Opinion on STN on my SPS.

capchad03 · Feb 18, 2014

Let me start with my parameters. These are after I noticed corals stressing

Alk- 7.2 dkh
Cal: 400
Sal:1.024
Mag:1200
PO4: .06
NO3: 0 (should I say undetectable)

Ok, so here is some background info on what could have happened.....

I have been putting 1-2 new frags in my tank every other week stocking slowly. I have a medium bio-load (4 tangs, 1 clown, 1 jawfish, 1 cardinal fish) in a 200 gallon tank w 40 gal sump.

I recently added a mp60 to my tank to get more flow, I previously had 2 mp40s, so now i have 1 mp60 and 2mp40s. Everything had been encrusting pretty good. My nitrates have been 0 since i got the tank. The changes started with me wanted to get some nutrients into the tank so i started to run the skimmer less, less frequent WC schedule (it was 5 gallons a day, changed to 10 gallons a week), and also feeding seachem reef zooplankton.

The stressing start after I target fed all of the coral directly with a squirt of the zooplankton (i only did this once), and every coral had a discoloration where i squirted them. Also i noticed without the daily water changes i had been dropping alkalinity 1 dkh per day and didn't know it, i normally keep this around 8.0-8.5 and when i noticed it was low i caught it at 7 and dosed and brought it to 8.4 in 24 hr (I'm pretty sure this was the main problem)

With all of that being said can anyone chime in on if the feeding, flow change, WC schedule change, or skimmer schedule change could have also had an effect.

Here is a basic list of my corals and the params i normally keep my tank at before the changes. MONTIS: season greetings, red cap, purple cap, sunset (all are ok except purple cap looks "dry") ACROS: joe the coral (STN on one branch) red planet, SSC, green slimmer, garf bonsai, pink milli, pearl berry, and a random stag (all are slimming, and seem "dry" at the tips, PE is OK to good). Also have a green birds nest ( it looks skinny, polyps are not full).

Normal params are:

Alk: 8.0-8.5 (red sea pro)
Sal: 1.026 (marine depot refrac.)
Mag:1350-1400 (red sea pro)
Cal: 420-450 (red sea pro)
PO4: .05 (hanna)
NO3: never had it show up on my test (red sea pro)

Thanks for any help!!!

Pete polyp · Feb 19, 2014

How exactly did this feeding happen? I'm not familiar with this product. Is it a powder or a liquid? I use 2 powders to target feed my acro and I have to mix it with tank water.

bct15 · Feb 19, 2014

You squirted to hard when target feeding, that is the cause if the discoloration where you fed. That is kind of normal, when you target fees acros release the food downstream and let the current carry the food to them.

That being said, check your coral at night for sea spiders. The stn you are describing sounds to be from swinging alk, but sea spiders damage them in a similar manner.

TighTT · Feb 19, 2014

IMO there are better ways to add nutrients other than less water changes and not running your skimmer. Water changes, IMO, are a good thing.

capchad03 · Feb 19, 2014

I checked for pests during the night. Nothing found. Since I noticed the problem I started my old routine and it seems like things are getting slightly better the exception being joe the coral all of the tips are now bleached/STN. Thanks for the advice everyone. One lesson of many to come learned!

capchad03 · Feb 20, 2014

@ Pete polyp. I put it in a syringe slowly shot it on the polyps. It is a liquid, I talked to the LFS that I bought it from and he told me I shouldn't spot feed sps. I didn't think anything of it when I did it.

Pete polyp · Feb 20, 2014

I was kinda thinking the Ph of the liquid is way different than what a reef tank should be and it burned them. I use both coral frenzy and reef roids to spot feed my sps with no issues.