Cause and Effect in SPS

[jonnybravo22]

Hello all.

Is there a thread that has pictures of what happens to SPS under various parameter scenarios?

For instance can someone post pictures of what their corals have looked like if they identified the cause of the ailment to be:


Low Alk / High Alk
Low / High Calcium
Big change in Alk (even within appropriate levels)
PH Issues
etc.?

Would be nice to have a visual reference to say oh, that's my problem. (only works if people are reasonably confident that the only change made was x or y and the direct result was bad response from coral). If people can post the issue and a pic showing the problem that would be great.

 

[Pallobi]

i dont have any pics, but from my understanding low and high alk can cause them to fade out in colors or suffer from tissue necrosis... and large swings can also very easily result in tissue necrosis, slow and rapid... you really dont want your calcium to get too high or too low, but i am not sure that has too much, or at least as much of an effect of color and tissue loss as compared to when alk gets too high or low... and ph can definitely make things go south, however, i myself dont worry about ph really... i first concern is alk, and secondly calcium and mag... ph, no so much as i dose 2 part daily and believe the alk keep ph where it needs to be, but i could be wrong... hopefully some others will chime in too and perhaps get you some of those pics you asked for

oh, and of course low mag levels wont necessarily affect your sps directly from what i understand, but will affect the calcium and alk levels that are much more important to sps

jmo

 

[Pallobi]

also check out the calcium, alk, and mag in sps tanks sticky at the top of the forum page, that might be a big help too

 

[SBRob]

I've read a couple places that High Alk can cause burnt tips. I don't have a pic of it myself but you can always google it.

 

[jonnybravo22]

example. introduced new coral last night. my Alk was low (7.7) and i probably made a mistake by trying to raise it too quickly to what the coral was used to. I introduced the coral, then I raised the ALK overnight to 8.5.

I'm now seeing this brown stringiness take place. i think this is the coral expelling zooxanthellae. one of the existing corals did the same thing. tips on new coral look a bit brittle. initial polyp extension it was showing has gone away.

hard to say the alk was the only cause though b/c the coral is new and could be lighting or i guess a number of things.

Two questions:

1) What would you do if anything if seeing this in a (really nice) new coral? Given I've raised the alk a lot.

2) can people post similar types of pictures and what the cause was?

 

[SBRob]

Do you dose your tank with anything?

 

[jonnybravo22]

i am about to start a dosing regimen of b-ionic 2 part (i used it to bump the alk levels over night but dont do daily yet. will start this week w/ dosing pumps.

but i dont want to distract from intent of this thread which i hope could start to get some cause and effect photos if anyone has some! so if anyone has suggestions for me do let me know but also post your photos!

 

[dzhuo]

I'm now seeing this brown stringiness take place. i think this is the coral expelling zooxanthellae.

These are not zooxanthellae; it's dino (and I saw a little bit of it on the sandbed as well). I suspect your corals is either weak or unhealthy (maybe you didn't acclimate it properly, shocking it from the transfer, alk swings, etc) which is why the dino attack it. Within a few days, you should expect to see the coral starting to STN from where the dino are if you can't get it under control. This seldom happens for healthy and growing corals even if you have dino in other part of your tank. Since dino and cyano is part of almost every tank; it's hard to pinpoint exactly what the cause of the outbreak.

Is this aqua-culture? Are there any other corals showing signs of dino attack? Are your tank's condition similar to where you obtain the coral from?

 

[jonnybravo22]

thanks dzhou, i took your advice into consideration and think i have stabilized.


does anyone have a picture of "Not enough light" and it's effect on coral?