Acro losing flesh

[Napoleon I]

See the below pic.
I have 3 acropora in the tank. All 3 show signs of this in varying degrees.
My healthiest coral that I have had the longest only has it on the back side away from the light. But the newer piece went from fine to half their flesh gone in less than a week.
I have looked at them out of the water with a magnifying glass and can not see any bugs or eggs or worms. I dipped them into an iodine based coral dip and there was a few copepods in the container but no red bugs or flatworks that I could see. Although I am no expert.
Any ideas?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1efb7olguypzomh/Acro.jpg

Help me please

 

[dunc101]

From the picture and the description, it looks like typical RTN and STN. What are your water parameters (ALK, Ca, Mg, Nitrate, PO4)? If they are still losing flesh, your best option will probably be to frag the "healthy" portions (making sure the frag has all it's flesh). Do you have any other acros in the tank that are healthy or were these your first acros?

Good luck!

 

[Napoleon I]

The worst two are recent. I picked them up a week ago. I do have one in my tank that has been there for well over a month and it appears to be thriving. It has polyp extension from every single bump. Its blue color is returning. But it does have a few of those white patches on the dark side. But I think they have been there the whole time I have had it. I am just not sure. And A little paranoid which makes my judgment questionable in regards to whether that acro has gotten worse or not.
If I had the newly bought acros too high up in the tank wouldn't the top of the acro fall off first? Or would it start at the base?

My parameters are.
1.024
ph 8.1-8.2
dkh 8-9
Calcium 420-440
Nitrates < 4.0
phosphates unmeasurable on my kit.
magnesium 1250

Everything in my tank is growing and looking great.

Jeff

 

[sahin]

The worst two are recent. I picked them up a week ago. I do have one in my tank that has been there for well over a month and it appears to be thriving. It has polyp extension from every single bump. Its blue color is returning. But it does have a few of those white patches on the dark side. But I think they have been there the whole time I have had it. I am just not sure. And A little paranoid which makes my judgment questionable in regards to whether that acro has gotten worse or not.
If I had the newly bought acros too high up in the tank wouldn't the top of the acro fall off first? Or would it start at the base?

My parameters are.
1.024
ph 8.1-8.2
dkh 8-9
Calcium 420-440
Nitrates < 4.0
phosphates unmeasurable on my kit.
magnesium 1250

Everything in my tank is growing and looking great.

Jeff

Are you dosing any organic Carbon? Do you use GFO or GAC?

 

[Napoleon I]

Are you dosing any organic Carbon? Do you use GFO or GAC?

Nope..
I have a box in the sump I grow cheato in and it keeps my nitrates low enough.
I have a unit of chemipure and a bag of purigen in a HOB filter. Other than that a filter sock I change every day or two and a protein skimmer.

Jeff

 

[sahin]

Nope..
I have a box in the sump I grow cheato in and it keeps my nitrates low enough.
I have a unit of chemipure and a bag of purigen in a HOB filter. Other than that a filter sock I change every day or two and a protein skimmer.

Jeff

OK, Jeff...this is kind of a difficult one...

Let me post that photo here:

Are you blasting that acro with any pumps? Because it kind of looks like it...the flesh is missing from one side and the mucus is flying off with the flow...

Can you double check your Salinity and Alk with either another reefer friend who has a tank without any issues or go to your LFS and have them check both out. Take a decent sized tank water sample with you.

That acro is beautiful. Sorry that it has started to STN.

Is the situation worse or stable today?

Your Mg could be a tiny bit higher, as well as your Salinity...but neither should be causing tissue loss like this.

Tissue loss is most usually due to:

Too high or too low Alk;
Excessive GFO use;
Excessive GAC use;
Incorrect Salinity;
Aggressive Organic Carbon dosing.

 

[animalkingdom]

I might try out a few hardy acros like the green slimer and see how they fair before picking up maricultured pieces. They tend to be a bit more finicky and in turn more difficult to keep happy for someone new to acros. It looks like an alk related issue to me, but could also be related to the ones sahin mentioned. Do you dose for alk? Is there and swings in your alk temp or pH on a daily basis?

 

[Napoleon I]

I do not yet have an alkalinity dosing pump set up yet. I am getting two for christmas. I have been measuring daily and dosing it manually by putting the amount required of Kent A and B into a half gallon of DI and dripping them into the sump no closer than 2 hours apart.
My alk is 9 I measured it twice since posting this. My calcium is 460. I have been using that page with the spreadsheet graphic and the green cross and red square.
I did drip directly into the tank a few days ago with the Kent B alk supplement. 30ml dripped in over 3-4 hours.
I bet this did it. Is it really that sensitive? Seems really hard to manually dose and have a full time job without pumps. The Alk moved from a high 8 to a low 9 on my test kit. ph stayed stable at 8.1-8.2

 

[sahin]

I do not yet have an alkalinity dosing pump set up yet. I am getting two for christmas. I have been measuring daily and dosing it manually by putting the amount required of Kent A and B into a half gallon of DI and dripping them into the sump no closer than 2 hours apart.
My alk is 9 I measured it twice since posting this. My calcium is 460. I have been using that page with the spreadsheet graphic and the green cross and red square.
I did drip directly into the tank a few days ago with the Kent B alk supplement. 30ml dripped in over 3-4 hours.
I bet this did it. Is it really that sensitive? Seems really hard to manually dose and have a full time job without pumps. The Alk moved from a high 8 to a low 9 on my test kit. ph stayed stable at 8.1-8.2

OK two things here.

1. Usually when trying to problem solve SPS issues it is better to double check the important parameters such as Alk, Ca Mg, Salinity etc with ANOTHER test kit just to eliminate test kit errors. Test kits can and do go bad and people have lost SPS due to bad Alk test kits or even miscalibrated refractometers.

2. Dosing by hand is fine. I used to dose once in morning before work and once after work. I have raised Alk by a whole 1dKH before without any issues...but some might say this has been caused by a fast Alk swing...

I would still double check the Salinity and Alk with LFS or someone else...so you can narrow down possible causes.

If the above two show up fine, then it might be the Alk swing you caused by dosing the 30ml a few days ago.

 

[Napoleon I]

I experienced a salinity hydrometer being off on this tank starting out. It said 1.025 but it was really 1.031
That was about a month ago. I now own 4 ways to measure salinity.
I do have the hardness kit that came as part of my mag kit. I'll give that a whirl.
Thank you very much for helping.
One more question...

If I light shocked these guys would it look like it does now? Because I know for a fact and I am kicking myself for not checking it first that the new frags came from a 200par all day long constant to my tank which is 300 par at noon but on a sun cycle. Would light shock look like this?

Jeff

 

[Napoleon I]

I double checked my alkalinity with my seachem mag kit. It came with test for total alkilinity and borate alkalinity. My total came out to some where between 3.2 and 3.5 which equates to 9.1 to 9.8 dkh.
So thats ok.
Must have been either the alk swing or the light shock.

Jeff

 

[sahin]

Light shock will cause an acro to bleach on the upper surfaces facing the light.

If all the parameters check out...then you just need to wait it out. Maybe frag a couple of the tips in the hopes of saving even a small piece of that beautiful acro.

Goodluck.