Tips bleaching on acropora and brown algae! What am I doing wrong???

[Salty-Sailor]

Trying to figure out what's going on with my Acro's! Tips are bleaching and then getting brown algae on the tips. Some have RTN after this happens and others just stay this way.

Any ideas? Tired of killing beautiful acro's! :/

Frag tank is odd, 32-30-14tall. Sump is 24-15-16tall.

Numbers are

Alk 8.2
Calcium 430
Magnesium a little high 1300
Salinity 1.025/1.026
Nitrate 3ppm
Phosphate undetectable or occasionally 0.02

Running 2 Radion xr15 pro gen 4
12in above water
And acro's 5in below water level.
Getting par between 150-200
Mp40 & icecap gyre running random modes low %

Skimmer pulls good skimmate and rated for this tank at medium bio load.
Filter socks change every two days 100 Micron
Biopellet reactor.
Small bag of Siporax in sump.
8-8-1 marine pure block.
Dosing very little but seems to be very stable,
Magnesium 2ml in morning 2ml at night
Alk 2ml early morning and 3ml late afternoon
Cal 2ml morning. 2ml noon. 2ml night
Red Sea nopox 2ml mid afternoon

manually add 4ML of red sea reef energy part A and part B (8ml total)

It's a mix reef frag tank if you will. Acans, blastos, stylos, Zoa's, mushrooms, Goni, micro Goni, chalice, plate, dunkin, favia, leaptastria, psamo, galaxia, frogspawn, enchanta.

All of these are growing like weeds except for the Birdsnest and acropora. They do well for a little bit great polyp extension eating reef roids & reef chili and then that happens.

Feel free to ask anything I just want to be able to keep my favorite corals which are Acropora. I get very attached and this has been killing me.

Thanks in advance!

 

[hybridazn]

Burnt tips are usually a good sign of alk swings or your nutrients and alk levels aren't on par with one another. How old are your test kits and how often do you test? I would recommend testing alk multiple times a day through out the day to see if anything is funny there.

 

[Coronus]

Alk spikes

 

[Coronus]

Test daily at the same time for about 4 days and see if their are swings.

 

[Coronus]

How old is the tank?

 

[Jason_MrFrags]

Alk issues

 

[Salty-Sailor]

Burnt tips are usually a good sign of alk swings or your nutrients and alk levels aren't on par with one another. How old are your test kits and how often do you test? I would recommend testing alk multiple times a day through out the day to see if anything is funny there.

hanna checker and only a month old. doesnt expire until end of 2018. i use to test once a week and ever since ive been having issues ive been testing once per day and depending on when i test it no more then 0.1ppm change. morning trend is a little higher, maybe 8.3 and afternoon more like 8.1.

where should my nutrients be if i run low 8 alk? thought 1-5ppm would be safe? is that not the case?

 

[Salty-Sailor]

How old is the tank?

frag tank itself is about 4months of myself using but i bought it used and cleaned good before i started running it. i transferred my 55g over to it so i have just over 70lbs of live rock which is super covered in coraline and all my media transferred over as well. didnt have any spikes or coral/ fish loss but at the time there was no sps. also upgraded to radions at that point as well and my lps and softies loved the change. waited 3months of running really well no issues and then added sps and having the hardest issues.

 

[hybridazn]

hanna checker and only a month old. doesnt expire until end of 2018. i use to test once a week and ever since ive been having issues ive been testing once per day and depending on when i test it no more then 0.1ppm change. morning trend is a little higher, maybe 8.3 and afternoon more like 8.1.

where should my nutrients be if i run low 8 alk? thought 1-5ppm would be safe? is that not the case?

Low nutrients, low alk. Nitrates should be around 1 with alk between 7-8. With dosing nutrients this should be easy to maintain. Or if you want to keep your nutrients where they are bump alk up slowly to 9.5

 

[Fishfinder]

Mag seems low, how are you dosing the same amount of Mag as Cal and Alk daily?

 

[Salty-Sailor]

Mag seems low, how are you dosing the same amount of Mag as Cal and Alk daily?

Honestly i dont know how to answer that question, ive been slowing adjusting my doser to keep the numbers that i have and it has seemed to have leveled out at this point thus far. with those current dose amounts.

Would u expect the numbers to be higher or big differences between the amounts? technically none of the ML dosage are the same amount.

 

[Salty-Sailor]

Low nutrients, low alk. Nitrates should be around 1 with alk between 7-8. With dosing nutrients this should be easy to maintain. Or if you want to keep your nutrients where they are bump alk up slowly to 9.5

Not sure whats my better option, dose less reef energy and feed slightly less or slowly raise up alk with possibly more feeding needed as well?

 

[Fishfinder]

Honestly i dont know how to answer that question, ive been slowing adjusting my doser to keep the numbers that i have and it has seemed to have leveled out at this point thus far. with those current dose amounts.

Would u expect the numbers to be higher or big differences between the amounts? technically none of the ML dosage are the same amount.

I just wouldnt think that you Mag consumption would be that high.

 

[hybridazn]

Not sure whats my better option, dose less reef energy and feed slightly less or slowly raise up alk with possibly more feeding needed as well?

What salt mix are you using?

 

[Salty-Sailor]

I just wouldnt think that you Mag consumption would be that high.

after testing right now it has gone up to 1325 so im assuming i am dosing still a little too much and will drop down 1ml and keep testing till i hit the sweet spot.

 

[Salty-Sailor]

What salt mix are you using?

Tropic marine pro reef. as of the last 2 months ive only been doing water changes to replenish trace elements that im not already dosing, since my levels have been pretty stable. no excess nutrients to get out of the water.

 

[Ibn]

Second pic looks like you have burnt tips as well as basal recession. How is this piece doing now that your alk is stabilized?

I'd just continue to keep your parameters stable and then wait it out if you haven't lost any additional tissue recently.

 

[Salty-Sailor]

Second pic looks like you have burnt tips as well as basal recession. How is this piece doing now that your alk is stabilized?

I'd just continue to keep your parameters stable and then wait it out if you haven't lost any additional tissue recently.

There is base recession on that piece and also on my chunky palletta tri color acro which just started to happen to that but nothing wrong with any of its tips.... Would you say it one and the same issues or im dealing with multiple problems?

i just took those pictures today except for the last top down shot.

 

[Ibn]

Most likely the same problem. Burnt tips are typically from running high alk and basal recession is usually from low alk (or some sort of contaminant in the water). I've also had bases burnt when they're being exposed to light for the first time. I would continue to test your alk daily and make sure that it doesn't drift.

Speaking of paletta, the pink tip seems to show issues pretty well. This is when I decided to turn the piece sideways under the light instead of the normal upright position. It used to be straight green so I moved it to a different spot with more PAR and as a result the base was bleaching in areas where there wasn't any light prior.

This is the same piece ~1 month later. It had mostly recovered from the light burn.

6 days later, noticed the discoloration in the base. Tested the water and indeed my alk was lower than normal from the growing frags.

Doser was tweaked to stabilize the alk and here it is 2 weeks later,

 

[Salty-Sailor]

Most likely the same problem. Burnt tips are typically from running high alk and basal recession is usually from low alk (or some sort of contaminant in the water). I've also had bases burnt when they're being exposed to light for the first time. I would continue to test your alk daily and make sure that it doesn't drift.

Speaking of paletta, the pink tip seems to show issues pretty well. This is when I decided to turn the piece sideways under the light instead of the normal upright position. It used to be straight green so I moved it to a different spot with more PAR and as a result the base was bleaching in areas where there wasn't any light prior.

This is the same piece ~1 month later. It had mostly recovered from the light burn.

6 days later, noticed the discoloration in the base. Tested the water and indeed my alk was lower than normal from the growing frags.

Doser was tweaked to stabilize the alk and here it is 2 weeks later,

Wow! [emoji15] that's great detailed watch over that coral! Mine had tons of pink when I got it and it's been literally growing like a weed & has lost all pink as it has been growing!

where are your parameters and par? Led?