Acro PE help

[xCry0x]

So I know this has to be probably one of the most generic questions about SPS coral but I cannot for the life of me get any sort of PE on SPS corals.

I have 2 different acros and a montipora. The monti occasionally has some very minimal PE the acros basically each lost all PE over the first few days in the tank. Acros are about half way up the rock work, under about 8-9" of water and about maybe 14" from lights, directly under lights.

Neither coral has bleached out or had RTN, one acro was green and has browned out which I believe is due to it being a deep water acro (lfs suggested this). Other is a blue acro and is still blue, just no PE.

Parameters:
(salifert test for ca,mg,alk)
430ca
1330mg
8.5alk
0.025 salinity
nitrate,trite, ammonia all undetectable on api test
PO4 undetectable with red sea test

Rest of equipment is listed in signature..

Flow:
mp10 running on reef crest @ ~80%
mag5 return pump

Lighting:
24x3w bridgelux led fixture, 9coolwhite 3 blue 12 royal blue.

tunze 9002 protein skimmer
kalk water & a ATO
BRS reactor with gfo & carbon


Feeding:
daily feeding of sinking pellets around noon from auto feeder (small amount)
multiple small feedings of home made fish food emulsion throughout the night with a pipette

Fish:
2x occellaris clowns
1x6 line wrasse
1x yellow clown goby
1x lawnmower blenny

Coral:
Acan
multiple zoas
rics
shrooms
toadstool leather
torch
frogspawn
xenia
cloves
monti
acros


Basically 0 PE on acros, minimal on the monti and on that note NO growth at all on the torch and frogspawn frags. The SPS are relatively new, within last 2 months. The torch and frogspawn were my first corals and have been in the tank for over 6 months with 0 growth although the torch is always extended when lights are on. I also have a miami hurricane chalice which is at about the same level in the tank as the acros and has exploded with eyes, went from 3 eyes to about 8 in the past 5 weeks.

Acan has grown like crazy, has doubled in heads over the past 3 months. Xenia is xenia, it grows. Same with cloves.

I have not seen any flatworms and I would imagine the 6 line would destroy any that existed.

Any advice would be very welcomed.

All I can think of from reading the SPS forum here is that my nutrients might be too low and I need to get some oyster feast or pyto to target feed. I have a lot of fish but with weekly water changes, skimmer, gfo/carbon and about 20lb of rock nitrate never seems to rise.

 

[xCry0x]

Bump for any advice

 

[ChrisAnator03]

Try putting it in stonger flow

 

[Prince916]

.025 salinityis too low. Your water might be too clean. I have little to no PE during lights on but crazy PE at night.

 

[dixiedog]

I think he meant 1.025, not 0.025. In which case it's not low.

 

[Gumma 1]

I would say to much light,not enough nutrients.Same thing happened to me. Lower intensity of lights,and feed tank more.

 

[xCry0x]

Flow is already pretty high, there are about 3 or 4 more lights I can move up on the mp10.

Yea I meant 1.025.. meant to say .025 not 0.025 lol.

I bought some window screening so I can play around with less light over the weekend, also will probably go buy some coral food.

THank you

 

[xCry0x]

Put two layers of window screen over light and am going to stop by lfs on the way home to get some coral food (and probably more corals =/ ) hopefully this works.

 

[xCry0x]

So I have not had any change, the main acro I have is also deteriorating and has some dead tips that have algae starting to grow. I think this was a deepwater acro that was sold to me when I asked for 'a sps that would be the best to start with and can take very high light'. - Thanks lfs.

I went and got a few more small frags to try out at various positions in the tank and have the following results

1 acro half way up rock work. Colored up very blue but no PE
1 new milipora, over past week went from brown to a nice red/pink color but also lost all PE and is about 4" below the acro
1 birdsnest - brownish color but massive PE that is very colorful and is on the sand bed.
1 monti cap - blue with red polyps showing but not extended very far- about equal to the milipora

Now what I am confused about is that I thought high PO4 is the usual suspect with SPS issues but PO4 generally causes browning out. -everything- in my tank is coloring up well from softy to sps.

I am kind of annoyed because I like the look the SPS give to the mid-top of my tank but at the same time I dont want to sit and kill corals.

I might try another layer of window screen but nothing has been bleaching out so I don't know if it is light related.

Any more advice is greatly appreciated.

Oh - I tested po4 again, tested 0.08 on red sea kit but honestly it almost always looks like 0.08. I think a more accurate representation of nutrients in the water is algae growth of which I have next to none. I have not cleaned my glass in almost a month and my rocks are all basically picked bare to the point I think I might have to start putting nori in the tank for my urchin & lawnmower blenny.


Could my clown goby be harassing the sps when I am not around? It sleeps in the acro that is dying and I read that they can possible nip sps polyps? The tank is right next to my couch so when I sit and watch tv at night I am right next to the tank and never notice the goby doing much aside from sitting on frags waiting for me to feed it.

 

[Gumma 1]

I think your nutrient poor.I clean glass every 3-4 days.Light brown film.How long you running your light?

 

[xCry0x]

11am-10pm.

I started feeding reef frenzy that I picked up on Friday.

Will see what happens.

I hate how many directions this can go - on one hand you can have dirty water then on the other hand it can be too clean!

I have a bunch of nerite snails that do a good job cleaning the class, there is the typical brown film that develops but it is very spotty as the snails are always working on it. When I had algae issues the film was much more prevalent and had to be cleaned off weekly, not it is honestly not really noticeable.

Dunno if it can be nutrient poor, my clove polyps have tripled in number in the past 3 months, my florida ric just split and my single polyp of valentines day massacre zoa has grown to 4 polyps in the past 2 months. My torch coral just split into 2 heads also for the first time ever which was exciting and my acan keeps developing new heads.

I added another layer of window screen before I left this morning to see if additional dimming has any effect. I think that regardless of bleaching the intensity is strong because my toadstool leather never stands straight up; it is on the sand and is always bent sideways as if to stay as far from the lights as possible.

 

[Gumma 1]

Are running full intensity for 11 hours? I would shorten full light to 7 and supp. lighting to 9.

 

[d3hree]

an sps "browning out" can be a couple of things.
1) not enough light so the sps is retaining as many of the brown zooxanthallae so it can feed, this gives the coral the brown tint.
2) high po4 levels will brown out a coral.

The tip burn you have had could have been caused by high alk or by poor aclimitisation to the light. Deep water acros dont neccessarily require less light but they do require slower aclimitisation to the light. Looking at your alk levels I would lean towards the light aclimatisation.

I would agree with Gumma 1 that IMO reducing the photon period will allow your corals more time to recover from the intense light and will be healthier. i would start new purchases on the sand bed or in shelter and slowly raise them up over a period of a couple of weeks to the point you want them in your tank.

Superglue gels are a good method of aclimatising corals. Cyanoacrylate based glues are very brittle when used in saltwater but to use this to your advantage corals can be easily snapped off from rock work and moved up until you and they are happy. Once you have found their sweet spot you can use a more permanent fix like a two part putty.

I agree with what has been said about your nutrient levels and that they are too low. Zero nitrates is a bad number for sps. Whilst we all strive for low nutrients to maintain good colours and growth, zero is too low and can cause as many issues as high nitrate levels, cyano outbreaks for one, not to mention your corals will be hungry.

The trick is in your export system, the more nutrients you can export either by harvesting cheato, DSB or via skimmer etc the healthier your system will be. If you can feed and feed your corals and yet they dont sit in high nutrient water they will thankyou for it with great colour, growth and PE. High nutrients in and high nutrients out is the best possible scenario for an SPS tank IMO.

HTH

 

[xCry0x]

Thank you for all the input I really appreciate you taking the time to write out a response.

My lighting is from ~11am-10pm where both blues/whites are only on for about 6 hours from ~1pm-7pm.

Right now I have 3 sheets of window screen 'dimming' the fixture which is an LED fixture.

I will start to do some more systematic feeding to see if that helps.

 

[xCry0x]

Fish:
2x occellaris clowns
1x6 line wrasse
1x yellow clown goby
1x lawnmower blenny

So i got my water tests compared at a lfs and they came up with what I basically see, undetectable PO4.

We had a discussion and decided that the YCG is probably a SPS nipper like they can be. So good news is nothing is necessarily dying, to celebrate I bought a bunch more sps frags and a gonipora lol.

Never see the guy biting sps polyps but it is really the only option left.

 

[Gumma 1]

Yellow clown goby can nip at sps.But with zero nitrate and phos i still think your nutrients are to low.There is a product that turned my tank around when my tank was to clean. Reef Booster by Prodibio.The stuff is very potent,it comes in little vials.Because your tank is 25 gallons I would only dose a 1/4 of the vial per week.Just brake the vial in to cup of tank water,stir and dose a 1/4 of the mixture.It will make your skimmer go nuts.I dose it at night and turn skimmer off until morning.I bet after three weeks your tank will make a big turn for the better.

 

[Mangodude]

i've got the same problem with my acros (occasionally the montis will have small PE) and i know for certain that my water is not nutrient defecient. I run a euroreef skimmer (i need to tune it though, i'm emptying the cup once a month or two) and regufium and dont change my sock as often as i should (i wait till its overflowing before changing). I have a very light fish load in there now but before it was medium fish load. I was feeding frozen food and dumping the juice from the food in too.

The acros stay color up and living fine, just no PE.
On the bottom of the tank too.. with leds

any idea?

Thanks

 

[bennr]

i've got the same problem with my acros (occasionally the montis will have small PE) and i know for certain that my water is not nutrient defecient. I run a euroreef skimmer (i need to tune it though, i'm emptying the cup once a month or two) and regufium and dont change my sock as often as i should (i wait till its overflowing before changing). I have a very light fish load in there now but before it was medium fish load. I was feeding frozen food and dumping the juice from the food in too.

The acros stay color up and living fine, just no PE.
On the bottom of the tank too.. with leds

any idea?

Thanks

What fish are in the tank? I too keep a yellow clown goby with sps and get very little pe but yet sps grows and has colour......after watching him careful with new addition of a milli and efflorence acro I noticed the goby took a real liking to the milli......not to the efflorence tho.....my milli had good pe for first few days.....my efflorence has great pe but goby is never around it......I find it hard to not blame the goby for pestering the acros and milli in my tank......

 

[xCry0x]

Yea well my Goby lives in my first acro which I believe is going through STN for various other reasons and is now glued to the milipora frag I got last week. If I keep having frags die that he gives 'special attention' to I might have to try to get him out of the tank. Really like the goby but at the same time bought all the equipment to keep a mixed reef and am going to get annoyed sooner than later. Kinda hoping that if I get enough sps going there will be enough to go around.

My nutrients are low because I export heavily on purpose. I feed my tank 3-4 times a day and just bought reef frenzy to add to the feeding mix. If it was purely nutritional deficiency I would not have had the growth I have in my softies & lps.

I currently feed:
pellets at noon via an auto feeder while I am at work
Home made fish food emulsion throughout the evening while I am home over a 4-5hr period.
a pinch or two of reef frenzy at lights out and occassionally mix frozen cyclopeeze with this.
Also will target feed my LPS small pieces of shrimp cut off a frozen tiger shrimp when they have feeders out.

I am honestly amazed I manage low nutrients - which is why i brought water in today to have it verified.

Just bought a montipora spongodes, a stylophora and a gonipora today =)



Mangodude,

What fish do you have in your tank?

 

[phasezero]

Whenever I give my fiancee sps corals from my 55g SPS tank, they always end up losing all PE in about a 1 or 2 weeks time. We share the same maintenance and feeding methods. Her tank only differs in that she uses a DIY LED fixture I built for her. Nitrates measured the same as my 55 on the API, so between 0-5. API phosphate test also looked the same, although that one isn't very precise. I decided anyways to just get a phosphate reactor and see what happens. Using a half dose, 2-3 weeks later and I'm witnessing PE in most of the SPS now. At night they really let loose when before they would still hide.