Sps receding at tips- help

[mfollen]

Hey everyone!

I’m very worried as more and more of my sps are receding tissue at their tips.

Parameters are below:
Alk:7.6
Ca:460
Mag (high): 1550
PO4: just above 0
nitrates: 5.0 ppm
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 79-82

Two changes recently... magnesium shot up from 1430 to the 1550.
But I’ve mostly been experimenting with flow with new powerheads. Flow was definitely blasting. These are frags just encrusting, so is it possible I blasted them too much?!!

One or two out of 15 receding frags are receding at the base. The rest are receding from the tips.

Thank you so much!!!!

 

[mfollen]

Oh the only other change is that I did put my new gyre 350 on the overflow panel, with the dry magnet on the inside of the overflow where the water flows over.

I read on forums and from coralvue that this magnet is waterproof and is fine in the water. But who knows for sure?...

ughh not good all my hard work is reversing quickly unfortunately for these animals. I need to act quick thank you.

 

[SeaDweller]

Could be the flow, what lights are you running?
If Coral Vue says the dry side magnet could be submerged (which I hear people do) then I’d rule that out.
Have you tried turning the flow down?

 

[mfollen]

Yes I reduced flow yesterday.

Running 6 xr 15s on a 180 gallon. Running AB+ for 8 or 9 hours at max. No PAR values available. But frags highest up are unaffected so far.

As of yesterday only two frags showed some tip tissue recession. Today there must be 10+ more...

So as of now flow is reduced.

Thank you so much for your help.

 

[mfollen]

Would it be wise to cut the tips off where the tissue is receding to prevent full STN or RTN?

 

[SeaDweller]

Would it be wise to cut the tips off where the tissue is receding to prevent full STN or RTN?

I’m 50/50 when it comes to fragging to save stuff. Sometimes it helps, often times it doesn’t. I’ve had mag high before to fight bryopsis and it never seemed to affect anything, so I feel and say it’s not the Mg.

Your numbers look good, so could it be possible contamination? Is your source water good?

 

[mfollen]

Source water is good. I did just change my RODI filters, and read 0 TDS.

Im going to run a triton analysis but won’t get the results for s good week +.

Hoping it was the intense flow. Because otherwise I have no idea...

I might do a water change

 

[Silver14SS]

Pics?

 

[mfollen]

The best shots I could get with the lights kicking on...

 

[jda]

Could be LED light burn. Could be flow. Don't know for sure without a PAR meter. If the death is all from the same direction, then it could be flow... never really seen a gyre do this, but it is possible.

Turning both down can be good.

LED light burn can be after many weeks or even a few months of corals doing OK... finally the don't have enough energy to fight off the extra light and they start to suffer. This is usually only with PAR that is quite high for LEDs like 350-400+, or so, without a full compliment of the warmer spectrum. People who run Radions at 100% on all channels don't seem to suffer from this even at higher PAR.

Clearer photos might help under more daylight for better viewing.

 

[mfollen]

Thank you... I will turn my lights down for the next two days, but I fear it might of been the flow. I really had it crazy cranking...

As for lighting, coral has been happy and encrusting and growing. The flow is the one thing that I really was tinkering with.

Will need to test PAR. Clearer picture updated - it’s as if the tissue got ripped off from the flow.

 

[jda]

Are you sure that is death and not new growth?

 

[mfollen]

Yes definitely. At this point I’d feel pretty confident betting that it is damage from too much flow.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I’m 50/50 when it comes to fragging to save stuff. Sometimes it helps, often times it doesn’t. I’ve had mag high before to fight bryopsis and it never seemed to affect anything, so I feel and say it’s not the Mg.

Your numbers look good, so could it be possible contamination? Is your source water good?

Do you want to ask my questions for me?

I’m getting tired of sounding like a broken record

 

[jda]

Good. Glad that you found it.

Feel free to post this when people post the stuff about "you cannot have too much flow." I get clowned sometimes when I tell them that indeed you can.

 

[SeaDweller]

Do you want to ask my questions for me?

I’m getting tired of sounding like a broken record

Brotha, I’m surprised you don’t have it copied ready to be pasted somewhere! lol. I think it’s a lost cause man...

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Brotha, I’m surprised you don’t have it copied ready to be pasted somewhere! lol. I think it’s a lost cause man...

Hard to tell from the pics. Could be a hot flow spot.

 

[mfollen]

When testing the increased flow I was curious as most of what I read was "you cant have enough flow" and the ocean does gets major current. But I tried maxing my powerheads on the back-end of a 6' peninsula to create high flow on the front end w/ no powerheads. Needless to say, there was quite the surge zone created where most of the impacted acros are.

I downed the flow considerably and the light, and the tissue recession has slowed and somewhat stabilized. Hopefully it holds here and grows back with no rapid recession.

 

[mfollen]

Hey all,

Thank you for your help in ID’ing a cause here as I’m nervous more loss is on the way.

As of this morning I noticed more tissue loss, still slight but regression is ongoing.

I turned off the new gyre pump that is creating the turbulant surge zone near affected corals. Other vortech pumps are running but at low speeds.
I also removed the external (gyre) magnet from the overflow box in case it was leeching anything. Prior to placing the external gyre magnet in the overflow, I originally scraped off a large sticker on the external magnet and did my best to remove as much residue as possible, but some remained. Picture attached of the external magnet.

Seeing as the acros are still slowly receding, what do you think the likelihood that either or is causing the continued recession?
1. Possible leeching from the external magnet and/or sticker residue?
2. Continued response from the crazy flow increase that happened days ago. The acros are just taking the time to show the damage from the speed ramp up or the damage incurred is expanding...

Thank you so much. I seriously appreciate this as I’ve invested a lot into all these frags growing into colonies.

I took water samples for a triton analysis but that will take a while to get the results back. I also put in brand new carbon after taking the sample.

 

[mfollen]

Picture attached.