What the heck is going on here

[HM3105]

I can't figure it out. I've tested my water, I have high alk (10.5). Nitrates 10, Po4 .05, calc 480, mag 1300.

I've got acros losing color and calcification seems to have stopped. I turned my doser off around 3 weeks ago and my alk hasn't moved.

I've seen several of my acros with this spiderweb look going on. The acro doesn't look unhappy (note the PE). So I'm completely stumped.

 

[HM3105]

I can't figure it out. I've tested my water, I have high alk (10.5). Nitrates 10, Po4 .05, calc 480, mag 1300.

I've got acros losing color and calcification seems to have stopped. I turned my doser off around 3 weeks ago and my alk hasn't moved.

I've seen several of my acros with this spiderweb look going on. The acro doesn't look unhappy (note the PE). So I'm completely stumped.

 

[Tahoe61]

Mesenterial Filaments. Used by corals in both a defensive and feeding response.

Pe looks pretty good. I would feed them a sps specifc food at night, not an amino acid but rather products like Reefroids or Reefchili.

 

[Zagreus]

Sounds like a lot is going on. If you shut your doser off 3 weeks ago and your alk is not dropping that seems strange, but i do not have enough information. Do you do regular water changes with a high alk salt? Please post all your parameters as well.

Also look up ministerial filaments on Reef2Reef and or google images and see if that matches what you are seeing as all.

 

[HM3105]

Mesenterial Filaments. Used by corals in both a defensive and feeding response.

Pe looks pretty good. I would feed them a sps specifc food at night, not an amino acid but rather products like Reefroids or Reefchili.

Sounds like a lot is going on. If you shut your doser off 3 weeks ago and your alk is not dropping that seems strange, but i do not have enough information. Do you do regular water changes with a high alk salt? Please post all your parameters as well.

Also look up ministerial filaments on Reef2Reef and or google images and see if that matches what you are seeing as all.

Yup that matches with that I'm seeing. I've seen those on LPS but not SPS before. I was hoping it was actually a sign of something because now I'm back at the beginning.

I've got STN randomly happening on my acros. They'll be looking fine and then I'll just see a chunk of skeleton suddenly appear. On the most recent acro this happened on I noticed the Mesenterial Filaments so I started thinking maybe it was a symptom of something.

salinity 1.026
Ph 8.0 (measured in the AM so it should be low)
alk 10.5
Nitrates 10
Po4 .05
Calc 480
Mag 1300

I haven't done a water change in a 2 or 3 weeks. Prior to that, I changed 10% weekly. With nutrients in a good spot and limited to no calcification there didn't seem to be a reason to add in a water change.

 

[Tahoe61]

I suggest you allow the alk to drift down to 7-9. Discontinue dosing for now and go back to water changes. The effects of alk swings sometimes takes a week or two to show. Jm2C.

 

[HM3105]

I suggest you allow the alk to drift down to 7-9. Discontinue dosing for now and go back to water changes. The effects of alk swings sometimes takes a week or two to show. Jm2C.

Right that's been my plan. My alk has been that high for a while (a month or so) so I turned off the doser. The water changes weren't really bringing it down (I use RPM).

This has been going on for 3 or 4 months. Everything was growing well but my nutrients bottomed out. When that happened calcification stopped or slowed. As a result, my alk crept up until I realized it was higher than it should be. Once I caught the high alk, I turned the doser off.

Alk is still high but nutrients are back where they should be but calcification does not seem to have restarted. So I'm at a loss at this point.

 

[Zagreus]

Right that's been my plan. My alk has been that high for a while (a month or so) so I turned off the doser. The water changes weren't really bringing it down (I use RPM).

This has been going on for 3 or 4 months. Everything was growing well but my nutrients bottomed out. When that happened calcification stopped or slowed. As a result, my alk crept up until I realized it was higher than it should be. Once I caught the high alk, I turned the doser off.

Alk is still high but nutrients are back where they should be but calcification does not seem to have restarted. So I'm at a loss at this point.

Good plan and as @Tahoe61 said give it a little time as well to turn around. Do you know what your KH baseline is for your salt when you mix it? I had to stop using Red Sea Black bucket because it was too high and kept raising my KH. Once I switched to Red Sea Blue Bucket I was good to go. How old and is your tank and what is the size of your system? Any acros still doing good. The one in the picture does not look bad.

 

[HM3105]

Good plan and as @Tahoe61 said give it a little time as well to turn around. Do you know what your KH baseline is for your salt when you mix it? I had to stop using Red Sea Black bucket because it was too high and kept raising my KH. Once I switched to Red Sea Blue Bucket I was good to go. How old and is your tank and what is the size of your system? Any acros still doing good. The one in the picture does not look bad.

Tank is coming up on a year. Total system volume is around 130 gallons.

My Fritz RPM has been mixing around 9.6. I haven't seen it much higher than that.

Most of my acros look ok. I've lost a few recently to STN. I have another that is starting to show signs of STN with small pieces on the branches turning to skeleton. I've also got a couple that are a little pale, my WD for example had good color but the base is now slowly turning white.

I've also noticed a few of my acros that usually have really good PE have had reduced PE. I'm just really at a loss at this point as I hadn't changed anything leading up to these symptoms.