Sps experts please help.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

I have another thread going on now. That will explain a lot whats going on with my sps's
I wonder what it could be.
This is the other thread:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/another-lighting-debate.229302/
I Hope Someone will be able To help me.
Another member said it could be not enough nutrients.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

Besides acropower, any of these two would it be a good idea to dose?

McMullen · Jan 8, 2016

I read through the lighting thread. Your coral do not appear to be "bleaching," rather losing tissue at the tips. With bleaching the tissue remains but simply fades in color then turns white…..eventually this coral will die from this but usually takes days.
That being said throwing more chemicals and additives seems like a terrible idea, you have no idea the problem. In fact, if this were my tank I would stop dosing everything except for Ca+, Alk, and Mg. I would then perform weekly water changes, small, 10% to see if this helps. You could simply have an accumulation of something in the water that you cannot test for. Now if your coral are experiencing a rapid progression of tissue loss then I would do a large water change first, 25-30%, then the next week back to small water change. So, only my opinion but stop trying to fix this with more chemicals/additives, get back to basics.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

McMullen said:
I read through the lighting thread. Your coral do not appear to be "bleaching," rather losing tissue at the tips. With bleaching the tissue remains but simply fades in color then turns white…..eventually this coral will die from this but usually takes days.
That being said throwing more chemicals and additives seems like a terrible idea, you have no idea the problem. In fact, if this were my tank I would stop dosing everything except for Ca+, Alk, and Mg. I would then perform weekly water changes, small, 10% to see if this helps. You could simply have an accumulation of something in the water that you cannot test for. Now if your coral are experiencing a rapid progression of tissue loss then I would do a large water change first, 25-30%, then the next week back to small water change. So, only my opinion but stop trying to fix this with more chemicals/additives, get back to basics.

Besides ca, alk, mag. I only dose 5 ml weekly of acropower. The sps's starts bleaching on the tips and slowly bleaches down to the base.
Those two bottles I have it, but I dont use it.

Smite · Jan 8, 2016

No "with caution" fish? I had a similar experience with a comb tooth blenny, but I'd see spots on the base as well.

Another reefer I know had a problem similar to this. He finally track it down to screws that rusted out in his return pump. I've seen other posts where certain glass cleaning magnets leak and rusted out. SPS tend to be extra sensitive to that.

Not saying it's either of these, just something to look into. I've dealt with these mystery issues before and they can be extremely frustrating!

McMullen · Jan 8, 2016

Really hard to see the tips in photos, but you say bleaching so bleaching. Next, you list phosphate at 0. How are you achieving this? I have added too much gfo and stripped too much phosphate at once causing tissue loss and almost lost a huge birdsnest. Additionally targeting 0 phosphate continuously may be the problem, i.e. Not enough for skeleton.

McMullen · Jan 8, 2016

@Smite +1
This is a tough problem to diagnose!

hatfielj · Jan 8, 2016

Posted this in your other thread too...
I agree with what sunny said. Also, is it only SPS that are struggling? Are any of your other corals having trouble? Do you run GFO? Have you checked all of your equipment for problems (rusty parts, broken heater, etc)? Look around in your sump for anything that could have fallen in (I had a metal part fall in my sump once on an old system that turned out to be leaking copper in to my tank. I didn't find it until months later after all my corals were seriously struggling so much that I took the tank down).
The next thing I would do is send a sample to Triton and get a full water analysis to see if there's something unexpected in your water. What kind of Mag do you dose? If you do water changes regularly you shouldn't need to dose mag in my experience.
Have you thoroughly checked for pests? They can be very hard to spot.
It could be all kinds of things. So, I would keep checking every single possibility you can think of. Meanwhile continue to do regular water changes. Make sure your salinity checker is accurate, temp probe accurate, etc, etc.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

Smite said:
No "with caution" fish? I had a similar experience with a comb tooth blenny, but I'd see spots on the base as well.

Another reefer I know had a problem similar to this. He finally track it down to screws that rusted out in his return pump. I've seen other posts where certain glass cleaning magnets leak and rusted out. SPS tend to be extra sensitive to that.

Not saying it's either of these, just something to look into. I've dealt with these mystery issues before and they can be extremely frustrating!

Nope. Never seen one fish picking at any corals here. The magnet coul be. Not sure.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

hatfielj said:
Posted this in your other thread too...
I agree with what sunny said. Also, is it only SPS that are struggling? Are any of your other corals having trouble? Do you run GFO? Have you checked all of your equipment for problems (rusty parts, broken heater, etc)? Look around in your sump for anything that could have fallen in (I had a metal part fall in my sump once on an old system that turned out to be leaking copper in to my tank. I didn't find it until months later after all my corals were seriously struggling so much that I took the tank down).
The next thing I would do is send a sample to Triton and get a full water analysis to see if there's something unexpected in your water. What kind of Mag do you dose? If you do water changes regularly you shouldn't need to dose mag in my experience.
Have you thoroughly checked for pests? They can be very hard to spot.
It could be all kinds of things. So, I would keep checking every single possibility you can think of. Meanwhile continue to do regular water changes. Make sure your salinity checker is accurate, temp probe accurate, etc, etc.

Only sps's everything else grows like crazy. Bery healthy look.
I dont run any gfo
I already took my sump apart and no metal.
Mag I dont think I dose more than 5 times in a year.
15g water change every sunday.
No pests that I can see.
Already checked on the day, night, flashlights and etc.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

Smite said:
No "with caution" fish? I had a similar experience with a comb tooth blenny, but I'd see spots on the base as well.

Another reefer I know had a problem similar to this. He finally track it down to screws that rusted out in his return pump. I've seen other posts where certain glass cleaning magnets leak and rusted out. SPS tend to be extra sensitive to that.

Not saying it's either of these, just something to look into. I've dealt with these mystery issues before and they can be extremely frustrating!

Rulling out glass cleaner

Smite · Jan 8, 2016

Ah! Better to know, but that sucks.

Did you go through your ato container? Pump that you mix salt with?

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

Yes very clean! Not the pump. I have a mag 7 to mix the water. I might take apart my mag 9.5 return pump to see if there are any rust.
@Smite

hatfielj · Jan 8, 2016

Wow man, well I'm stumped. It would be good to see better pics of your sps, but I know it can be tough to do without the right camera/editing stuff. I still doubt it has any thing to do with your lights either. Triton analysis may help find something?

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

The best I could take with a cell
Tou can see in some of the pics the white tips bleaching or loosing tissue. Some its brownish color due to be bleaching for a wile. It gets a little algae there.

If you Look at this one its bleaching on the side where the lights hit.

@hatfielj

Smite · Jan 8, 2016

That looks beyond bleaching to me. Algae only grows on dead portions where skeleton is exposed. So this is a tissue necrosis, not bleaching. I've battled my sps paling due to low nutrients, both Nitrate and phosphates being undetectable. They didn't rtn or stn on me though.

It's gotta be something in the water column you can't test for. Maybe triton is in order.

Edit: I suspect* it is something in your water column. Shouldn't say it's gotta be, I just can't think of anything else.

hatfielj · Jan 8, 2016

Hmm, that is weird because the rest of the coral looks healthy. I'm wondering if something may be biting the tips? A crab or worm or even a fish when ur not looking? Wondering if u have a bad hitch hiker in there.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

Not sure. T

Smite said:
That looks beyond bleaching to me. Algae only grows on dead portions where skeleton is exposed. So this is a tissue necrosis, not bleaching. I've battled my sps paling due to low nutrients, both Nitrate and phosphates being undetectable. They didn't rtn or stn on me though.

It's gotta be something in the water column you can't test for. Maybe triton is in order.

Edit: I suspect* it is something in your water column. Shouldn't say it's gotta be, I just can't think of anything else.

That algae there is due to when it was bleaching and nothing never growed back there. It was definetly bleaching. The green one was the only one that didnt die. It recovered by itself. But its starting to bleach again.

renato120 · Jan 8, 2016

I

hatfielj said:
Hmm, that is weird because the rest of the coral looks healthy. I'm wondering if something may be biting the tips? A crab or worm or even a fish when ur not looking? Wondering if u have a bad hitch hiker in there.

f was a hitch hiker wouldnt all sps be bad? Some sps's are there for over 6 months and looks fine. Never seen a fish nipping on any sps. Sometimes I stay there for hrs.