Help me diagnose acro issue

[Syntax1325]

Ok great now I understand it better... Also saw it for sale on Amazon... Be the same thing right?

Yes. I ordered mine through Amazon.

 

[Syntax1325]

Yep, too bad it's not Prime'able. I thought Unique had an exclusive deal to sell the test but apparently not.

All test kits are sent to Unique before being sent to Germany.

 

[Syntax1325]

Would any of you address the low Potassium, Lithium and Strontium? I'm tempted to possibly dose a little Potassium, but my blue and purple sps are vibrant. I wonder if increasing the levels a little would bring out even more of those colors?

Lithium is interesting, I can't find anything that states that Lithium is used by the creatures we typically keep in our tanks... Seachem actually doesn't put any Lithium in their salt mix due to lack of research that states it actually does anything beneficial.

Strontium is low but I'm not quite what it does.

I've decreased the dosage of alk, ca and mag to bring the levels down a bit, I'm shooting for 7.5 to 8 alk. Hope it helps.

It's really interesting that most of my acros are doing very well and have nice color... it just seems odd that some of these corals are not affected by what is going on. Some of these things are really sensitive, others are very resilient I guess.

 

[Syntax1325]

My alk is stable, both my salifert and red sea tests are in agreement... It's currently about 8.7, I'm bringing it down slowly my reducing my alk 2 part.

I'm still having issues with sps... It seems that the tips some of the tips slime a little after feeding and a few days later the tips are bare. The corals have full polyp extension but the tips some of their tips are burning. I have no idea what is going on... I'm getting really frustrated at this point. I'm very meticulous when it comes to my tank... I carefully test my parameters and work hard to make sure that the environment is ideal.... I don't understand this... it just won't stop.

I put in a Polypad for a couple of days to see if that would help.... doesn't seem to have done anything... which I didn't expect.

Here are a few more pictures:

Here's my montipora before things started burning....



Here's an after pic...



Plating acro:

 

[vuqchu]

Have you checked for rust or stray voltage? I had something similar in the past and it was rust from one of the powerheads because the magnet split. Second time I dealt with rusy was more recently because of a small pump I threw in the sump area to move water around. I would pull all equipment if I were you and inspect everything.

 

[Syntax1325]

Have you checked for rust or stray voltage? I had something similar in the past and it was rust from one of the powerheads because the magnet split. Second time I dealt with rusy was more recently because of a small pump I threw in the sump area to move water around. I would pull all equipment if I were you and inspect everything.

I have not checked for stray voltage, I don't have a tool to check for it.

If I find an Ohm reader, what should it read without stray voltage?

I have checked my equipment... I only have two maxpect Gyre 150's a finnex 800 watt titanium tube and a skimmer pump.

I don't have any rust in the system.... It would have shown up on my Triton test.

Edit: I've borrowed a volt meter and I'll post the results tonight

 

[Syntax1325]

So I noticed when I came home from work today I have two more acros with some burned tips.... Ugh!

I have a voltage meter; however, I'm not very confident in plugging in one of the leads into the ground of an outlet and the other end into the tank.... lots of threads warn of danger of electrocution.

My system is all wired into two 20 amp direct outlets with GFCI outlets... If I had an issue I would assume the gfci would trip? I do not feel any tingle when I put my hands in the tank either.

 

[Reel North]

What it looks like to me, (since I've done everything wrong at some point) is that your alk is really high. I've noticed similar to what you are experiencing when my alk gets anywhere near 8.5. I do my best to keep it under 8, with mag and calcium at 1350 and 420 respectively. I find that as my tank gets a bit dirty, the colours and growth increase. I also was running carbon 24/7, and started to get issues as well. Now I run it maybe one week a month.

The BRs 2 part doesn't have any trace elements, which is why I dose B Ionic in my frag system, and run a calcium reactor in my main system.

You will need to look at a trace element product to dose, like Acro power or a zeo supplement (feel free to chime in for your favorite). Looks like they are being burnt, and starved all at once.

 

[Syntax1325]

What it looks like to me, (since I've done everything wrong at some point) is that your alk is really high. I've noticed similar to what you are experiencing when my alk gets anywhere near 8.5. I do my best to keep it under 8, with mag and calcium at 1350 and 420 respectively. I find that as my tank gets a bit dirty, the colours and growth increase. I also was running carbon 24/7, and started to get issues as well. Now I run it maybe one week a month.

The BRs 2 part doesn't have any trace elements, which is why I dose B Ionic in my frag system, and run a calcium reactor in my main system.

You will need to look at a trace element product to dose, like Acro power or a zeo supplement (feel free to chime in for your favorite). Looks like they are being burnt, and starved all at once.

Thank you for your comments. I have some acro power on hand, every time I dose I seem to get a diatom bloom... there's also a couple spots of cyano on a rock or two and some bryopsis growing on and in my overflow box (only limited to the box) Chaeto is growing at a rate where I harvest it once a month... The sand and rocks are free of any hair algae. My skimmer is also running a litle wet and still producing dark skimmate.. My colors seem pretty good... Starving is an easy cure, but the colors don't seem to indicate that that's the issue. Any more thoughts on this?

I have lowered my 2 part 15 mls per day, but have not seen a drop in alk over the past week... I assume that's because most of the corals have stopped growing.

I have also noticed that my coralline has died off a little... maybe an indicator of my problem?

How funny that my acros are struggling, yet my shrooms and GSP are growing as fast as ever... mushrooms are splitting every month. LPS look great as well.


I do appreciate everyone's thoughts.... I'm sick of dealing with this issue and I hope, with your help, I'm able to get through this.... It is sickening to look at a colony of acro slowly die, especially after having it for 1.5 years.

 

[Piper27]

Your potassium needs to come up that's way low, some corals may not like that and montipora caps will tell you when potassium is low from what I remember.
What are you checking salinity with? What are you calibrating it with? 36.5 PPT? That's high and I have seen wierd stuff happen when salinity is high. Bring it down slowly during a couple days.
Are you using a carbon source to reduce nutrients?
What brand of activated carbon are you using?
No phosphate remover?

Sorry not to many have offered much help, stuff doesn't look to bad yet. Better pictures would help and more info on your tank and husbandry practices.

 

[Piper27]

Thank you for your comments. I have some acro power on hand, every time I dose I seem to get a diatom bloom... there's also a couple spots of cyano on a rock or two and some bryopsis growing on and in my overflow box (only limited to the box) Chaeto is growing at a rate where I harvest it once a month... The sand and rocks are free of any hair algae. My skimmer is also running a litle wet and still producing dark skimmate.. My colors seem pretty good... Starving is an easy cure, but the colors don't seem to indicate that that's the issue. Any more thoughts on this?

I have lowered my 2 part 15 mls per day, but have not seen a drop in alk over the past week... I assume that's because most of the corals have stopped growing.

I have also noticed that my coralline has died off a little... maybe an indicator of my problem?

How funny that my acros are struggling, yet my shrooms and GSP are growing as fast as ever... mushrooms are splitting every month. LPS look great as well.


I do appreciate everyone's thoughts.... I'm sick of dealing with this issue and I hope, with your help, I'm able to get through this.... It is sickening to look at a colony of acro slowly die, especially after having it for 1.5 years.

Nothing looks starved, acropower won't help IMO. Trace elements won't be the reason for your problems, tanks do fine with brs two part and mag alone.. But start raising your potassium, I haven't seen a reading that low. Might help.

Water changes? What salt do you use and how often?

The pictures just look like the acro has meserintial filiments (spelled wrong...) from a feeding response on the tips. They will do it when mad sometimes as well. Pics of the burnt spots with no blues on will help. The images are so saturated it's hard to tell what is even wrong with the Monti.

 

[Syntax1325]

Your potassium needs to come up that's way low, some corals may not like that and montipora caps will tell you when potassium is low from what I remember.
What are you checking salinity with? What are you calibrating it with? 36.5 PPT? That's high and I have seen wierd stuff happen when salinity is high. Bring it down slowly during a couple days.
Are you using a carbon source to reduce nutrients?
What brand of activated carbon are you using?
No phosphate remover?

Sorry not to many have offered much help, stuff doesn't look to bad yet. Better pictures would help and more info on your tank and husbandry practices.

Hi,

I'm using a Red Sea Refractometer and an Apex Salinity probe. I calibrate per manufactures instructions for both... calibrate the refractometer every time I use it.

No carbon dosing

Stopped using carbon about a month ago... I was using about 1.5 cups of the BRS Lignite in a TLF 150 reactor changed every two weeks.

I use Salinity Salt and change 20 gallons every two weeks... I've slowed that down a bit over the past month while trying to figure this out.

No Phosphate remover... just chaeto and some Bryopsis in my overflow.

I used to use Kalk and then the demand couldn't keep up so I switched to BRS 2part... I've noticed my salinity creep up with using the 2part... I'd like to get rid of it and use a calcium reactor, but I've got higher end taste for those things and I've got my eye on a high end regulator that will put me back $300.... I've got some saving to do and need to convince the wife.

 

[Syntax1325]

Here are a few night photos with the flash, hope this helps....

 

[71xlch]

I second high alk. My tank before had to stay under 8. If it got 8 or higher burned tips. I keep an Monti in all my tanks whether it be a frag or bigger piece. The first piece to show stress seems to always be a red Monti. I also second salinity I hit 1.028 due to a mixing error and I had issues with my acros

 

[chi_reef]

Sorry to see you having this problem. I wonder how are you dosing your Alk and CA? I used to have the same problem until I got my Neptune DOS. I dose slowly 1.5ml an hour in alternate hour for each part through out the day to minimize spikes thus keeping stability. and it seems to have worked.
Do you run biopellets? If you do, then like every body said, keep low Alk 7 to 8 seems to be the norm when running BP. Good luck.

 

[Syntax1325]

Sorry to see you having this problem. I wonder how are you dosing your Alk and CA? I used to have the same problem until I got my Neptune DOS. I dose slowly 1.5ml an hour in alternate hour for each part through out the day to minimize spikes thus keeping stability. and it seems to have worked.
Do you run biopellets? If you do, then like every body said, keep low Alk 7 to 8 seems to be the norm when running BP. Good luck.

No biopellets...

I use a Pacific Sun Core 5th Doser... I dose alk 144 times a day... every ten minutes. I dose calcium 24 times a day, it ends up putting the kalk in about 5 minutes after the alk is dosed (I do not have any precipitation issue dosing this way).

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Syntax1325]

Ok, so the general consensus seems to be:

1) Keep alk under 8

2) Raise Potassium

3) Keep salinity in check

I'll work on this stuff.


I'll clip the tips of the burnt tips? Some of the corals are pretty burnt. Will clipping all those tips cause more stress to the coral?

 

[ruski]

Good luck buddy hope it works out for you .

 

[Syntax1325]

Just a quick update.... I've lowered my alk dosing over the past few days from 90ml to 40ml and my alk is still registering around 8.4 to 8.7. I guess my tank is consuming less alk because my acros have stopped growing due to whatever is going on. I'm going to keep lowering my alk dosing until I can get my alk around 7.6... I'm still perplexed as to how my current alk is causing issues... My alk has been around 8.5-9.0 for the past 1.5 years and it has never been an issue before now.

I've also clipped the tips of some of my corals, I'll be interested to see if they heal or if the recession continues. My acros typically take 7-10 days to show signs of healing over places that have been cut.

I've ordered a good quality potassium supplement, KZ Potassium Strong but it's not going to get to my house until Wednesday of next week.



I'm open to more suggestions.