Help! Im killing my green birdsnest!

[Arsenix2001]

Ill attach a photo but it doesn't do it justice.

Background,

Ive had this colony from a frag for over two years now, grew like a weed. Got a bad dinoflagellate outbreak about 3 months ago. Zero nutrients, phos or nitrate in system.

Dosing brighwell micro 7 bacteria, phosphate and neo nitro. No water changes in 3 months, no skimmer. Vaccuming sand bed once a week. Reduced white in lights. I am FINALLY getting the upper hand on dinos. All coral, zoa, sofies, LPS doing great, pink birds nest, birds of paradise and purple stylo and monti doing ok, actually thriving now.

Just looked tonight and only on the green birdsnest ora, even in 2 different tank locations have receeding polyps showing white flesh near the tips, brown fuzzy algae on tips and when i tried to blow iff algea, the polyps blew off. Freaked out

I quit dosing phosphate 2 weeks ago but its still been elevated. I had a high alk swing two about two weeks ago and have been bringing it down. Alk went as high as 12, gradually over time due to over dosing.

Current params
Salinity 1.025
Temp 77
Cal 460
Alk 9.4 and slowly lowering
Nitrate 4-5 ppm dosing with neo nitro to keep up
Phosphate .117 ppm, stopped dosing weeks ago will not drop, just added seachem phos out to sump to get this lower.

Am I screwed or is there chance for recovery. I don't want to do anything drastic because it's taken me 3 months to get these dinos under control and I'm willing to sacrifice this bird's nest if needed but obviously would rather not, it's a huge colony.

Pictures don't do justice for how white it looks towards the ends. This only started a week or two ago it has to be a water parameter issue. I'm terrified to do a water change and have the dinos blow up again. I'm literally at the point I think if I do one more sand vacuum I may have them under control.

 

[blaxsun]

I think your safest course of action is to slowly get your parameters back to where you want them and then keep them there for awhile before embarking on the next great adventure.

 

[MNFish]

I had a similar situation with Dinos killing the tips of my birds nest and it made a full recovery....

 

[Screwgunner]

I wasn't that lucky . Running ats with uln . I had a die off of some snails and bumped my nutrients up and green hair took over. So I dosed vibrant for 7 weeks gha died put nutrients back again cyano took over . In with chemiclean . Then dinos thats when my birdsnets got hit hard by dinos. I have had them for 2 months now under control by reducing light . And getting my nutrients up i am at .08 phosphates and 8 nitrates . And dosing Dr. Tims eco balance. Its still in my frogfspawn and pulsating xenia. But not much left.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Thanks guys, I guess at this point its stay the course and keep testing with fingers crossed...

 

[Arsenix2001]

Added phosgaurd last night, was reading 37 PPB phosphate on hanna, now was up to 54 PPB this am? Only thing ive still be adding is brightwell spongexcel. Is it possible that is adding phosphate to the system? I cant seem to get phosphate to drop and it used to be un detectable till dosing brighwell phosphate. I think thats whats irritating birdsnest. Doesn't seem like dinos on it, but brown algae, as it will not blow off. Alk still at 9.8.

 

[Screwgunner]

Thats what happened to mine its a goner.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Thats what happened to mine its a goner.

Well this sucks.. should I try to frag any good material?

 

[Screwgunner]

If there is any live polyps cut them out you n
Might get them to grow.

 

[Screwgunner]

I am on my 2 dose of dino x and tank look amazing. Only running my lights for 6 hours a day and the corals are loving what they can get.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Blow off any dino with a turkey baster and try and direct a little more water flow to base area as well as light in which it may be shaded from light.
Additionally assure your calcium and especially alk levels are not elevated. Some suggested reading levels are :

Temp 77-79
ph 8.1-8.3
salinity 1.025
nitrate < .10
phos < .04
Ammonia < .03
mG 1300
Alk 8-11
CA 400- 440

 

[Daniel]

I had something similar happen my green birdsnest when my phosphate spiked as well (spiked to 0.65 for about half a month). Never happened before but experienced receding polyps and STN from base upwards. I was able to frag some "good" pieces off from tips but eventually lost most of my colony. I have some frags that did survive at the end of everything, but it was a losing battle for the colony. I was able to get some stability once my phosphates came back down (0.15-0.20ppm - gradual over 6 weeks). Was using phosguard, as well as polyfilter with frequent (2x wk at 10%) to help adjust back down.

It was one of my pride and joys and surprisingly I didn't see other losses as severe... it seems these birdsnest are quite hardy until they're not. Good luck, keep us posted on how the progression goes in bringing phosphate down.

 

[Screwgunner]

hopefully now that my tank is a year old now . And think I am through all my uglys . I will try another one. And try not to kill it. I will wait a few months after I am done with dino x and see where my tank settles at. I do loves me some birdsnest.

 

[ScottB]

Your Hanna is reading high PO4 because of the silicates coming in from the SpongeExcel. It is a thing apparently.

When a biome is "noisy", somebody is always going to dislike the changes. Pull fewer levers. Go slow.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Thank you, makes sense. I am going to pull out the phosguard tonight as levels should be lower and stop dosing silicate to get a true po4 reading and keep that stable as well as alk.

In your experience can polyp loss be reversed and give it some time with stable parameters or should I frag the best looking sections and discard the rest?

Your Hanna is reading high PO4 because of the silicates coming in from the SpongeExcel. It is a thing apparently.

When a biome is "noisy", somebody is always going to dislike the changes. Pull fewer levers. Go slow.

 

[ScottB]

Thank you, makes sense. I am going to pull out the phosguard tonight as levels should be lower and stop dosing silicate to get a true po4 reading and keep that stable as well as alk.

In your experience can polyp loss be reversed and give it some time with stable parameters or should I frag the best looking sections and discard the rest?

I tend to cut things up a soon as any algae takes over the exposed skeleton. Until then, I try to leave them be pretty much.

If you have a separate frag or backup system, it is usually a good idea to cut/move a chunk to increase your odds.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Should I try and clip back all the tips that currently have algea growing or is this a systemic problem? The lower portions of the colony still seem fairly healthy. There are numerous branches that do not lose polyps when blown with the pipette. Unfortunately I do not have a frag system.

I tend to cut things up a soon as any algae takes over the exposed skeleton. Until then, I try to leave them be pretty much.

If you have a separate frag or backup system, it is usually a good idea to cut/move a chunk to increase your odds.

 

[ScottB]

Should I try and clip back all the tips that currently have algea growing or is this a systemic problem? The lower portions of the colony still seem fairly healthy. There are numerous branches that do not lose polyps when blown with the pipette. Unfortunately I do not have a frag system.

Yes, as soon as algae takes hold I clip back into live flesh. I don't find the polyps are able to compete with algae for contested surface.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Thank you for the info, I will try that this evening