Low nutrients, brown/dying SPS

[SeaDweller]

If SPS requires nutrients explain why I have tanks with *zero* live stock in them, zero nitrate / zero phosphate / zero anything else and acropora are thriving? Explain my friends running large propagation tanks and have *zero* live stock in them with zero nutrient levels and have glorious SPS growth?

Captive tanks are not the ocean. What happens in a captive tank where you have fish and hence dumping nutrients in the water is you have multiple competiting biologies in play all of which would be in check in the ocean with very low nutrient levels. However, in a captive tank with fish those bacteria and algae colonies suddenly have 1000x the nutrient levels to feed on, they pull other nutrients out of the water that SPS require, and start turning on their bio combat engines. Now your SPS are looking bad and we're blaming the low N03 / P04 levels as the culprit. The low N03 / P04 are just the symptom.

This is why one guy has high N03 / P04 levels and no issues while another has zero N03 / P04 and is tank has nuisance algae an inch deep.

I recently pulled two birdnests colonies out of my high nutrient softie garden that had stopped growing. They were perfectly healthy with good PE, but their growth nodes had disappeared over the past month. I put them in a spanking fresh tank with no inhabitants other than other Acros and some Acans, and within 48 hours I saw growth nodes returning and are now back on full blast growth. N03 / P04 are not the issue. It's what also eating those nutrients along with other nutrients and competing with SPS.

Also, we need to stop granting other LPS like euphyllia a not guilty verdict because we think it looks cool. Got a basketball sized hammer coral in your tank that's growing like crazy while your SPS have dying tips and looking weak? Connect the dots.

Lets see the systems.

 

[UCF Alum]

Lets see the systems.

Uh, excuse me, sir. I’m still waiting on YOUR pictures promised to me over a week ago when @Chaswood79 was your hype man on your killer acro growth.

 

[SeaDweller]

Uh, excuse me, sir. I’m still waiting on YOUR pictures promised to me over a week ago when @Chaswood79 was your hype man on your killer acro growth.

They're in my thread!!!

 

[Boxofpurplerocks]

If SPS requires nutrients explain why I have tanks with *zero* live stock in them, zero nitrate / zero phosphate / zero anything else and acropora are thriving? Explain my friends running large propagation tanks and have *zero* live stock in them with zero nutrient levels and have glorious SPS growth?

Captive tanks are not the ocean. What happens in a captive tank where you have fish and hence dumping nutrients in the water is you have multiple competiting biologies in play all of which would be in check in the ocean with very low nutrient levels. However, in a captive tank with fish those bacteria and algae colonies suddenly have 1000x the nutrient levels to feed on, they pull other nutrients out of the water that SPS require, and start turning on their bio combat engines. Now your SPS are looking bad and we're blaming the low N03 / P04 levels as the culprit. The low N03 / P04 are just the symptom.

This is why one guy has high N03 / P04 levels and no issues while another has zero N03 / P04 and is tank has nuisance algae an inch deep.

I recently pulled two birdnests colonies out of my high nutrient softie garden that had stopped growing. They were perfectly healthy with good PE, but their growth nodes had disappeared over the past month. I put them in a spanking fresh tank with no inhabitants other than other Acros and some Acans, and within 48 hours I saw growth nodes returning and are now back on full blast growth. N03 / P04 are not the issue. It's what also eating those nutrients along with other nutrients and competing with SPS.

Also, we need to stop granting other LPS like euphyllia a not guilty verdict because we think it looks cool. Got a basketball sized hammer coral in your tank that's growing like crazy while your SPS have dying tips and looking weak? Connect the dots.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by this? Do you mean that thriving LPS can inhibit SPS growth, or do you mean that they just require different nutrient levels, and only one can "thrive" at a given nutrient level (high vs low)?

 

[pygoplites77]

It could be..I have a dominant sps aquarium but with 4 euphillies and a large catalaphillia at the bottom. Low nutrients but always brown corals except those just below the water level. You could deepen .. Are there people who manage to have very colorful sps despite the presence of many euphillies / catalapillies?

 

[SeaDweller]

Uh, excuse me, sir. I’m still waiting on YOUR pictures promised to me over a week ago when @Chaswood79 was your hype man on your killer acro growth.

still haven't seem any of his ghost fish systems yet.........

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea I would love to see pics and learn more about how they are ran. I do see what he is saying though. Reminds me of the guy in Australia that had outdoor tanks that was dosing all sorts of elements and was keeping them like 100’s of times higher than we normally do, all in order to get crazy coloring. I need to search for thoes threads on the old forum and see if he is still doing this.

 

[PranK]

Sorry to revive, but @OP what happened to your tank after the changes you made?

 

[Cory]

I recently pulled two birdnests colonies out of my high nutrient softie garden that had stopped growing. They were perfectly healthy with good PE, but their growth nodes had disappeared over the past month. I put them in a spanking fresh tank with no inhabitants other than other Acros and some Acans, and within 48 hours I saw growth nodes returning and are now back on full blast growth. N03 / P04 are not the issue.

Ive experienced this too. Transferring a montipora over to 100% newly mixed 200 gallon saltwater tank had experienced the white growth tips in a few days, when previously there was very little growth in an ats filtered 30 gallon for a month. Perhaps the algae was removing some food.

 

[Screwloose]

Mine is about 23 gallon, no sump, skimmer, or refugium.
I did the same my digitata grew like mad and looked colourful then slowly starved themselves and bottomed out phosphates, got cyano then dino. All the digi RTN'd now 4 months in and having been dosing phosphates for the last month and a half they are regrowing from the few polyps that survived. I went from this

to

And now finally regrowth of the once dead coral

Fingers crossed they grow well again

imhad thought mine was a faulty p04 test kit, I’ve got some brown, some stripping slowly and some look fine.

bought the nyos tsestlit today which reads 0, you’d think I hadn’t added reagent.

i think my best bet going off these is skimmer off for a bit

did it fully recover in the end ?