Acro Frag base STN?

[animalkingdom]

I recently fragged a few of my acros that were growing fairly quickly. the frags were looking great and encrusting nicely. then after they had almost encrusted to the edge of the plug I noticed some whitening around the rim. I couldn't tell if it was bleaching or STN at first, but now I can tell its STN. the frags seemed to recover over a few weeks or so and encrusted a bit further after a momentary lag phase, but then recently the STN started again. All the colonies in my tank are doing great and parameters have been rock stable. my dkh is a bit higher than I normally run it, but its been consistent at 8.5ish. the calcium has been rock stable at 400ppm. nitrates 0.00 (i dont test this too often but was checking all basis) and phosphate 0.00 hanna. I also have a few frags from the recent MTRC frag swap and they are as healthy as a clam. Its just these few frags I made a month or so ago that are having issues. I checked just now and they are still getting insane nighttime polyp extension so they seem happy to me.
any thoughts?

 

[Reefin' Dude]

do you have coralline algae growing on the LR in the areas where the acro is trying to encrust? my guess is that the area where the Acro is trying to grow onto is full of phosphates. do you carbon dose?

G~

 

[animalkingdom]

no coralline growth... the frag plugs were actually just some acro skeletons of frags on plugs that had died during shipping. I guess there is definitely the possibility of it having bound phosphates. you think that is the issue?

 

[animalkingdom]

would it be best just to snap them off and put on new plugs?

 

[trinity1012]

if i ever see any signs of rtn/stn i allways cut above the effected area smear a little glue around the base then on a new plug.its always worth a shot if its about saving a coral IMO

 

[scarface70706]

if i ever see any signs of rtn/stn i allways cut above the effected area smear a little glue around the base then on a new plug.its always worth a shot if its about saving a coral IMO

i believe you told me this a few weeks ago. so far it worked. already encrusting on the new plugs. and now i have a crap load of tri colored acro frags and i put the mother back on the rock work. looking good so far. so back to OP i would recommend doing this too.

 

[trinity1012]

sweet glad it worked for you!!