A sad morning

[scottywags]

I woke up this morning to find this

I started using Rowa phos about 3 days ago, That's the only thing I could think of that would've caused this. It started out as about a 1 inch frag. It's kinda wierd though, this seems to be the only coral affected. Some other ones seem stressed now but I don't know if that's because of this death or not.

 

[zapata41]

are those specs of rowa phos on the coral, if so then that was the killer. how are you using the rowa phos, in a media or what, also how much, if you used to much at one time then this can cause stress

Tim

 

[scottywags]

No those aren't rowa on there, that's some polyps left on the coral. I left it in the tank hoping that they might be able to recover.
I only used 3 tablespoons in a Phosban reactor. So I don't think that is what caused the stress. Thanks for the input though, it's all appreciated.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Scotty,

Rowaphos is very strong stuff and can place corals under shock, I know because I have used it before.

The key is adding it very slow, which it appears you did. However some corals will just not acclimate to it and can die.

Corals do synthesize phosphates and if your SPS was in any stage delicate, this threw it off the cliff.

It would react to the smallest changes and can go up suddenly.

Once your tank matures with the rowaphos you will see a big difference in algae control, trust me on that.

MG

 

[scottywags]

SO is this something I need to run on a continuous basis?
Because of what happened I actually removed the reactor from the tank and placed it in my frag tank.

 

[scottywags]

When I said this was the only coral affected, I meant that I have 4 frags of this coral at the bottom that I was growing out that also did the same thing.
Now my hammer & my purple pocci is stressed as well. Not really sure what else to do, I already did a water change this morning.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Scott,

I'm not telling you to place the reactor back on but it's my experience that my corals really got stressed when I added the rowaphos to my reef.

In theory you are suppose to add these reactors in the beginning of a new reef; that way it removes the phosphates in a gradual way, eliminating the possiblilty of stress on corals.

My reef was already 3 months up and running when I added a phosphate reactor over night and my corals all got blasted in shock; my algae disappeared almost over night but it was at a cost.

I left the reactor in place and my corals recovered but it took more than 1 week.

I later learned that my high levels of phosphates were bad, but as I nearly cut them out over night that was the trigger point that hurt them; like I said earlier they do synethesize phosphates.

Our reefs suffer so much because they are in a closed loop system any variations they will feel quicker than if in the open sea.

Hope this helps you out Scott.

MG