And the birdnest is mad because?

[Useful_Idiot]

I've been having some trouble with some of my newer sps frags lately but have no reason to give for it except that they're frags. I've gotten everything I can test for stable for the past 3 months. Now the birdnest I've had more than a year is losing PE in sectons of branches. It happened a week and a half ago where a line of PE was gone as if a large snail had crawled across it and the polyps stayed closed. I don't have a large snail. And the polyps have been retracted ever since and that area is looking worse. Today a new section of PE is gone and I was wondering if anyone knows why. I'd appreciate any feedback. Anything at all. Just write what your thinking after you read this.Thanks.
Temp 79
sg calibrated refrac 1.026
ph 8.2
alk 8-8.6
mg 1350
ca 410
p04 .04 hanna
n03 .2

 

[stepnic2]

It's happened to me too for no apparent reason. You may never know.

 

[Useful_Idiot]

Thanks for replying stepnic. I should mention this is the 7th sps in 3 months to have a problem. the other 6 stn'd. It's the hardier sps that are doing well, very well even that make this harder to figure out. Lps and zoas are doing good so there should be enough nutrients available. Mp10 and a mag 9 return for flow. plenty of light AI's. The tanks almost 2 years old. If keeping sps means 3/4 of what you have stn for no reason I'm giving up on them. I was really hoping that there's something I'm overlooking. Like stray voltage or leather in the tank. My skimmer isn't that great, a modded aqua c remora. But with a large fuge my n03,po4 stay low. That's not a reason is it? It's just happened so many times lately there's gotta be something causing it.

 

[potterjon]

Sometimes it can simply be placement. It could also be consistency of water parameters. After several years I am realizing how important consistency is.

 

[stepnic2]

Thanks for replying stepnic. I should mention this is the 7th sps in 3 months to have a problem. the other 6 stn'd. It's the hardier sps that are doing well, very well even that make this harder to figure out. Lps and zoas are doing good so there should be enough nutrients available. Mp10 and a mag 9 return for flow. plenty of light AI's. The tanks almost 2 years old. If keeping sps means 3/4 of what you have stn for no reason I'm giving up on them. I was really hoping that there's something I'm overlooking. Like stray voltage or leather in the tank. My skimmer isn't that great, a modded aqua c remora. But with a large fuge my n03,po4 stay low. That's not a reason is it? It's just happened so many times lately there's gotta be something causing it.

I've got a pink birdsnest that according to my lfs, came from the wild and is doing fine, while I've gotten aquacultured sps that die. Could it be too close to your lights?

 

[NatureNerd]

This looks exactly like what happened to mine a few weeks back. I never found out what caused it.

 

[Tigé21v]

Are you running any kind of biopellets? Using GAC?

 

[M007]

I've been having some trouble with some of my newer sps frags lately but have no reason to give for it except that they're frags. I've gotten everything I can test for stable for the past 3 months. Now the birdnest I've had more than a year is losing PE in sectons of branches. It happened a week and a half ago where a line of PE was gone as if a large snail had crawled across it and the polyps stayed closed. I don't have a large snail. And the polyps have been retracted ever since and that area is looking worse. Today a new section of PE is gone and I was wondering if anyone knows why. I'd appreciate any feedback. Anything at all. Just write what your thinking after you read this.Thanks.
Temp 79
sg calibrated refrac 1.026
ph 8.2
alk 8-8.6
mg 1350
ca 410
p04 .04 hanna
n03 .2

Some form of crawling pest. Snail, star, worm, bug, etc.....

 

[Acrotrdco]

Sorry, couldn't resist... :lol:

 

[ChicagoReefOne]

I've had this issue with my BNs, it's definitely not a pest like a star, or snail.

It's water quality related, is your NO3 really at .2? Because if that's not a typo that's the problem right there--when my NO3 bounced up to 20 ppm I lost two colonies, one of them was an ORA bird of paradise. IME birdsnests are very sensitive to organics in the water, more so than other corals.

That would also explain why your LPS are doing fine and growing, because they have different nutrient demands. I'm also running a Remora that I modded up, what size tank do you have? What pump is on your remora? And what's your bioload?

If this were me, I would frag this coral ASAP, I can see tissue starting to recede in other spots too. I hate to say it, but I don't think that this coral is long for the world.

 

[Useful_Idiot]

yeah I definitely should have titled it angry birds.
I don't believe it's too close to my lights when I had a par meter it was around 300 not adding the 20% blue light error.
I've got everything as consistant as possible without a dosing pump. The only parameter that moves is the alk and it stays between 8-9.
I stopped the biopellets actually before the problems started back in January but I did cut them back gradually and the colors have improved since. Pretty sure I had too many in the reactor and wasn't feeding enough.
I did frag it by accident moving rocks and 1 of the 4 frags is doing the same thing. Nitrates are at .2 ppm, barely visible looking sideways on a salifert. The tank is a 40 breeder with a 55 sump that is half fuge. The chaeto in there keep nitrates real low no matter how much food I put in the tank. I have a rio 1100 (385gph) on the remora. This is a encrusting purple monti where the old growth is peeling slowly over weeks and the new is growing fine

a tricolor valida that got colored up good then peeled back to what you see here and hasn't gotten better or worse in weeks.

And here's the part that throws me

This bottlebrush, the new growth anyways is unbelievable blue. Hard to photograph but it's really almost this blue. Leds blur it alittle. And the monticaps are doing great. I'm dosing 20mls a day of 2 part. I don't know why some things do so well and others just peel. But the birdnest has been in my tank before I knew what stability meant and never looked this bad. Thanks everybody.

 

[Useful_Idiot]

Oops, 70 gallons total. And my bioload is 2 false percs, sixline wrasse, randall goby, small diamond goby, small blenny, 3 chromis.

 

[ChicagoReefOne]

Thanks for the info, I'd still say that the tissue recession is due to high organics, simply because I had BNs that looked exactly like that and that was always the problem. Plus it looks like there's a lot of algae growth and cyano around the coral. Some coral will be able to handle more organics in the water, some won't, and apparently some will thrive (the bottlebrush looks sweet!).

For your water volume the Remora is a super-underpowered skimmer, I run mine with a Mag7 on a 30G and it's just enough. I'd start looking at new skimmers, Reef Octopus makes nice HOBs.