What's killing my first Acro frag?!

[Jesses Nano Reef]

Fellow Reefers, I need your opinion. I have several SPS frags that have been doing excellent in my system (Pavona, Montis, Pacillipora), all growing off the plug. This is my first shot at Acropora, it's been in my system for about a month and was doing excellent up until yesterday when I started noticing some bleaching near the base. Woke up this morning and it progressed significantly. I’ve noticed the little guy in the back (clown goby) picking at it relatively frequently over the past few days. Im trying to convince myself that it’s failing due to the irritation from the goby. Would the coral bleach like this, and this quickly, from a pest or do you think it’s most likely that I’m just not ready for Acro frags? Any chance it bounces back?

Thanks!!

Tank Parameters:
34g AIO - running since November 2017
Ammonia/-trites= 0
Nitrates= 5
Phosphates= .08
Salinity 1.025
Calcium= 470
Mg= 1250
Kh= 11

Dosing:
Nopox daily
Sea chem Calcium, Mg, Fuel 2x week.

 

[Backreefing]

Alkalinity at 11 is to high. IMO
Phosphate looks a tad high .
Maybe some of the experts may chime in.

 

[Gareth elliott]

Your alk is a bit high for your nutrient levels imo. How was it light acclimated?

 

[Backreefing]

By the way this bad stuff always happens to your favorite frag .
Try not doseing till the alkalinity comes down. 7-9 is spot on , some peps are nervous at anything over 8.5-9

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

+1 on the high alk
I hate nopox and gfo
What do you have for lighting?
Is the flesh peeling off?

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

By the way this bad stuff always happens to your favorite frag .
Try not doseing till the alkalinity comes down. 7-9 is spot on , some peps are nervous at anything over 8.5-9

Appreciate the heads up from everyone on the Alkalinity! I got yelled at by my LFS too haha. All of my other corals are growing perfectly and very happy.

I put the acro frag in there as more of a "let's see if I've evolved to the next level of the hobby" type of benchmark. And it was doing very well until all of a sudden yesterday it crashed. The rate at which it is continuing to bleach makes me think that it's due to the clown goby continuing to actively nip at it. I would think that. It was showing no signs of distress in the morning and rapidly progressed to the point in the picture in just a few hours.

I would assume that if it was related to my levels it would have been more of a gradual decline? You know what they say about assuming though.

 

[Hemmdog]

I’d say add a little mag..

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

You’re assumption about being gradual is incorrect. Acros often look perfect just before we go to bed and then are gone when we wake up. Sometimes it’s slow and sometimes it happens in the blink of an eye. Your clown goby could of stressed it and caused this or it could of been something with your water chemistry or lighting it’s impossible to know for sure.

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

awesome feedback! Sounds like I’m not quite ready for acro yet. Ive has great success with the pavona and Monti in my tank. Any other suggestions for entry level SPS? I’d like something that grows somewhat vertical

 

[AngryMike2016]

The Bali Green Slimer is a great looking and hardy acropora.

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

+1 on the high alk
I hate nopox and gfo
What do you have for lighting?
Is the flesh peeling off?

interesting, why do you hate nopox? It’s worked wonders in my tank.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

interesting, why do you hate nopox? It’s worked wonders in my tank.

Long answer:
Its great at lowering nutrients parameters but I had nothing but acro death while using nopox and gfo. All other corals were fine, but acros would die within a couple weeks. I had perfect numbers and a bunch of stn and rtn, which Carbon dosing is known to cause on acropora. As soon as stopped carbon dosing and gfo my acros started thriving. My nutrient parameters went up for awhile but I didn’t care or freak out bc my acros finely looked happy. Now my nutrients are lower than they ever were with nopox and gfo. In fact I even removed my skimmer last month. My corals are consuming the nutrients instead of them being artificially removed.
Short answer:
Because all my acros died when using it and are thriving now that I’m not using it.

 

[madweazl]

I don't see anything particularly alarming with your parameters. I've never had good results with higher alkalinity levels (keep mine at 6.5-7.0 dKh typically) but the rest of them are just fine. If I remember correctly, the issue with the clown gobys was with them laying eggs on the corals but I've never had one so I've never looked into them. You dose calcium and magnesium twice a week but nothing in regard to alkalinity? My tank consumes just under 1 dKh per day and I have no need to dose magnesium (would only come down about 5-6ppm) with weekly water changes.

Edit: I carbon dose and use GFO occasionally and have had zero issues with our acroporas. Some people may run into issues but they're self inflicted and not due to the carbon dosing or GFO itself.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

awesome feedback! Sounds like I’m not quite ready for acro yet. Ive has great success with the pavona and Monti in my tank. Any other suggestions for entry level SPS? I’d like something that grows somewhat vertical

What lighting do you have on your tank?

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

Long answer:
Its great at lowering nutrients parameters but I had nothing but acro death while using nopox and gfo. All other corals were fine, but acros would die within a couple weeks. I had perfect numbers and a bunch of stn and rtn, which Carbon dosing is known to cause on acropora. As soon as stopped carbon dosing and gfo my acros started thriving. My nutrient parameters went up for awhile but I didn’t care or freak out bc my acros finely looked happy. Now my nutrients are lower than they ever were with nopox and gfo. In fact I even removed my skimmer last month. My corals are consuming the nutrients instead of them being artificially removed.
Short answer:
Because all my acros died when using it and are thriving now that I’m not using it.

Oh wow that’s very interesting. How big is your system? Being mine is a smaller system I’m always worried to make drastic changes

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

What lighting do you have on your tank?

I have the Fluval Marine LED 2.0

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I don't see anything particularly alarming with your parameters. I've never had good results with higher alkalinity levels (keep mine at 6.5-7.0 dKh typically) but the rest of them are just fine. If I remember correctly, the issue with the clown gobys was with them laying eggs on the corals but I've never had one so I've never looked into them. You dose calcium and magnesium twice a week but nothing in regard to alkalinity? My tank consumes just under 1 dKh per day and I have no need to dose magnesium (would only come down about 5-6ppm) with weekly water changes.

Edit: I carbon dose and use GFO occasionally and have had zero issues with our acroporas. Some people may run into issues but they're self inflicted and not due to the carbon dosing or GFO itself.

I followed the instructions on the bottle.

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

I don't see anything particularly alarming with your parameters. I've never had good results with higher alkalinity levels (keep mine at 6.5-7.0 dKh typically) but the rest of them are just fine. If I remember correctly, the issue with the clown gobys was with them laying eggs on the corals but I've never had one so I've never looked into them. You dose calcium and magnesium twice a week but nothing in regard to alkalinity? My tank consumes just under 1 dKh per day and I have no need to dose magnesium (would only come down about 5-6ppm) with weekly water changes.

Edit: I carbon dose and use GFO occasionally and have had zero issues with our acroporas. Some people may run into issues but they're self inflicted and not due to the carbon dosing or GFO itself.

I also dose seachem Eifht Four, which is a buffer and is supposed to help with alkalinity to the best of my knowledge. I don’t stress my levels too much because of how well all the other corals in my tank are doing. I just never had such a rapid decline like I did with this acro.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Oh wow that’s very interesting. How big is your system? Being mine is a smaller system I’m always worried to make drastic changes

Sca 50 gallon cube

 

[Jesses Nano Reef]

Sca 50 gallon cube

Gorgeous system. I can’t wait to upgrade