First acro frag problem :(

[Gavin Noy]

So lowing the Alk. Acros dont like alk swing ect. Will i be able to lower the alk fast enough to not kill the acro by alk burn? Might take weeks to get it below 10kh. By then the acro will be about dead or even dead.

 

[RockBox13]

What Do White Tips On SPS Corals Mean?

Have you come home to white tips on your SPS corals and do not know what they are or what to do? From afar, it can be hard to make out if it's something we need to be concerned with. White tips form either from regular coral growth or they are burnt tips resulting from alkalinity spike or tissue...

www.piecesoftheocean.com

Proves nothing, just speculates about possible cause being an alkalinity “spike”. It gives no real numbers or possibly eliminates other causes like simple contamination of some kind. The other one is the same. Just anecdotal information and people deciding to blame it on low nutrients and high alkalinity for lack of information or a better cause.

 

[RockBox13]

Let’s say you mixed up new water with Red Sea Coral Pro or another salt with alkalinity that’s 10 or above. That water is going to have zero nutrients in it, so if you put a frag or a dozen frags of any Acropora alone in a 13g tank like this with sufficient lighting and flow with no food or anything else to increase “nutrients” for the coral, how long before it dies? Does anyone think when you ship or carry on thousands of dollars of frags to a show that you’re going to get water that matches your parameters at home? Of course not, there will be salt mix there that most people are going to use and you’ll have a minimal amount of water in the bags you brought them in that is likely depleted of oxygen and pH has fallen some. Those corals then get left in the frag tanks for days. You don’t see anyone freaking out about higher alk or differences with their normal salt mix and everyone’s Acropora nose diving into RTN.

 

[twentyleagues]

So lowing the Alk. Acros dont like alk swing ect. Will i be able to lower the alk fast enough to not kill the acro by alk burn? Might take weeks to get it below 10kh. By then the acro will be about dead or even dead.

Like I said its unfortunate that this has happened. I rarely focus on 1 coral unless its a species tank. If your other corals are doing good just focus on those. I know you dont want to hear this.

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

if the rest of the tank is ok then i would leave it alone. Don’t chase numbers for a coral. Also new growth will not grow algae. It they are burnt u will most likely see some algae growth.

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Like I said it’s unfortunate that this has happened. I rarely focus on 1 coral unless it’s a species tank. If your other corals are doing good just focus on those. I know you dont want to hear this.

Sry got lazy didn’t scroll. Up

 

[twentyleagues]

Let’s say you mixed up new water with Red Sea Coral Pro or another salt with alkalinity that’s 10 or above. That water is going to have zero nutrients in it, so if you put a frag or a dozen frags of any Acropora alone in a 13g tank like this with sufficient lighting and flow with no food or anything else to increase “nutrients” for the coral, how long before it dies? Does anyone think when you ship or carry on thousands of dollars of frags to a show that you’re going to get water that matches your parameters at home? Of course not, there will be salt mix there that most people are going to use and you’ll have a minimal amount of water in the bags you brought them in that is likely depleted of oxygen and pH has fallen some. Those corals then get left in the frag tanks for days. You don’t see anyone freaking out about higher alk or differences with their normal salt mix and everyone’s Acropora nose diving into RTN.

Those were not in reply to you.
I have done all those things you are saying and no usually for a couple hrs-days it really wont matter. This didnt happen over night though its been in those parameters for weeks. I had a separate frag/qt tank that got 0 nutrients for weeks and nothing terrible happened to the corals but params of that tank were not elevated either. Typically successful sps tanks dont run that high alk for multiple reasons this being one of them in my understanding. I am not a stick guy I tried it, I liked the colors but lack of motion made it boring. I had some good size colonies too that I fragged often and made money off of. I ran around 10 dkh ph of 8.2-8.4 initially my n was in the 20s and p somewhere south of 2 not .2. I did drop the n and p over about a year to less then 10n and .8p to get "better" color. In hindsight tying a 125g sps tank into a larger system heavy on lps and large fish probably wasnt the best idea. Once my n and p got lower started having issues with some corals including the sps. I cut back on my methods and increased feedings back to what I did before and thing went back to looking good. Many people said I needed to drop alk from 10 and that it would help the sps specifically, same types of issues burned tips. I just upped nutrients and all was good.

 

[RockBox13]

I was making tanks that started like this…

…look like this for 18 years with my high alk and low nutrients

I’ve farmed and filled up a lot of frag tanks with more species that always looked better than anyone else around.

I’ve just been lucky enough to have handled a lot more SPS in a lot more situations and systems than most people. I’ve had Tony Vargas and Jake Adams in my shop and got to stand there and look at my corals with them. I don’t need validation and I’m not trying to sell anything and I don’t even use a name identifiable with who I might be. I’ve done what I’ve done for a long time and I know what I know from my own experience.

 

[RockBox13]

Also, at least 3 ROTM here of my customers tanks over the years with several corals purchased from me in each. Including this Masterpiece.

 

[SamMule]

Also, at least 3 ROTM here of my customers tanks over the years with several corals purchased from me in each. Including this Masterpiece.

That's a sick tank!
I would love to try barebottom sometime, but I just know it would get riddled with vermetid snails.

 

[RockBox13]

That's a sick tank!
I would love to try barebottom sometime, but I just know it would get riddled with vermetid snails.

That’s my friend Thorly Tan’s tank. A few months after he was ROTM he tore it down and brought me everything. The corals and the aquascape. He wanted to just give me everything for some live rock he could start over with, so I just gave him the live rock. And a surprise small Black Tang a few weeks later too.

 

[Gavin Noy]

I was making tanks that started like this…

…look like this for 18 years with my high alk and low nutrients

I’ve farmed and filled up a lot of frag tanks with more species that always looked better than anyone else around.

I’ve just been lucky enough to have handled a lot more SPS in a lot more situations and systems than most people. I’ve had Tony Vargas and Jake Adams in my shop and got to stand there and look at my corals with them. I don’t need validation and I’m not trying to sell anything and I don’t even use a name identifiable with who I might be. I’ve done what I’ve done for a long time and I know what I know from my own experience.

NICE!!! Woow id love to have those frags. Id probably kill them though

 

[Gavin Noy]

Also, at least 3 ROTM here of my customers tanks over the years with several corals purchased from me in each. Including this Masterpiece.

OMG

 

[spsick]

In my experience small tanks need to be more mature to support Acropora, unless they are started with mature rock.

Keep trying, but I think you’ll find better success after the 1 year mark.

 

[twentyleagues]

@RockBox13 Nice. You obviously know what you are doing. I never questioned that. You are talking from experience which is longer then mine for sure. I was just talking from my own experience as most of us do. I have about 13 years of experience in reefing with a long 12ish year gap between 12 and 13. I included exp from a friend/mentor also who like you had been reefing for quite a while and got me wanting sticks with how his tanks looked. As I stated @Gavin Noy is new to all this maybe that coral isnt right for him/that tank atm. He should focus on what is working and working out his parameters and stability. If he runs at 11-12 dkh and everything is in check then that is what happens. I think we can agree that a couple months in and 15g tank isnt the best scenario for most acros.

 

[RockBox13]

NICE!!! Woow id love to have those frags. Id probably kill them though

When you’re ready, I’ll walk you through it and you will understand why you’re successful and not just that things haven’t died yet. The basics aren’t too complicated for you at all. It’s about results and understanding why certain things work in your own unique aquarium especially when it’s within the first couple of years as it becomes more full of life and adjustments have to be made. By then you’ll already know when and how to adjust those things and how to connect what you see happening in your tank with test results and it’s intuitive. Memory kicks in and you remember that last time this one coral looked that way was because calcium got low. You test and calcium is low, you make the adjustment and then you connect that to what you see. Did that solve the issue and behave the way you predicted or is nothing changed? Practice makes perfect. Better practice makes perfect happen a lot more often in a much shorter time.

 

[Dburr1014]

Looks like that frag has healed a little since the first pic you posted.
I also think it's burnt tips. I think the light just kicked out over the edge.
High alk and low nutrients do do this. It's ss simple as rapid growth of the skeleton and low growth of the tissue.

Last year I took some snap shots from Lou Ekus seminar. It was very informative.

 

[Gavin Noy]

This is 24hrs after the first photo. Cant sell if its the same or slightly worse. Going to get them side by side. It had alot more lighting and flow yesterday. Atleast its not noticeably worse today i suppose.

 

[Gavin Noy]

Day 1 on the left and today on the right. I can see now the tips are more white and looks like algae on them too.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

What is surprising is No One has asked what the parameters the coral came from. Sure, in it's current situation it is in low light and X? flow. But what did it come from? When I purchase a coral that is the first ? I ask the seller. What are your parameters and what was the lighting? I try to match that initially as best I can. Looking at the coral, it points to low nutrients, high ALK, high lighting. It is easy to say "how can a prime get to too much par"? Well if the origin lighting was low, it can. I was just watching a Fragbox TV episode where he was talking about in his center raceway, his par is in the mid 100's. One of the coral suppliers I get my frags from grows corals in his backyard. But because he uses a tarp to cut down on the light the corals get, the corals get no UV. So you need to acclimate his corals to the UV in your tank. So you really need to do your research on the origin of the corals.