Sps tips dying

[lyscer]

Lighting: 8bulb ATI dimmable sunpower fixture. I bought the unit back in July with new bulbs and they haven't been replaced since.
I dose these maybe 1-2 times a week at 50%-75% of the called for dosage.
- AcroPower
- Continuum Coral Exponential

And now that I think about it, 1 thing that I did just start adding was Iodine to see if it helped my Pom Pom to start looking fluffy again. Only been dosing this one 1.5 weeks which is when the major change on that corals tips has started (although it is on the opposite side of the tank from where I dose).. so that could be the culprit. I have been doing it at 50% recommended dosage.

I scrape the algae off the glass every 3-5 days.

 

[lyscer]

last week I noticed that my salinity was around 1.023 so I raised it to 1.025 over a 3 day period. So this may have been where the ALK swing came into play. I noticed a couple of weeks ago that my ALK was higher than normal so last week I checked my salinity and found it was low and that was when I started to raise it. In this process my alk has come down -1.00dKH since last Saturday. Nothing was dosed at all in the last week as I was out of town.

 

[jcdeng]

That is not burn tips, if you look at the first picture it is more likely tissue receding cuz it can be seen at the bottom and mid branch also, might be bacteria related or water quality. Burn tip is usually seen in acros that are growing but the tips are pale/colorless and what op has is browned out no growth.

That or your coral might simply be starving since there is no fish in there for 150 days. Do you boardcast feed the tank with coral food? PO4 value of 0 is not good, you want some po4 in there. Hope this helps.

 

[GrandLotus]

Could be:

High nutrients in the water
Too much GFO being used or tumbling to fast and hard
ALK burn
Not enough light
Not enough wave maker type flow
Pests

I personally think that since your corals are brown'ing out that it would be the high nutirents.

 

[lyscer]

I do not run GFO. I am running 2 Gyre XF-130s at 50% so there is a lot of water movement. I am running an 8 bulb ATI T5 Fixture and I think it currently runs for 8 hours with 100% on being about 1 hour of the time. The only thing I don't know about is nutrients. I don't have any crazy algae growth going on so I don't feel as though I have high nutrients (although I could be wrong). As for the P04, I have read many different threads on here that most of the time P04 is consumed when it is created so it is hard to measure. I do skim but only for like 48 hours a week. I found that my corals started to color up when my nitrates were > 0. Most of the amazing tanks I see on here have nitrates between 2-5.

I do broadcast coral feed 2-3 times a week. I do:
- Oyster Feast
- Nanochloropsis
- Marine Snow

I also broadcast feed my fish a small amount every day. Maybe I will pick up some macroalgae and see if it grows quickly. This would help me identify high nutrients too

 

[lyscer]

I am still having issues here. In the past 2 weeks I have lost 2 more SPS frags. I have noticed that I have pretty decent swings in my CA/ALK from Saturday - to - Saturday since that is when I do my water changes. Not sure if this is a contributing factor or not.

Saturday Pre water change:
CA : 390ppm
ALK: 9 dKH

Sunday Post Water Change:
CA: 400-410ppm
ALK: 9.6 - 10 dKH

I have also noticed over the past few months that when my Nitrates hit 0ppm that I start to have fading and SPS start to deteriorate. I have been out of town a lot lately and haven't been able to keep up on that as I need to dose 2 TBSP of my Nitrates every 3 days. Day 1 = 2-3ppm, Day 3 = 0ppm.

I have stopped dosing :
- AcroPower
- Continuum Coral Exponential
Mainly due to time constraints.

I have noticed more brownish algae growing on my sand and on a couple pieces of rock (all patches are smaller than 1" x 2") so I added Chaetomorpha and some other type of macro algae a week ago to see if that could help with a possible nutrient issue. What do you guys think I could be doing differently? There has to be something I am missing here. I do plan on changing my lights next month as I think they will be at the 9 month mark and I want to rule out bad lighting spectrum as a possibility.

 

[Sabellafella]

I am still having issues here. In the past 2 weeks I have lost 2 more SPS frags. I have noticed that I have pretty decent swings in my CA/ALK from Saturday - to - Saturday since that is when I do my water changes. Not sure if this is a contributing factor or not.

Saturday Pre water change:
CA : 390ppm
ALK: 9 dKH

Sunday Post Water Change:
CA: 400-410ppm
ALK: 9.6 - 10 dKH

I have also noticed over the past few months that when my Nitrates hit 0ppm that I start to have fading and SPS start to deteriorate. I have been out of town a lot lately and haven't been able to keep up on that as I need to dose 2 TBSP of my Nitrates every 3 days. Day 1 = 2-3ppm, Day 3 = 0ppm.

I have stopped dosing :
- AcroPower
- Continuum Coral Exponential
Mainly due to time constraints.

I have noticed more brownish algae growing on my sand and on a couple pieces of rock (all patches are smaller than 1" x 2") so I added Chaetomorpha and some other type of macro algae a week ago to see if that could help with a possible nutrient issue. What do you guys think I could be doing differently? There has to be something I am missing here. I do plan on changing my lights next month as I think they will be at the 9 month mark and I want to rule out bad lighting spectrum as a possibility.

Have you dipped them? In the first pic i think i see a aefw

 

[Diesel]

Saturday Pre water change:
CA : 390ppm
ALK: 9 dKH

Sunday Post Water Change:
CA: 400-410ppm
ALK: 9.6 - 10 dKH

What is the % you change on your tank?
As this looks like a big swing, try to test your newly mixed water before you do the WC.

AEFW, for a moment a thought about this as well but by now after a month you must see more damage.
Do the SPS recover at all over the last four weeks 6 to 8 weeks?

 

[lyscer]

I will test some new water and see what the values are. I use Red Sea coral pro salt since I have read it has higher values of the things I don't want to dose . I have noticed my Sps that don't look like they are dying have new growth which was non existent before. The other Sps that have been having problems since the start have not recovered at all. Just got worse.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Hm Ok weird not sure if anyone mentioned. Your phosphates are 0 your nitrates are at 2 and your alkalinity is at 9-10 . Your alkalinity is too high while your nutrients seem low, and at that point 10 alk is causing the burnt tips. i personally would try to go to .03 phos and 5-10 nitrates , and lower your alk a bit. And try to make sure not to change stuff back and forth, acros like stability before they show any signs of recovery, (in a few months.)

 

[lyscer]

I am hoping to get a calcium reactor up and running here in the near future (next month) so that I can provide a little more stability for the Alk/CA side of things because I know I suck at dosing which is not good for stability haha. I'm not really sure how to add phosphates as I have never thought about this. I will do some research on the forums and see what I come up with. Only thing that I can think of though is that I appear to have some phosphates because of my strange algae growth on my sand in some patches. I only need to scrape my glass weekly at this point as well because of the slow growth on the glass.

Thanks for all of the input!

 

[DamianOZ]

Two issues
You coral are not doing well, they have also suffered tip burn
Cause of tip burn is dosing elements like Alkalinity or Potassium too quickly. Or the levels being too high with respect to nutrients levels. very high NO3 can cause similar problems too, but 2ppm isn't a problem
Your rock is too green for zero P04. you also have some base recession


Are you carbon dosing?
what are you feeding?
what lighting are you using?

can we get a full tank shot, including sump please?

 

[DamianOZ]

Oops sorry, didn't read the second page. my bad.

I feel your high Alk has cause the TN.

You can reduce Alk as quick as you like, let it fall to <8dKH I prefer 6.5 - 7dKH, but it might make you nervous.
Your feed and lights are great. may be cut back on feed a little to help with NO3.

 

[twilliard]

You can start to feed fresh frozen diy food to bring your po4 up
My next writeup on this to come

 

[lyscer]

So I decided to just pull one of my worst looking corals out... I think I have AEFW. Little jerks were all over my coral and those look like bite marks to me although I may be paranoid. I know I have planaria flatworms but these didn't have the same planaria look.

 

[twilliard]

I see them.. that is a positive conclusion

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Also I see some boring algae , that could annoy sps and stunt their growth quite a bit

 

[Russ265]

@DamianOZ @twilliard @Diesel are all on target here.

You have a nitrate deficiency with the amount of alk you are pushing.
i believe you have enough phosphate due to green rocks.

once tips get alk burn, you can correct the issue but they are susceptible to cyano or algae glossing the tip.

if nitrate continually drops to 0 and you raise alk beyond 8, you are in dangerous territory. some can handle it for 30 days, others can handle it for 3 months.

i would try to get some fish back in there. or dose as a stopgap.

once nitrate can be detectable, you can run those numbers.

i would also question your lighting capacity. those coral look pretty brown, but they are also in daylight shots. so it could be fooling our vision.

 

[Diesel]

@DamianOZ @twilliard @Diesel are all on target here.

You have a nitrate deficiency with the amount of alk you are pushing.
i believe you have enough phosphate due to green rocks.

once tips get alk burn, you can correct the issue but they are susceptible to cyano or algae glossing the tip.

if nitrate continually drops to 0 and you raise alk beyond 8, you are in dangerous territory. some can handle it for 30 days, others can handle it for 3 months.

i would try to get some fish back in there. or dose as a stopgap.

once nitrate can be detectable, you can run those numbers.

i would also question your lighting capacity. those coral look pretty brown, but they are also in daylight shots. so it could be fooling our vision.

On one point comes the Cyano in play?
Due to a lack of No3 or just high ALK on low No3?
No3 is a food source for bacteria and corals by keeping that at a low level both your ecosystem and livestock (corals) will suffer............ is this why the cyano will flourish cause you not feeding the good bacteria?

 

[Russ265]

On one point comes the Cyano in play?
Due to a lack of No3 or just high ALK on low No3?
No3 is a food source for bacteria and corals by keeping that at a low level both your ecosystem and livestock (corals) will suffer............ is this why the cyano will flourish cause you not feeding the good bacteria?

i think if any of us had a silver bullet for cyano we would be millionaires.

my experience is we have cyano in our systems anyway. they are just kept in balance until an outbreak (for whatever reason) occurs.
true. they photosynthesize slower under blue light like most algae, but they are consuming something.

ive heard people using mb7 to get it under control and ive had mild success with it, but it isnt a silver bullet like chemiclean.

although, whos to say you arent wrecking other aspects of your system using the antibacterial.

one thing ill pass on though:
they LOVE to consume nitrate. wow. seachem's flourish nitrate stock always bounced up when i had a cyano outbreak. i went from dosing every week to daily.