Tip Burn with PE

Dugless · May 19, 2019

Has anyone ever seen something like this? Tip burn on some of my corals, but the terminal polyp is still extended. My Alkalinity dipped to 6dkh 3 weeks back and I slowly raised it to 7dkh over 7 days. There were no signs of distress and color was great immediately afterwards.

In the last week I've started to see distress signs in a few of my coral. Symptoms look like starving or high alkalinity, but I'm at a loss. Do you think this is a 2 week stress delay on my Alk dip?

Alk 7.25dkh
Ca 440
NO3 10ppm
PO4 .065

LAReefer4Life · May 19, 2019

PO4 could be better. Any other fish, inverts. or seen any pests? How established is your tank?

Attached 2 quick 4 min videos about reducing Phosphate.

Dugless · May 19, 2019

I’m comfortable with the PO4 level. Tank is 1-1/2yrs old with dry rock. Everything was really starting to hit it’s stride this winter.

LAReefer4Life · May 19, 2019

I just had a similar issue. My P04 levels were .08 and my acros started to bleach, similar to your photo. I slowly reduced down to .003 and the issue subsided and coral tissue regenerated over 6weeks. I can't say 100% it was all due to reduction in PO4 but it help resolve the issue. Best of luck!

Before vs. After

Charlie’s Frags · May 19, 2019

pathot984 said:
PO4 could be better. Any other fish, inverts. or seen any pests? How established is your tank?

Attached 2 quick 4 min videos about reducing Phosphate.

What do you mean by could be better? Lower?0.06-0.10 is ideal.

LAReefer4Life · May 19, 2019

Chaswood79 said:
What do you mean by could be better? Lower?0.06-0.10 is ideal.

Hi there. I was just saying that I had .08 PH4 and reduced it down to .03 and it worked nicely for me. Just referring to my personal experience with similar issue.

Charlie’s Frags · May 19, 2019

pathot984 said:
Hi there. I was just saying that I had .08 PH4 and reduced it down to .03 and it worked nicely for me. Just referring to my personal experience with similar issue.

I’m glad your coral recovered. I’ve had the opposite result anytime I’ve tried lower po4. I’ve had much better success, around 95-98% not worrying about po4. My acros are much happier and grow more with po4 around 0.10-0.20

watchguy123 · May 19, 2019

The most common cause of tips burning is either too much light, or nitrates too low and alkalinity not low enough. If you've had your lights for a while and have not either changed intensity or replaced bulbs then not likely your lights. Your nitrates and alkalinity seem to be in the "zone" so only other thing that I can think of is possibly one of those test results is not correct. In other words either alk or nitrate might be lower than your test kit is reporting. It always seems a stretch to suggest your test results are incorrect because it doesn't fit into a neat picture. On the other hand, retesting when something untoward is happening is not a big deal just to be safe.

Oh and for completeness, I missed on first read that your dKh had dropped to 6. It may simply be that yes the alkalinity got too low and you are now seeing the results even though you corrected the alk correctly and deliberately.

Dugless · May 19, 2019

I was hoping one of the veterans would chime in. I keep telling myself it is a delayed stress response, but I’ve been noticing more corals with damage over the last few days and it has me nervous.

I’ve also been wrestling some cyano the last month and it seems to be suddenly clearing. Any thoughts as to a bacterial shift being a cause?

Charlie’s Frags · May 19, 2019

Dugless said:
I was hoping one of the veterans would chime in. I keep telling myself it is a delayed stress response, but I’ve been noticing more corals with damage over the last few days and it has me nervous.

I’ve also been wrestling some cyano the last month and it seems to be suddenly clearing. Any thoughts as to a bacterial shift being a cause?

Are you carbon dosing or using gfo?

Dugless · May 19, 2019

I use 1/2 cup of GFO and typically replace it every 6wks. My PO4 has been in the .05-.07 window for the last few months and is typically pretty stable.

I don’t carbon dose, but did sparingly add 5ml/day of microbacter 7 for a week in hopes of tackling the cyano.

Charlie’s Frags · May 19, 2019

Get rid of the gfo
I’ll never use it again
I got burnt tips, stn, rtn every time I used it
I’ve had perfect po4 numbers with dead acros
And high po4, perspectively, and happy acros
No more gfo for me

ccurnick · May 19, 2019

I’ve been having a similar issue ever since I had one alk swing... the next several weeks I slowly started losing corals and haven’t been able to stop it.

SeaDweller · May 20, 2019

ccurnick said:
I’ve been having a similar issue ever since I had one alk swing... the next several weeks I slowly started losing corals and haven’t been able to stop it.

What kind of swing are we talking about here? OPs swing was from 6 to 7, and incrementally up to 7 over a week.

jda · May 20, 2019

Is it just that one tip? If so, then forget about it... could just be a fish nipping.

I would not stress an alk swing from 6 to 7 over a slow period of time. I would look elsewhere, but I am not sure where to look...

Most tip burn is from low N and P but too high of alk - you have none of these issues. Others can be LED spectrum burn from being too high on some channels - you can combat this by lowering the lights, or some turn all of the channels up to 100% and raise them way up high and this helps too (probably emerson effect). If you don't have LED, then this is not it. GFO can polish the water (like carbon) and contribute to this.

Lastly, tissue can suffer without enough of some traces. Nobody knows which ones, but not changing water or adding in enough balanced traces (like DSR, or the like) can be bad. I get some white spots and sometimes some nasty tips when I get lazy and forget to change water - I do not add in any traces, so water changes are important for me, but changing some water clears this right up in about a week's time.

I have no personal experience with lowering P too fast, but most people say that it is bad. When you use the GFO, do you use a lot at once where the level will bounce down and then bounce back up a few days later... or just a little where the lowering is more deliberate and linear?

You also could have a fish that is enjoying some tasty coral. Any large or dwarf angelfish other than Genicanthus?

Perry · May 20, 2019

Do you do water changes? If so, is it balanced with trace? If not, are the trace minerals added back in? Also, big thing to ensure is that there is alk uptake from day to day. If the tank is consuming main minerals, then you can also bet on trace uptake. Perhaps ICP test would be more revealing

Dugless · May 20, 2019

I’ve had stable NO3 (5-10ppm) and PO4 (.05-.07) for months. I’m seeing plenty of damage now on about half of my acros. It’s odd, as the polyps aren’t dying back as shown in the pic. It’s not fish related as that typically ruins PE and all coral seem to have great PE. Even the pieces that are burning have normal PE. I have seen some messenterial filament on certain coral which leads me to think it’s nutrition related.

ccurnick · May 21, 2019

TitanCi said:
What kind of swing are we talking about here? OPs swing was from 6 to 7, and incrementally up to 7 over a week.

It was similar, went from 8 to 6 over 2-3 days, and then back up in 3-4 days. Suffered no loss immediately, but over several weeks I started loosing some. It looks like everything that was having trouble is recovered now. My Alk uptake has increased back to normal again, just super frustrating.

Dugless · May 30, 2019

Things are continuing to progress in the wrong direction. It now appears that more than half of the coral in the tank are showing signs of stress, with a handful very near death. I'm at a loss for why this is happening and am starting to wonder if it isn't something bacterial?