Hello, last week my stylo frag was not very happy and then I discovered that my alk had dropped down to around 6-6.5. I immediately lowered my lights and tried raising up to 8 in the following days. The coral is a bit bleached at one part of its base but nothing really serius. Ever since that day the polyp extention has returned to full troughout the day and the color at the base has gotten better (all of the branches kept their color). Today i returned from uni only to find out that the flesh at the top of one of the branches had detatched. This coral is only just a frag. There is a single seperate branch and another one that splits into 2 smaller branches. Algea growth on the exposed skeleton of the coral will definitely start in the next few days (my tank is not that old and brown algae still prevails, it is about 8 months old). The primary issue here is that I went through some type of velvet or ich and I still am in the no fish period. That means that my nutrients are really low which in return causes the coral's flesh to get thin. Nitrates at around 5ppm and phosphates <0.03ppm. I am trying to overfeed the tank (shrimps, hermis, snails e.t.c.) but it seems as if algae still gets all the nutrients. I have already acted and lowered my flow in the area of the frag.
In order to somehow prevent the spread of algae could I "patch" the top of the coral using epoxy or superglue as if it were the base of the coral? Then if things still go wrong I will be forced to frag the healthy parts. Is that a good idea? I searched about this but I found no answer anywhere. My problem is that the flesh detatched at the branch which splits into 2 branches. If I patch the exposed branch and the infection does not continue, I will save the other branch aswell.
In order to somehow prevent the spread of algae could I "patch" the top of the coral using epoxy or superglue as if it were the base of the coral? Then if things still go wrong I will be forced to frag the healthy parts. Is that a good idea? I searched about this but I found no answer anywhere. My problem is that the flesh detatched at the branch which splits into 2 branches. If I patch the exposed branch and the infection does not continue, I will save the other branch aswell.
