GSP dying and vermintide

Reesj · Jul 24, 2020

My tank seems to be doing ok except for the huge influx problem of vermintide snails. There were only 1 or maybe 2 at start. BAck then I did not knew what it was. I thought it was nice and safe. BAM. Few months in and they are hundresds everywhere and I only recently found out what they really are. Main thing for influx must be my reef roid feeding every other day to my sun coral colony.
Anyway most of my corals are doing ok. Atleast once not near vermintide. Got hammer, some tree thing and few diffrent zoas. All doing great and zoas multiplying. I got a small GSP frag and it got to about 3x theinitial size in last 4-5 months. But fast forward last month and it seemed to be receeding and parts of it dying. So I though it might be the half a dozen of vermitides near it with few nets . So I made a small frag rack just for it on glass and put it there away from all. But even after this it still went down hill and now almost dead. Got to tell btw that the new palce get a bit lower light than before.

Parameters are
Posphate: 0.03-0.1 (Salifert)
Nitrate 30 (I'm not sure as the test kit sucks and it was cheap.)
Cal: 450
Alk: 7.5-8 (When it start to go down it had crept near 6 but i got it back up within about week of small increases)

What could casue a GSP to slowly die off ? Maybe my neutirents going down or just the vermintide snail ?

brmreefer · Jul 24, 2020

What is your salinity?

Reesj · Jul 24, 2020

1.026 but I'm not 100% sure of my refractro meter. Its the exact number i get from my ocean water

. (so perfectly calibrated to reef water in SRi Lanka)So I'm keeping it at that. I used to do water changes from NSW but have stoped it since Corona started in March.

Cryptocaryon · Jul 24, 2020

Strange stuff gsp I've always struggled keeping it. Was it growing well before you moved it?

brmreefer · Jul 24, 2020

Cool. I would double check that refractometer and recalibrate as needed. I have GSP and that coral usually tells me something is not right before other corals react. In that past, I let my refractometer get out of spec and did not realize my salinity had reached <1.023. After recal and slow adjustments to salinity, everything was back on track.

Today I now use a floating hydrometer and refractometer during testing to be sure they match after getting a good baseline. ;Happy

Reesj · Jul 24, 2020

Well I'm not worried about the Salinity @brmreefer. Because as I said, its calibrated with Natural sea water and its exsactly the value of NSW in Sri Lanka.(Half my corals are from waters here)

Well The GSP did great at start. For the first 5-6 months or so it almost tripled in size from small frag. It encrusted the whole plug and had 3 small branches reaching out. But since month or so it went down hill. I only moved once I realised it was going downhill and diying.

Cryptocaryon · Jul 24, 2020

Reesj said:
Well I'm not worried about the Salinity @brmreefer. Because as I said, its calibrated with Natural sea water and its exsactly the value of NSW in Sri Lanka.(Half my corals are from waters here)

Well The GSP did great at start. For the first 5-6 months or so it almost tripled in size from small frag. It encrusted the whole plug and had 3 small branches reaching out. But since month or so it went down hill. I only moved once I realised it was going downhill and diying.

I presume everything else in the tank is okay?