Need some insight. Red Planet STN?

frogman_reefer · Oct 15, 2015

I was dragging this piece the other day and noticed that I have lost a lot of tissue on this coral in the past month. This was on the underside of the coral.

I dipped the coral in a peroxide solution, then freshwater, and rinsed really good in tank water before placing it back into my system.

I noticed no bugs, no bite marks, no eggs or evidence of critters. But I am a little baffled. Suggestions? Ideas?

Note the cream colored spots on top are burns, it fell into my hotshot at 800 par for a day before I noticed it. Thus the fragging to make sure I saved some just in case.

Tahoe61 · Oct 15, 2015

Reduced flow or alkalinity instability?

frogman_reefer · Oct 15, 2015

Not sure. I haven't looked very closely at Alk lately. Perhaps it's time I look into it a little closer.

kschweer · Oct 15, 2015

I agree it's More than likely alk related.

Tahoe61 · Oct 15, 2015

My mother colony of RP would show STN with alkalinity issues, and a reduction in flow from coral growth or a pump issue.

frogman_reefer · Oct 15, 2015

Ok. I just moved it to a higher flow area last night, so when I get home tonight I will check my Alk. I am dosing small quantities of Kalk in my ATO. I'll check my levels, plus I switched salts last water change and went back to reef crystals. The Kent salt sucked imho. Perhaps that's all part of the equation as well.

Thanks for the quick feedback! Y'all are awesome.

frogman_reefer · Oct 15, 2015

UPDATE: ok well I came home and checked Alk. And it was at 9 then calcium 460 and Mag 1420. Then I checked salinity and it was a whopping 1.028!! Ouch, so I've done a quick small water change and brought it down to 1.026 and tomorrow will be doing my regular 20% change (33 gal).

But it might be too little too late. The whole back of the colony is skeleton and it's looking pretty haggard. I moved it into a higher flow and hope that I can stalk its deteriorating tissue. Here's to hoping!!!

But I really think its demise was getting cooked when it fell from the back part of the rock down onto the hot spot. Here's a pic. See what I mean? Sad. Loved this colony!!!

bct15 · Oct 15, 2015

When you say you dipped it in fresh water do you mean water with no salt in it? I would not recommend using this dipping practice on any other SPS.

frogman_reefer · Oct 16, 2015

bct15 said:
When you say you dipped it in fresh water do you mean water with no salt in it? I would not recommend using this dipping practice on any other SPS.

Yes. I've done it before with good results. It might cause come color loss, but I'll take that over some other issues. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some I will not do that with as they are very sensitive.

Red Planet seems pretty hardy to me.

frogman_reefer · Oct 16, 2015

Update: I've done a 25% water change and dropped my salinity down to 1.025. I've looked at the colony this evening and don't see much in advancement if the STN. I'll continue to monitor it.

For more suggestions sake, running DKH at 9, do you all feel that is a good level?

Nomadic1 · Oct 16, 2015

In my experience, freshwater dipping/peroxide dipping of SPS corals kills them. FW dips are reserved for zoas/palys only. Not sure about the whole peroxide thing...that's to kill algae, from what I know.

frogman_reefer · Oct 16, 2015

Nomadic1 said:
In my experience, freshwater dipping/peroxide dipping of SPS corals kills them. FW dips are reserved for zoas/palys only. Not sure about the whole peroxide thing...that's to kill algae, from what I know.

That maybe true on most occasions, but I will continue to be ignorant of that fact since sometimes not knowing helps make things that don't work.. Work

Nah, I know I probably shouldn't. But it's seemed to have worked and I have some good polyp extension right now on it. Although it's a little worse for ware having gone through this event. I'm hopeful it will pull through.

frogman_reefer · Oct 16, 2015

What I want to know is why I got this huge jump in my salinity over the course of a week. I check that parameter weekly and can't figure out what I did for that to happen. That's not normal. I had to do something. But what??

frogman_reefer · Oct 17, 2015

Pic this morning. It's a little bleached looking. But the polyps are extending nicely

Now I just hope it stops receding

Glad I fragged it and have a couple nice colored pieces just in case. If this lives, then I'll have a few nice frags to sell

cmcoker · Oct 17, 2015

Calibrate the refractometer?
Thought my salinity had jumped, but checked refractometer before adjusting. It was off by, .004.

frogman_reefer · Oct 17, 2015

cmcoker said:
Calibrate the refractometer?
Thought my salinity had jumped, but checked refractometer before adjusting. It was off by, .004.

I should, don't know when I did it last. honestly didn't even think about that. Plus last water change I did pretty quick, so I might not have had the temp right. Been racking my brain and I think the water change water temp might have been off.

Could have been a combination of both. I'll watch that much closer from this point for certain. Still adapting to the more tight requirements for SPS. My LPS was so much more lenient. Still in that first year learning curve. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it)

frogman_reefer · Nov 4, 2015

Update: I think I'm going to write an article on buying good quality equipment. After everything was said and done, refraction eyer calibrated, I was still getting an erosions salt reading. Turn out my salinity was WAY off. Like I'm surprised my tank isn't dead! Apparently there was a crack in the crystal and my readings were always low.

So how high was my salinity actually? 1.032. Yup. Holy crap!

So over the past three weeks I have been slowly getting my levels back to where they need to be. So... Now comes the hind-sight 20/20 vision.

Calcium 480-520
Mag 1500
DKH 10

All those levels clearly told me there was a problem, but my corals were alive. Ahh. Yes. Just alive but not thriving!

I'll finish this up and write a little article on everything I discovered. It's a good thing this wasn't a snake or I would have died by now!