Is this STN

[Charlie G]

Hi all,

I am fairly new to the hobby and always learning. I have a 32 g Biocube mixed reef with livestock and lps and soft coral. I wanted to try my hand at sps. I purchase a couple of stylophoras, green slimer, a chalice, a Cyphastrea and a toadstool. I also wanted to try a coral QT and kept them there for about 46 days (maybe a little more-I would have to check) at about 80 degrees. During that time I might have started to notice what I thought was bleeching and figured the light I had (reefbrite) on the 10 g tank was probably not enough. I acclimated the coral and dipped again to my DT water and put in my display at a lower level on a gray rack. . The ‘white or bleaching’ seems to have progressed. Is this bleaching or STN. are they done for? Anything I can do. My parameters seems to be stable (actually phos improved from 0.22 to 0.17). The only thing that has changed was that I added fans to the Biocube to keep temp more stable but now I have more evaporation and I am replacing daily by hand. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I will post before and aftershock. Sorry if not we’ll organized with the pics bill try my best.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Charlie G]

Hi all,

I am fairly new to the hobby and always learning. I have a 32 g Biocube mixed reef with livestock and lps and soft coral. I wanted to try my hand at sps. I purchase a couple of stylophoras, green slimer, a chalice, a Cyphastrea and a toadstool. I also wanted to try a coral QT and kept them there for about 46 days (maybe a little more-I would have to check) at about 80 degrees. During that time I might have started to notice what I thought was bleeching and figured the light I had (reefbrite) on the 10 g tank was probably not enough. I acclimated the coral and dipped again to my DT water and put in my display at a lower level on a gray rack. . The ‘white or bleaching’ seems to have progressed. Is this bleaching or STN. are they done for? Anything I can do. My parameters seems to be stable (actually phos improved from 0.22 to 0.17). The only thing that has changed was that I added fans to the Biocube to keep temp more stable but now I have more evaporation and I am replacing daily by hand. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I will post before and aftershock. Sorry if not we’ll organized with the pics bill try my best.

Thanks in advance.

Parameters tonight are
Salinity 1.026
Alk 7.7 (I dosed-using 2 part)
Nitrate 8.4
Phos 0.17

Thanks. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[CoralB]

What is your lighting schedule

 

[CoralB]

Temp , calcium , magnesium

 

[Charlie G]

Temp , calcium , magnesium

Temp quite stable at 78
On July 13 ca 400, mg 1300
On July 5 Ca 390, mg 1420

 

[CoralB]

80 degrees seems high for me if it fluctuates too much , especially higher imo wouldn’t be good . Same with your phosphates being that high and not stable. If I had to guess it’s probably a combination of lighting issues and lack of stability. In my experience once a coral bleaches out which is basically expelling zooxanthellae it’s difficult to bring them back . The ones that are just starting you can dip and they might come back providing the issues are corrected with either lighting and or parameter stability

 

[CoralB]

Do you know the par readings of your tank ?

 

[Charlie G]

Do you know the par readings of your tank ?

Thanks for the quick reply.
No I do not know the par readings. I never attempted as the Biocube comes with a hood.
The 80 deg temp was while it was in quarantine as that what was I researched for fish diseases. From what I can tell it was stable at 80 degrees.

As for the parameters my phos was at 0.22 for many months. I figured I can try some SPs as it never fluctuated and was stable. It now (over the past couple of weeks) come down to 0.17. I thought that may have been due to the addition of the extra frags (about 11 of them). Nothing else has changed in my system.

 

[Pod_01]

Is this bleaching or STN. are they done for?

From my early days experience I would say they are gone and this is STN.
Bleaching is uniform colour loss and would look like this:

Just my opinion, trying to set up reef tank that support SPS is tough.
Trying to run 10gal QT reef tank that can support SPS is achievement. I tried 10gal reef tank and to keep it stable is not easy. I would suggest to re-think this strategy.
QT sounds like great idea but for that to work you need a fully functioning reef tank that supports SPS.

Good luck,

 

[Charlie G]

From my early days experience I would say they are gone and this is STN.
Bleaching is uniform colour loss and would look like this:

Just my opinion, trying to set up reef tank that support SPS is tough.
Trying to run 10gal QT reef tank that can support SPS is achievement. I tried 10gal reef tank and to keep it stable is not easy. I would suggest to re-think this strategy.
QT sounds like great idea but for that to work you need a fully functioning reef tank that supports SPS.

Good luck,

Understood. Was trying to be cautious and protective of my DT.
Also know it’s not that easy to keep SPs especially in a system that I have 32 g Biocube with original hood).

So if that is stn nothing to do? Damage done??

 

[Pod_01]

So if that is stn nothing to do? Damage done??

From my experience, with frags that impacted I had zero success.

Lets say you are successfully at slowing the STN, now you have live tissue in close proximity to dead coral. That dead portion will grow algae and likely keep infecting the left over live portion. So in effect you stretch the STN out for months.
Best path is to clip the good portion and glue it on new plug. Maybe you can save it assuming it stopped STN, if not it will just continue. From the pictures there is not lot of good portions left.
You can try.

 

[coral reeftank]

How old is your display? And also do you run any carbon?

I see that you have some soft coral and from my experience they release something into the water that annoys sps. Carbon will help to mitigate this.

Also, if this is your first try at SPS your tank just might not have the microbial stability to support them long term. These pieces are your canary in a coal mine.

 

[Charlie G]

The display is 19 months old.
I do not run carbon as I do have a small yellow tang that helped me rid of gha that I could not manually remove (btw I do plan to re home the tang-my lfs will take- or maybe in the future upgrade to a bigger display) and I am concerned about HLLE. I did run some carbon for 24 hours last week and removed for the reason you mentioned I realize that may not be enough.

Even if I am able to drag a good portion not sure if it will survive as I haven’t found the solution to the initial problem. Not sure what to change.

It is my first try at sps. I just hate to be harming anything I put in my tank.

As of now the chalice, Cyphastrea and montipora frag seem to be doing well.

 

[Dburr1014]

Did you name your lights? I didn't see it.

What is your schedual? Settings and duration.

How did you acclimate the coral?

The birds nest is gone.
The others, snip off only healthy tissue and remount. Put them high in the rock. I suspect you have a low par unit.

I agree, 10 gallon tank would be difficult unless you had a sump on it.

The way lots of people get around it is to pop the coral off the frag plugs and remount after the coral dip. Of coarse use a magnifying glass to inspect for bugs/eggs.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all,

I am fairly new to the hobby and always learning. I have a 32 g Biocube mixed reef with livestock and lps and soft coral. I wanted to try my hand at sps. I purchase a couple of stylophoras, green slimer, a chalice, a Cyphastrea and a toadstool. I also wanted to try a coral QT and kept them there for about 46 days (maybe a little more-I would have to check) at about 80 degrees. During that time I might have started to notice what I thought was bleeching and figured the light I had (reefbrite) on the 10 g tank was probably not enough. I acclimated the coral and dipped again to my DT water and put in my display at a lower level on a gray rack. . The ‘white or bleaching’ seems to have progressed. Is this bleaching or STN. are they done for? Anything I can do. My parameters seems to be stable (actually phos improved from 0.22 to 0.17). The only thing that has changed was that I added fans to the Biocube to keep temp more stable but now I have more evaporation and I am replacing daily by hand. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I will post before and aftershock. Sorry if not we’ll organized with the pics bill try my best.

Thanks in advance.

Tank size/type is playing a role and phos is a little elevated as well as temperature although not considered elevated yet. Several factors play a role when this happens.
Some possible triggers are:
- Alkalinity spike
- Temperature spike
- Salinity spike
- Low dissolved oxygen
- Poor water quality related with phosphate levels up to 5 ppm
- Change in water flow
- Additions of sand
- Changes in brand of salt
- Bad test kits giving faulty results
- Levels of minor elements such as Iodine, Potassium, Strontium
- Light intensity
- Addition of new corals

A few things to check

 

[Charlie G]

Sorry. My lights in the DT are the lights included in the Biocube hood so I don’t have much control (and probably not great PAR). The schedule I believe is as follows:

1 (whites) 4 pm - 7 pm (16:00-19:00)
2 (colored/ramps) 3:30 pm - 11:30 pm (15:30-23:30)
3 (blues) 6 pm - 11:30 pm (18:00 - 23:30)
Total 8 hrs

I acclimated the frags to my DT water (they were in my coral QT for about 45 days at 80 and reefbritre (white/blue lights). Not at the highest level.
I dipped the coral in coral rx and placed in the DT.

Then I placed the frags on a rack held by magnets low in my Biocube 32 as I thought it should start low to acclimate. In retrospect they were in low light for 45 days. Probably could have moved up higher.

 

[Dburr1014]

Sorry. My lights in the DT are the lights included in the Biocube hood so I don’t have much control (and probably not great PAR). The schedule I believe is as follows:

1 (whites) 4 pm - 7 pm (16:00-19:00)
2 (colored/ramps) 3:30 pm - 11:30 pm (15:30-23:30)
3 (blues) 6 pm - 11:30 pm (18:00 - 23:30)
Total 8 hrs

I acclimated the frags to my DT water (they were in my coral QT for about 45 days at 80 and reefbritre (white/blue lights). Not at the highest level.
I dipped the coral in coral rx and placed in the DT.

Then I placed the frags on a rack held by magnets low in my Biocube 32 as I thought it should start low to acclimate. In retrospect they were in low light for 45 days. Probably could have moved up higher.

You most likely don't have enough par to begin with.
Try turning all the lights on at the same time. Do they all ramp? They are only on 8 hours total?
IMO, need more punch and longer duration. Move the rack higher.
If you live at the equator you will have 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of moonlight. This is where corals live. Also if you're trying to acclimize corals that were living in 300 par and going into 100 par, no need to acclimate, you're already behind in the game.

 

[Charlie G]

Got it. I’ll increase the schedule and raise up. I wasn’t sure initially if this was a bleeching event (too much light) although I couldn’t understand how so I’m a Biocube vs STN. I was heaistant on putting them higher (closer to light) as it would have been a drastic change from the coral QT lights.