coral to a lower light area for a while and work on moving my PO4 up to between 0.05 and 0.10. Hopefully I will see a turn around in his coloring.

Anything else I might want to look at? I’m still fairly new at this and don’t have a good grip on all the different possibilities that could be amiss.

 

[Dburr1014]

My magnesium has always been a bit high, but stable. The only instability is my PO4 and this coral started looking bad about the same time my PO4 started bottoming out. I probably went too fast adding corals and didn’t keep the food supply increasing to compensate for the increased mouths to feed.

I'm going to move this coral to a lower light area for a while and work on moving my PO4 up to between 0.05 and 0.10. Hopefully I will see a turn around in his coloring.

Anything else I might want to look at? I’m still fairly new at this and don’t have a good grip on all the different possibilities that could be amiss.

I would say it's just stability.
In the water, lights, flow, ect.
Your numbers look pretty good where they are. But I do agree a little more po4.
Small changes go farther in the sps tank.

Edit; did you check for any bugs?

 

[AKL1950]

I would say it's just stability.
In the water, lights, flow, ect.
Your numbers look pretty good where they are. But I do agree a little more po4.
Small changes go farther in the sps tank.

Edit; did you check for any bugs?

The only tiny critters, that I can tell, are copipods. I’ve put more in every month and they are everywhere. I have not added any fish that eat them.

I‘m planning on moving that coral tomorrow and I’ll check real close.

 

[Shirak]

This.. "My phosphates keep bottoming out Now so I’m dosing NeoPhos and am having to increase that weekly just to keep it at 0.04. I also feed Reef Roids once a week, but at about 25% of recommended amount. Really don’t want to dirty up my tank, because it is still fairly new and the tangs, snails and urchins are barely being able to stay ahead of the algae growth. I could easily bump the PO4 up to see if that helps. A little more Dosing and double the Reef Roids each week."


I agree with Chipmunk. PO4 at .04ppm is low if the acro isn't catching much to supplement it's nutrition. Same with NO3 at 10ppm IMO. If the tissue is bleaching out but still there then the zooxanthellae are starved out. Test kits have a margin of error.. Even the better hobby grade digital Hanna for example. ULR phosphate tester has an error range of +- .02ppm so a reading of .04ppm could be pretty close to 0 or 0 on some other test kits.

If it's RTN or STN the flesh is gone and you can see the skeleton where the tissue was.

1500ppm Mg isn't high.. I run 1450-1500 no problem.

 

[DanyL]

I wonder if any of you ever had a ULNS tank with acros before.

I will say it once again, 0.04 is perfectly fine.
Stability is key.

 

[thatmanMIKEson]

I wonder if any of you ever had a ULNS tank with acros before.

I will say it once again, 0.04 is perfectly fine.
Stability is key.

Richard Ross? Is that you

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

I don't see anything wrong with your parameters with the exception of Nitrates at 10. I would prefer those to be a bit higher, say 15.

Magnesium at 1500 is perfect, it's what I dose for as a higher mag level has many benefits. One of them is that is helps keep down algaes. I do see you have a pretty nasty Dino infection going on in those rocks.

How old is the tank and did you use Marco rock? Your Acro frag looks like it is blasted with light on the one side where it has lost all color and has plenty of color on the other sidee, which is probably not getting as much light. So yes, lower the frag down so you get lower par.

I would stop dosing Phosphates and get your Nitrates up just a bit, by dosing. Once you do that, normal feeding of fish should take care of your phosphates.

The dinos are probably robbing your system of nutrients and everyone thinks it's always Phosphates. In my experience, it is low Nitrates. Once you get those up a bit and keep it stable at about 15, then you'll start to see the Dinos disappear.

 

[DanyL]

Richard Ross? Is that you

I assume it's a US culture related reference my foreign brain will not understand

 

[AKL1950]

I don't see anything wrong with your parameters with the exception of Nitrates at 10. I would prefer those to be a bit higher, say 15.

Magnesium at 1500 is perfect, it's what I dose for as a higher mag level has many benefits. One of them is that is helps keep down algaes. I do see you have a pretty nasty Dino infection going on in those rocks.

How old is the tank and did you use Marco rock? Your Acro frag looks like it is blasted with light on the one side where it has lost all color and has plenty of color on the other sidee, which is probably not getting as much light. So yes, lower the frag down so you get lower par.

I would stop dosing Phosphates and get your Nitrates up just a bit, by dosing. Once you do that, normal feeding of fish should take care of your phosphates.

The dinos are probably robbing your system of nutrients and everyone thinks it's always Phosphates. In my experience, it is low Nitrates. Once you get those up a bit and keep it stable at about 15, then you'll start to see the Dinos disappear.

Wow! My heads starting to spin now. I suspected my low nutrients were partially because I do still have a lot of algae. It sort of comes and goes and right now it’s up a bit. But Dino’s? My photography is quite bad. If I turn the white lights way up, it just looks like very short green algae. The tangs and urchins are constantly eating it. I’m not real smart on Dino’s, but doesn’t look anything like what pictures I have seen that are “Dino’s“. I’ve never had what would be considered an algae bloom, but I’ve have yet to be able to get it all to go away Completely. I’ll have to admit, I’ve been tinkering with my lights to increase the PAR across the top tier where the Acro’s are and the algae definitely started growing more as well.

I’ve quit tinkering with the lights and may need to lower them back down a notch or two to get control of the algae growth. And yes, it was probably the increase in light, causing increased algae growth that caused my nutrients to bottom out. They all sort of happened together. Another point on that was my long term maintenance. I thought, wrongfully, my UV light would last about a year. I pulled it out to check it and the sleeve was completely encrusted making the light useless. I cleaned the sleeve, and put in a new light. I can already tell that is helping.

Bottom line, maybe me tinkering with the lights also caused the problem with this one Acro. My par meter says 220 PAR where it is, but I may have increased it too fast. I’m just learning that tweaking 1% on four Radion xr30s causes a dramatic change where two lights overlap. That’s where this one coral is at.

Yes, I’m making mistakes, but hopefully I’m correcting them before I do something really stupid.

 

[AKL1950]

This is the coral (top left) under a black light. The entire coral still fluoresces. Even the areas which appear white under the daytime lights. I assume that means it’s still alive and can be saved.