Birdsnest Question / Rookie Mistake

[Maxcmo]

I have been testing using Hanna test kits (Calcium, Alkalinity, Phosphates, and Nitrates) pretty much regularly. The tank is going on 7 months old, I have good Coraline and pineapple sponge growth all over. I had noticed my Calcium, and Alkalinity started to slowly creep down about a month ago. I started dosing AFR by Tropic Marin about 2 months ago using a versa pump I started with 20 ML per day and was creeping up the dosage to try and raise ALK and Calcium which never budged. After about a month and getting up to 65 ML per day I realized I had NOT dosed one single drop! I bought a dosing container from Amazon and apparently the hose it came with had a hole or was plugged but once I changed out the hose it started to work. Huge rookie mistake. I skipped calibrating it when I first set it up because I was rushing to get out of the house and somehow forgot and never got back around to calibrating the doser which would have caught this mistake. Anyways 2 weeks later I now have everything running the way it should be and stable where its supposed to be and everyone is happy except my birds nest. My ALK had gone as low as 6.2 for about a week. Its stable now at 8.2. My question is do I snip this up and frag it all to save as many pieces as I can or do I just leave it alone and see what happens or maybe snip a few and also leave the main colony and see what happens? Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Maxcmo]

Bump on a little help/advice on this…

 

[TnFishwater98]

Bump on a little help/advice on this…

 

[Red_Beard]

I am by no means an expert, but i would watch it close. If flesh continues to receed, frag that poor thing. If it stabilized i would watch to see if it would recover.

 

[Dburr1014]

For me, the bird's nest is my elusive Coral. I cannot keep one alive to save my life. Any other SPS I have no problems. But in this case, I would probably snip a couple pieces off now. Re-dip and re-plug. If that whole Colony goes south overnight it'll be too late. That's why I would snip at least a couple pieces right now.

 

[PatW]

In my experience, birds nests grow very quickly. But if there is a shift in stability, they tend to be sensitive and die. Mine have always died very rapidly and not receded gradually.

For acropora, I have found that fragging a receding colony seems to work in that there is a good chance of the frags surviving whilst if left on the colony everything goes.

 

[Uncle99]

If it continues to erode from the bottom then yes, fragging might save it.
Grows very fast.

 

[Spare time]

I'd think that, given the issue could have been alk and instead of an infection, it would be best to leave it be. They can regrow over dead zones. I find that the more a birdsnest is messed with, the worse they get.


Honestly birdsnest is far more difficult to keep than people make it out to be

 

[Maxcmo]

I'd think that, given the issue could have been alk and instead of an infection, it would be best to leave it be. They can regrow over dead zones. I find that the more a birdsnest is messed with, the worse they get.


Honestly birdsnest is far more difficult to keep than people make it out to be

I fragged three small pieces and the rest left it alone. I am out of town for a few days so I am hoping when I get back it looks better! Thanks for the input.