Need Help With My Ora Pink Birdnest

[NDIrish]

Bought pink bird nest Jan 26th. This what it looked like:

I started noticing bare spots on some of the branches (circled in red).
You also see it is entrusting on the plug (circled in yellow).

Also the branches appear to be growing with the forks.

What could cause the bare spots?
Thanks

 

[MichaelReefer]

Could be growing new branches there?

What are your numbers?

 

[NDIrish]

I don't know if it's new branches. Don't see any nubs yet.
NH3 25
PO4 .120
Ca 400
Alk 8.1
Salinity 1.025
PH 8.3

Thanks

 

[Crustaceon]

NH3 25 + PO4 .120 = Nope for one. I’m also seeing RTN.

 

[bday1335]

The hair spots could be GHA growing over the RTN'ing areas of the skeleton

 

[NDIrish]

NH3 25 + PO4 .120 = Nope for one. I’m also seeing RTN.

Don't take my reply wrong. I appreciate your input. Just trying to get a better understanding.

You state my NH3 & PO4 is high. What confuses me, I have read here r2r with people having twice the level and their tanks have beautiful growing sps. Some people don't test for months.

RTN, I don't know. RTN IS suppose to be fast. Mine has always been that way and also the pic on the website shows white tips???

Thanks

 

[NDIrish]

The hair spots could be GHA growing over the RTN'ing areas of the skeleton

I don't see any GHA looking thru magnifying glass.

 

[nereefpat]

The bare spots would be death. What causing it, I don't know. Some people do keep high N & P, but I would like it lower than yours is testing.

How old is the tank? What is your lighting and flow like?

 

[Knotyet]

How old is the tank

 

[NDIrish]

The bare spots would be death. What causing it, I don't know. Some people do keep high N & P, but I would like it lower than yours is testing.

How old is the tank? What is your lighting and flow like?

Tank is 14 months old.
Fighting is (3) 165 watt black boxes, 40% white, 65% blues, 8" above waterline. I don't know what the par is, never checked.
I believe my flow is good. My polyps on my red planet sways back and forth good. I have a wavemaker on each end pointing to the surface. Two returns, 600gph pointed towards the front. How do you check?

 

[NDIrish]

How old is the tank

Tank is 14 months old.

 

[howaboutme]

Be patient. Wait a few more days and see what happens. If its fuzzy with the flow then its likely okay.

 

[Knotyet]

My tank went through the same thing of flesh falling off around 12 months and parameters were always stable. I think it has something to do with maturity of the tank. I couldn't keep sps for anything for a couple months. Now everything is thriving. Tanks like 15 months old now

 

[nereefpat]

Tank is 14 months old.
Fighting is (3) 165 watt black boxes, 40% white, 65% blues, 8" above waterline. I don't know what the par is, never checked.
I believe my flow is good. My polyps on my red planet sways back and forth good. I have a wavemaker on each end pointing to the surface. Two returns, 600gph pointed towards the front. How do you check?

I'm not a black box user. I suspect that might be too much white.

Let's see what the black box users say

 

[NDIrish]

Be patient. Wait a few more days and see what happens. If its fuzzy with the flow then its likely okay.

Yes, it is fuzzy looking.

 

[howaboutme]

Yes, it is fuzzy looking.

Great! Stay the course. Most likely it's branching off. But if you do see any recession (I mean true recession, not just white spots here and there) and since it's such a large piece, frag the healthy part off to keep and get rid of the rest.

 

[Crustaceon]

Don't take my reply wrong. I appreciate your input. Just trying to get a better understanding.

You state my NH3 & PO4 is high. What confuses me, I have read here r2r with people having twice the level and their tanks have beautiful growing sps. Some people don't test for months.

RTN, I don't know. RTN IS suppose to be fast. Mine has always been that way and also the pic on the website shows white tips???

Thanks

Nutrient levels aren’t a “plug-and-play” type of thing where inputting someone’s “perfect” numbers will yield the same results on all tanks. The reason why we see such elevated numbers on awesome “master” tanks is due to their rate of uptake and maturity. I guarantee, those same tanks started out at MUCH lower nutrient levels and only increased them over time out of necessity. In most cases, a first-year tank really shouldn’t run over 5ppm nitrates and .06ppm phosphates. I can tell in the pic, simply by looking at the rock in the background that your N&P are too high for where your tank is right now. Your rocks should never look “fuzzy”. Been there, done that and my sps didn’t thrive until I started seeing red and purple spots on my rocks (coralline thrives in sps-ready parameters). As for RTN, there are instances where a whole frag is wiped out in a day. Typically this is from a major alk, ph or temp swing. There are also instances where blotches of tissue gradually fall off of the skeleton. Nitrates and phosphates that are too high for the system can have a stunting effect on coral and weaken them to the point of RTN. If it was STN or base recession, I’d say it was due to a lack of phosphates or more specifically, coral nutrition. What i’m noticing on your corals is a lack of polyps in those areas. Even on shaded portions of a birdsnest, you’ll still see polyp extension even if the coral looks ghost-white.

 

[NDIrish]

Great! Stay the course. Most likely it's branching off. But if you do see any recession (I mean true recession, not just white spots here and there) and since it's such a large piece, frag the healthy part off to keep and get rid of the rest.

I been watching it thru a magnifying glass all I've seen is the white spots. Tips don't appear to be receding and the one branch touching the plug is encrusting.

 

[Crustaceon]

I’ll bet those bald spots will be covered with regrowth and fresh zooxanthellae within a month if you did a few water changes and brought the N&P under 10ppm & .1ppm. I’d limit the weekly water change amount to 20% and try your best to temperature match the water each time just to keep from further stressing things out.

 

[NDIrish]

Nutrient levels aren’t a “plug-and-play” type of thing where inputting someone’s “perfect” numbers will yield the same results on all tanks. The reason why we see such elevated numbers on awesome “master” tanks is due to their rate of uptake and maturity. I guarantee, those same tanks started out at MUCH lower nutrient levels and only increased them over time out of necessity. In most cases, a first-year tank really shouldn’t run over 5ppm nitrates and .06ppm phosphates. I can tell in the pic, simply by looking at the rock in the background that your N&P are too high for where your tank is right now. Your rocks should never look “fuzzy”. Been there, done that and my sps didn’t thrive until I started seeing red and purple spots on my rocks (coralline thrives in sps-ready parameters). As for RTN, there are instances where a whole frag is wiped out in a day. Typically this is from a major alk, ph or temp swing. There are also instances where blotches of tissue gradually fall off of the skeleton. Nitrates and phosphates that are too high for the system can have a stunting effect on coral and weaken them to the point of RTN. If it was STN or base recession, I’d say it was due to a lack of phosphates or more specifically, coral nutrition. What i’m noticing on your corals is a lack of polyps in those areas. Even on shaded portions of a birdsnest, you’ll still see polyp extension even if the coral looks ghost-white.

Thanks. I'll will work on getting nutrients down.