Bushy Acropora browning and white on the backside

T

timmybeasy

New member
Hi,

I have had a Acropora bushyensis for about 3 weeks now and it was completely colorful when I received it. I got it on LiveAqauria.com. I have actinic lighting and keep them 12 hours on 12 hours off.

Today, in what seemed like a matter of hours, the tips began to get brown and a few of the neon green bits (parts that open and close) were free floating around the tank.

I took it out and have it running in a big bucket with a water fan going for constant water movement. Taking it out I noticed the base in the back is completely bleached. What is going on and what did I do? I feed it and my torch coral Coral Frenzy. Other parts of it seem completely fine and are branching off and growing.

This happened so quickly and I want to save it :uhoh3:
 
It sounds like your water parameters are not in line. What is your calcium,alkalinity, and mag at? We would need to know more about your tank before we could give you any helpful advice.
 
you only run actinic lighting? might not have gotten enough light as well as unstable water parameters.
 
Livinlocal619 said:
It sounds like your water parameters are not in line. What is your calcium,alkalinity, and mag at? We would need to know more about your tank before we could give you any helpful advice.
Click to expand...
10gallon with a 30 gallon aqueon filter. I will post photos tomorrow of the affected coral.

I do not have a concentrated test kit, just the API strips so I cant give accurate numbers like everyone else on this site. No nitrite or ammonia, nitrates fluctuate could this be why?

I have three extremely small damsels (two are 0.25in and other is .5 inch), a yellow coris wrasse about 3in, 6-line wrasse about 1.5 inch, and 2 blennies. Lot of fish I know but the filter tends to do it job and they never seem stressed. I do not overfeed.

However, I have been feeding a lot of coral frenzy to it and neglecting it with my other light that I have, it is an ABI LED light with 15 different chips all ranging from 395-495nm. I keep this light over my torch coral that I give more attention to and was a bit more expensive. Can you not keep corals and fish together in such a small tank, and what do I do with the coral now. It looks to be dying, do I save the good branches, if so, how? I have epoxy puddy but I feel like if i f* with it then I will just make it worse. Also never really truly fragged before.

I have the coral in a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket with a small powerhead for constant water flow that I have read Acropora's need and I will have that light on it all day tomorrow. :headwally:
 
SPotter said:
you only run actinic lighting? might not have gotten enough light as well as unstable water parameters.
Click to expand...
10gallon with a 30 gallon aqueon filter. Will post photos tomorrow of the affected coral.

I do not have a concentrated test kit, just the API strips so I cant give accurate numbers like everyone else on this site. No nitrite or ammonia, nitrates fluctuate could this be why?

I have three extremely small damsels (two are 0.25in and other is .5 inch), a yellow coris wrasse about 3in, 6-line wrasse about 1.5 inch, and 2 blennies. Lot of fish I know but the filter tends to do it job and they never seem stressed. I do not overfeed.

However, I have been feeding a lot of coral frenzy to it and neglecting it with my other light that I have, it is an ABI LED light with 15 different chips all ranging from 395-495nm. I keep this light over my torch coral that I give more attention to and was a bit more expensive. Can you not keep corals and fish together in such a small tank, and what do I do with the coral now. It looks to be dying, do I save the good branches, if so, how? I have epoxy puddy but I feel like if i f* with it then I will just make it worse. I have the coral in a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket with a small powerhead for constant water flow that I have read Acropora's need and I will have that light on it all day tomorrow.
 
Your tank is not really set up for SPS. The pictures you have posted show a coral with STN and it is dieing.
 
reefwiser said:
Your tank is not really set up for SPS. The pictures you have posted show a coral with STN and it is dieing.
Click to expand...

ok, I just started reading about tissue necrosis. So basically you need to keep corals in a separate tank, that has been well established? yes i have live rock that was already seeded, i dose for trace elements and calcium. Do i frag the healthy branches?
 
You can frag it but the frags will most likely also die if you don't fix the underlying issue. Problem is nobody can tell you what that is likely to be without fairly accurate numbers from a test kit.

If moneys an issue, grab an API Reef master kit. Can be found for about £20 and it has nitrate, phosphate, KH and calcium. That will give you a fair idea of what's going on. :) It's not the most accurate but compared to the strips it will be a lot more useful.

Aside from that, acropora in general are not an easy coral to keep. I have killed some myself by letting parameters fluctuate too much. :(
 
ajm83 said:
You can frag it but the frags will most likely also die if you don't fix the underlying issue. Problem is nobody can tell you what that is likely to be without fairly accurate numbers from a test kit.

If moneys an issue, grab an API Reef master kit. Can be found for about £20 and it has nitrate, phosphate, KH and calcium. That will give you a fair idea of what's going on. :) It's not the most accurate but compared to the strips it will be a lot more useful.

Aside from that, acropora in general are not an easy coral to keep. I have killed some myself by letting parameters fluctuate too much. :(
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, yeah I took it out of the bucket I had it in and put it in a bag as a reminder of what can go wrong. I read beforehand that Acro's are insanely difficult to keep,

I have another question. At the beginning of the dying process, a white thing covered one of the polyps, and a tiny, tiny little white feather-like fan would come out, and rotate 180 degrees, then retract back into the white thing it came from. It would do this every 2 seconds or so. What the heck is that? It was borderline freaky. Made me not want to reach my hand in the water
 
reefwiser said:
Your tank is not really set up for SPS. The pictures you have posted show a coral with STN and it is dieing.
Click to expand...

I have another question. At the beginning of the dying process, a white thing covered one of the polyps, and a tiny, tiny little white feather-like fan would come out, and rotate 180 degrees, then retract back into the white thing it came from. It would do this every 2 seconds or so. What the heck is that? It was borderline freaky. Made me not want to reach my hand in the water.

Any ideas?

Thanks for the reply though
 
timmybeasy said:
ok, I just started reading about tissue necrosis. So basically you need to keep corals in a separate tank, that has been well established? yes i have live rock that was already seeded, i dose for trace elements and calcium. Do i frag the healthy branches?
Click to expand...

They do not have to be kept in a separate tank, the fish waste helps feed the coral. So you say you have 6 fish in a 10 gallon tank and you feed coral food? you have likely saturated your tank with nutrients. You are overstocked by a huge margin, I find it hard to believe your tank is not a field of algae.

You should not be dosing trace elements, do weekly water changes instead to avoid imbalances. Get a decent test kit and track your ALK and CA consumption and only dose if your tank is consuming it. You need to re-home some of your fish or get a much larger tank. Mechanical filtration on your HOB should be cleaned every 3-5 days do avoid everything it catches decomposing into nitrate, that is why skimmers are prefered in saltwater tanks. What Flow do you have in the tank other than the HOB? You still need a small power-head in the tank.

How long has the tank been set up?
 
Couple things...

1) We need a full tank picture. It will help a ton to see what we're working with

2) If you are new to coral, you aren't ready for SPS. Not trying to be rude just honest.

3) Your tank has too many fish and is probably quite unstable right now. How long has it been setup? How long have you been in the hobby?

You only have "actinic" lighting?
 
I have a free 29 gallon tank coming in from a friend on Tuesday. i can rehouse some of my fish to that.

The tank has been running since October. Started with just the 2 wrasse. I put the torch coral in about 2 weeks ago. I have the storebrand small 250 powerhead i forget the brand name. Protein skimmers are just some darn expensive.
 
timmybeasy said:
I have a free 29 gallon tank coming in from a friend on Tuesday. i can rehouse some of my fish to that.

The tank has been running since October. Started with just the 2 wrasse. I put the torch coral in about 2 weeks ago. I have the storebrand small 250 powerhead i forget the brand name. Protein skimmers are just some darn expensive.
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, you (and the tank) are not ready to keep SPS. I don't say that to be rude or judgemental in any way. I don't want to see you continue to bring in coral and kill it. It's bad for everyone/thing involved.

Skimmers might be "expensive" but how much was the coral that just died? I don't think a skimmer is actually necessary on a 10g tank but that's another topic.

We need a full tank picture. We also need some basic water parameters. Alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, nitrates, salinity and temperature to start.

In all honesty, you are rushing this big time. It will only lead to death and more money spent. Slow down.
 
All of these folks are right, but I will also add that you have not described your lighting and you chose a coral that would be hard for a lot of people to keep. Whenever you are ready again next time, get a small frag of something that is easy to keep and not a mariculture piece which can be very hard.
 
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