A Recent Observation Regarding Acro Blistering

[plyle02]

I have seen this happen in certain tanks over the years, and a few threads over the years have popped up regarding blistering of Acros. Recently I was able to score some nice acro frags, which I am grateful for. I went to a reefer buddies house and spent time talking with him over his system. Like many SPS gurus, a powerful skimmer, many Radion LED's, Chaeto for nutrient reduction, and NO WATER CHANGES. I asked what do you do for trace, he indicated no supplementation, just 3 part from BRS. I want to mention that his corals where colorful, mature, and the tank was jaw dropping, an outstanding sps tank!
So I get home, begin to plug frags as they were fresh cuts, and as normal routine, put on my high powered "readers" to get a closer look over corals.(getting old) I noticed on a few frags blistering. I immediately thought, let's see what happens when these corals are getting trace elements in my aquarium. I only do water changes, but weekly at 20% using a salt that is fortified with trace. I have noticed that all these blistered corals seem to be self healing from this blistering effect/ abnormal growth on coral tissue, mainly near the tips. I am in no way thinking that tanks without water changes will have this issue, but am now wondering if tanks that use chaeto, no water changes, and no trace may want to pay close attention. I know that corals need a sufficient amount of trace to balance proper growth and calcification, so maybe trace elements are important in these systems. Let's face it, we really do not need to do water changes as technology has allowed us to run lower nutrients, thus wasting salt, and water. That said, as these corals grow, could they be missing something in their mineral and trace uptake that is causing this? I don't know the answer, but thought worth mentioning. I suppose this is where we are super lucky these days to have ICP analysis. What are your thoughts?

 

[jda]

I have only seen a few true no-water-change tanks that I feel are exceptional, but some are good and many are just neglected with a CaRx running or somebody does refill the 2 part on schedule where the easy stuff thrives and the harder stuff wastes away... but the normal hobbyist just sees the large colonies of the easy stuff and thinks that it is great. JBNY has one, but I want to see a few more years before I make any conclusions, but his is about as good as it gets right now, IMO. Ty has one too.

Blistering is a pretty serious event.

After reading your paragraph, I would put my money on the Radions combined with sub-optimal water quality and then the stress of fragging and move. IMO, for acros to thrive under LEDs, everything else needs to be perfect and you really need to avoid stress, swings, etc. JBNY's tank is MH and T5 lit and appears to be able to handle some stuff now and then... Ty has a T5 tank. I have yet to see a spectacular LED lit no-water-change tank with the kinds of acros and hard corals that they keep.

On the converse, I have a MH lit tank and the alk went into 4.X a few weeks ago as my reactor media was used up. About 20 minutes later, I was back up to 7 with a dump of baking soda and nothing missed a beat. I fear that this would be death in a LED or low-light tank which seem to not be able to handle swings, changes or stress well.

Yes, there are things that are important that ICP cannot test for. There are things that are likely important that nobody understands very well yet.

I have a different take on water changes. I do them because I am lazy and cheap. 200g box if IO is $32. I can change 44g of water with that $8. I can turn my tank over 200% for each ICP test alone... and that does not even cover the time, effort and supplements. I have it set up to where I spend about 2 minutes on a water changes... just spread out over 3-4 days. ..this is neither here, nor there.

FWIW - I do not buy acros grown under LEDs. They take longer to recover from shipping and move stress whereas T5 and Mh frags never miss a beat... I can be looking at months just for color to come back where a MH/T5 frag has encrusted the plug in 2 weeks. I might get one if it is local and exceptional, but those do not really exist for me in large numbers.

 

[Piper27]

I always see it when alk and calcium are out of ballance to some "large" degree. I still think there is much more too it though. But I have seen it reversed when that was fixed.

 

[bif24701]

My pink lemonade blisters and I don't know why. All other acros seem fine, in fact the PL still growing and keeps color. I change water and my parameters are impeccably stable. Year ago I had a ph/ALK spike but that was a whole year ago.


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