This STN or Bleaching?

[Charlie’s Frags]

Yeah started from 40, 50, 60% span of 6 weeks.

Are you saying you raised all the channels 10% at once? Or just the blues? You probably either shifted the spectrum if you just changed the blues or you shocked them from too much par if you increased all the channels. I’m currently changing my settings to the BRS ab+ but I’m changing 1 % here and there every 4-5 days. It’s going to take 6 months to change.

 

[pjdiddy]

Are you saying you raised all the channels 10% at once? Or just the blues? You probably either shifted the spectrum if you just changed the blues or you shocked them from too much par if you increased all the channels. I’m currently changing my settings to the BRS ab+ but I’m changing 1 % here and there every 4-5 days. It’s going to take 6 months to change.

I used the ab+ from the start, but with just 40% intensity. Corals seems didnt mind the change from Kessils. It just happening right now on my SPS, when I added fuge and increased the intensity by 10%. Maybe too much change in a span of 1 week that stressed them?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I used the ab+ from the start, but with just 40% intensity. Corals seems didnt mind the change from Kessils. It just happening right now on my SPS, when I added fuge and increased the intensity by 10%. Maybe too much change in a span of 1 week that stressed them?

This one?

 

[pjdiddy]

This one?

Yes thats the one.

 

[danoo]

I've seen my bicolor blenny take large, frequent bites out of my montiporas and take the occasional bite out of my acros. The particular type of tissue loss you have is way beyond the damage mine will do to a coral, but at the same time every fish is different so it is possible yours really likes to snack on SPS. The telltale sign on my corals is the tissue loss is exactly the size of the bicolor blenny's mouth.

I think you are prudent to look into a variety of potential problems, but it would not shock me if all that damage was caused by your bicolor blenny. Granted the damage is so severe I'd imagine it would be easy to catch the blenny in the act if it were the cause.

 

[TexasReefer82]

If it's not the bicolor blenny nipping on the corals I'd double check your Nitrate and Phosphate - especially phosphate. I've had similar symptoms in SPS before due to low Phosphate - they basically start what I'll call "tissue wasting" in spots on the older tissues especially, not so much on the new growth tips. The appearance is similar to but not the same as STN. The tissue is still there but it's very unhealthy and appears bleached. I dose both nitrate and Phosphate into my SPS system to prevent this.

 

[pjdiddy]

If it's not the bicolor blenny nipping on the corals I'd double check your Nitrate and Phosphate - especially phosphate. I've had similar symptoms in SPS before due to low Phosphate - they basically start what I'll call "tissue wasting" in spots on the older tissues especially, not so much on the new growth tips. The appearance is similar to but not the same as STN. The tissue is still there but it's very unhealthy and appears bleached. I dose both nitrate and Phosphate into my SPS system to prevent this.

That what I was thinking, because it tend to happen when I added biopellet in the past, and fuge just recently. To increase Phospate, what should I dose? Right now, I am feeding frozen cubes more often than the usual pellets to try to increase Phospate a little bit.

 

[TexasReefer82]

That what I was thinking, because it tend to happen when I added biopellet in the past, and fuge just recently. To increase Phospate, what should I dose? Right now, I am feeding frozen cubes more often than the usual pellets to try to increase Phospate a little bit.

In my experience additional feeding does not increase phosphate in the water column. That said my tank is overskimmed, so whatever comes in with food or fish poo is probably skimmed out.

I used a planted tank product called Activate from aquvitro, but there are a few options. Could also buy sodium phosphate online.

 

[pjdiddy]

In my experience additional feeding does not increase phosphate in the water column. That said my tank is overskimmed, so whatever comes in with food or fish poo is probably skimmed out.

I used a planted tank product called Activate from aquvitro, but there are a few options. Could also buy sodium phosphate online.

Tested my Nitrate and Phospate through Redsea test kit and it came up my Phospate is 0.08 and Nitrate is 0.

Could the fuge being online just a week sucked up all my Nitrate and it being zero affected my SPSs?

 

[pjdiddy]

As of now I turned off my skimmer. Planning on either feed heavily for the next few days or dose stump remover.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Turning off your skimmer for a few days is probably a good idea. I've considered putting mine on a timer so that it only comes on for several hours each day - or something like that. Currently I turn it off a few nights each week when I feed phytofeast.

I'd say the refugium probably had an effect. You may not need a fuge at all depending on the size of your skimmer and the number/amount of growing corals in the tank. I designed my sump with a refugium area and bought a nice kessil H80 light to grow Chaetomorpha. Not only did the chaeto not grow, it outright died - and instead I have to dose nitrate and phosphate to the system. My Fuge has become an overflow area for extra corals, haha.

I honestly don't know where all my nutrients go. My system is a 40 gallon breeder SPS tank with ~10 gallons in the sump. I have 10 fish in the 40G tank that I feed well every day and I also dose the Nitrate and Phosphate. I understand that organically bound nitrogen an phosphorus can be skimmed out. But inorganic NO3- and PO4-3 ions aren't skimmable. The only options to account for their disappearance are consumption by corals and other livestock. I could be having some denitrification occurring in the rock and sand (>1" deep) but that only affects the Nitrate.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Tested my Nitrate and Phospate through Redsea test kit and it came up my Phospate is 0.08 and Nitrate is 0.

Could the fuge being online just a week sucked up all my Nitrate and it being zero affected my SPSs?

I'd suggest the Hanna Ultra Low Phosphorous checker to test your phosphate - it provides a reading in parts per billion. The Red Sea test kit uses a visual color comparison. These type of tests kits are poor performers when it comes to accurately measuring an amount of something at or just barely above the test's limit of detection. Also consider the accuracy (+/- 0.02) is a large fraction of the total amount measured. Go read the reviews of the Red Sea Phosphate test kit at the large online retailers. People have reported that they're unable to achieve a reading below 0.08.

Your phosphate may actually be zero.

 

[TexasReefer82]

Here's a very interesting published study attesting to the importance of phosphate for hermatypic coral health. In summary: they can get by with almost zero nitrate, but they can't handle zero phosphate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5441187/

 

[ScottB]

I experienced something similar when ramping my new lights on a 30G breeder frag tank (25 G sump). 3-4 weeks in, I added chaeto on a reverse light schedule for PH balancing.

So two things were changing. IMO, it was the COMBINATION of raising lighting AND lowering nutrient. I had about 4 out 20 SPS frags go pale. They did not lose tissue, just lost color.

I tested PO4 and NO3 more frequently to confirm they were lacking. Dosed NO3, but that zeroed out PO4. Finally decided to keep it simple instead of dosing and things are calmer now. Here were my simple steps:
1) Reduced chaeto light intensity
2) removed skimmer cup for a while, now every other day or so.
3) added another maintenance fish and more food

Just trying to find the easiest way to maintain PO4 around .03. And NO3 around 3-10ppm.

All my colors and PE are happy now (OK, there is always one fussy frag in a frag tank but even that one has better PE)

 

[TexasReefer82]

It does seem that corals utilize light and nutrients proportionally. So, increasing light and simultaneously cutting nutrients is a double blow.

Also, as you described, dosing nitrate alone, without phosphate, in the presence of any amount of excess organic carbon can result in phosphate becoming the limiting nutrient - and that's not a good situation. Reefs are characteristically carbon limited.

 

[pjdiddy]

Good information guys, thank you. Looks like we already fugured out the cause. So what is the best way to add nitrate and phospate without the risk of algae bloom?

 

[ScottB]

My way described above is the "old school", i.e. reducing/removing skim & GFO & refugium and/or increasing feeding and pooping to maintain some PO4 and NO3 (in my book: .03ppm and 3-5ppm respectively. Got those figures from Randy Holmes Farley and it works for my acros.)

Arguably "New school" is equally easy. Keep skim/GFO/refugium constant along with food/poop inputs while dosing BOTH PO4 and NO3 to support the gap that your removal processes are creating. I will let some new school practitioners -- and there are very many successful ones -- chime in on that ratio math and dosing per gallon of each. If you have spare dosers and enjoy math > beer this is probably your answer. I don't

On my display, APEX controls my GFO reactor and skimmer. Skimmer runs 12 hours now, reactor 8 hours. For the past few weeks, that seems the balance to keep me from over-stripping those two nutrients.
On my frag tank I don't have APEX but instead some smart IoT outlets I have programmed to do the roughly the same on those components, and dialed back the duration and intensity of my Kessil 'fuge light. Still work in process to reach steady state but acro frags are happy now.

Dig around a little and then pick one school and go slow. With patience and attention they both work.

In EITHER case, you need to be able to measure PO4 and NO3 accurately to raise acros-- especially if dosing. Before you said Red Sea for NO3 that is fine IMO. I recommend the ultra low Hanna checker for PO4. A bit noisy results sometimes, but with practise it works OK. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UNK3I8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Buy an extra pack of reagents until you get this settled down. I finished the first pack kinda quick because I am slow learner sometimes.

Recording test results and my actions on a timeline I found very helpful too.

 

[pjdiddy]

So to be able to successfully keep SPS particularly Acros, Nitrate and Phospate dosing is recommended?

No idea Skimmer running 24/7 is not a good idea especially how mine is oversized. Anyway, I did a bit of research and came up with Stump remover for Nitrate and some planted aquarium supplement for phospate. Anyone can verify this?

 

[TexasReefer82]

You won't get an algae "bloom", the worst case is you'll have slightly increased algae growth in the aquarium. There is no level of nutrients, no matter how low, that will block the growth of algae and still allow coral to grow. If you can't grow algae you can't grow coral - algae are better than coral at sucking the tiniest amounts of nutrients from the water column.

It's not that either dosing or running a certain skimmer schedule is recommended. It's that many hobbiests have found that sps/acropora do best when there is a small but still measurable amount of nitrate and phosphate in the water.

Some accomplish this by part time skimming or none at all, others by heavy feeding, others by dosing.

I use the stump remover from Lowe's. It's potassium nitrate power and you'll need to dissolve some in rodi water to make a standard solution for dosing to your tank. I can help you with the math on that if you need.

Activate by AquaVitro is the phosphate supplement I use. Dosing instructions per volume of tank water are given on the back of the bottle.

I've dosed 5ppm nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphate to my tank all at once several times and nobody had any problems - there's no need to go terribly slow with this like with large alkalinity changes.

I'd suggest that for the first attempt you put your skimmer on a timer and run it 2/3 or 1/2 time each day. Let that go for a week or two and measure your levels - that alone may do the trick. If that doesn't raise your nutrient levels then try dosing.

 

[ScottB]

You won't get an algae "bloom", the worst case is you'll have slightly increased algae growth in the aquarium. There is no level of nutrients, no matter how low, that will block the growth of algae and still allow coral to grow. If you can't grow algae you can't grow coral - algae are better than coral at sucking the tiniest amounts of nutrients from the water column.

It's not that either dosing or running a certain skimmer schedule is recommended. It's that many hobbiests have found that sps/acropora do best when there is a small but still measurable amount of nitrate and phosphate in the water.

Some accomplish this by part time skimming or none at all, others by heavy feeding, others by dosing.

I use the stump remover from Lowe's. It's potassium nitrate power and you'll need to dissolve some in rodi water to make a standard solution for dosing to your tank. I can help you with the math on that if you need.

Activate by AquaVitro is the phosphate supplement I use. Dosing instructions per volume of tank water are given on the back of the bottle.

I've dosed 5ppm nitrate and 0.05ppm phosphate to my tank all at once several times and nobody had any problems - there's no need to go terribly slow with this like with large alkalinity changes.

I'd suggest that for the first attempt you put your skimmer on a timer and run it 2/3 or 1/2 time each day. Let that go for a week or two and measure your levels - that alone may do the trick. If that doesn't raise your nutrient levels then try dosing.

Yup. I agree with @Texas Reefer . These are two common methods of keeping a little bit of nutrient in our systems. We've been trained to strip all the waste out and the gadgets we buy have gotten super effective in doing so.

There are dosing calculators on reefcentral.com and here somewhere also. Have some fun with it.