help me out here!!!

[Acronana06]

I'll try some images later on or maybe just put em up in my gallery...

After my recent fight with the D*** redbugs I finally defeated them with interceptor in a quanrantine for two weeks

back in the tank everything seems fine except for a small amount of STN on my A nana sp. which has since stopped to the best of my knowledge

during this treatment I noticed a brown out in both colonies of Acropora nana turning from purple green with bright purple tips to a more dull purple with brown tips

excess nutrients might of been the problem in the quarantine tank I think

my tank specs are as follows
65 gallon tall marineland tank
192 watt PC lighting from a taken apart coralife fixture mounted into my canopy
400 watt 15k XM MH
for a total of 592 watts
lighting is as follows
9:30AM attinic
10:00AM 10k pc
10:15 MH
9:00 PM MH off
9:15 10 k off
9:45 attinic off

temperature remains around 76 degrees F and I dont have a heater or chiller just rely on four radio shack fans for cooling

sump is a 30 gallon rubbermaid container
cap22 for a return to the tank

skimmer is the dreaded seaclone 100 I know I know I need a better one but honestly I think this one does do a pretty good job coffee colored skimate in the amount of 1 cup pulled out every three days

params are pretty good

nitrate nitrite 0
phos .02
ammonia 0
sg 1.025
calcium heres the kicker about 520
alk 7.0

flow in my tank bein an SPS is outrageous

seio 820
aquaclear 420
powerhead 402
hang on tank filter for running carbon
marinelands top model with biowheels removed
plus the return from the sump going into an SCWD

shallow sand bed around 1 inch

around 120 pounds of liverock

1 MAC certified scopas tang
1 4 stripe LARGE damsel
1 cleaner shrimp

corals are mostly sps and I have one zoanthid colony and a pearl bubble and a small colony of blue anthelia

I was using Oceanic salt and my calcium was off the charts but I switched to IO and its on the rebound slowly but surely

any comments or advice is welcomed!

 

[Acronana06]

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[Acronana06]

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from this pic you can see the STN I was speakin of and the dull color

 

[Acronana06]

 

[Acronana06]

kind of a bad pic but an older shot before the treatment of my acronana

just for kicks this last one is when I first started this tank 3 yrs ago

 

[Acronana06]

some of these pics are old but you get the point objections critisism coments are plenty welcome sorry for the punctuation also Im a reef addict not an english teacher!

 

[ITR]

Did you examine the acros that have the bases bleached out on them? I noticed in a few pics that there are some Acros with missing flesh/bleached at the base.

It's difficult to tell, but it looks like signs of Acro Eating Flatworms. Look for egg clusters.

Get a closer look and let us know what you see. I hope I am wrong, but your Acros fit the M.O.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I ran into the same problem myself. Battled regular Red Flatworms, Battled Cyano algae outbreaks, battled the red bugs, then found Acro Eating Flatworms all within a years time. I wanted to throw in the towel and just sell off everything.

 

[Acronana06]

well Ive investigated plenty its STN for sure caused I think in part by a param swing between the quarantine tank and main tank is this normal?

 

[Corn]

IMO you really need to get your KH up 7 is getting way to low and that may be the reason that you are getting such a high reading on you CA. some times they will effect each other. for the red bug treatment I went through the same thing where the majority of my sps want to a brown color but with good water quality they should come back. but good luck with the algae.
Matt

 

[Horace]

There is nothing wrong with 7dkh alk and how exactly does low alk make Ca go high? Im not sure where you got that info from? Also there are people with tanks that run them as low as 6.5 with AWESOME colors. Its all about stability. If you have your alk going up and down constantly you willl get STN.. plain and simple. However, acros can adapt to a certain extent pending on your nutrient level. When you run super low nutrients (somehow I doubt thats the case if your using a seaclone), then 7.0 - 8.0 dkh is preferred. My guess is your QT of the redbugs is what browned your corals and is causing STN. You probably stressed the hell out of them in QT. Keep your params table and get your nutrients to undetectable levels as measured by Salifert and you should be GTG.

BTW, if your getting .02 Phos with Salifert your real reading is likely much higher. When I test my tank via a hanna meter which is MUCH more accurate, it tests ~ .02 - .03. My salifert kit reads 0.0 with zero color change.

 

[Corn]

sorry to hit a nerve there Horace but that is what I have been always told and with my experience that is what happed to me but I don't use those fancy hanna test kits. so it could have been my test kits in it self but with my experience I like a higher alk and all of the people that I know that have a sps tank have a higher alk in there tank so that is MO.

 

[Horace]

Corn, you didnt hit a nerve, but I am here to tell you that Natural Sea Water ranges between 7-8dkh so tell me how exactly running NSW levels could be dangerous? I am well aware there are folks out there that run high levels of alk (above 8-9dkh) because they think it makes your corals grow faster. While this MAY be true in some situations, it also comes with an added risk of STN, especially when you have a low nutrient environment (the main goal of an SPS tank).

Also the fact that you say running low alk can lead to high Ca just makes no sense at all. Also what does the brand of test kit for measuring phosphate have anything to do with alk? I think in your case your trying to help, but your merely making guesses that seem to make logical sense to you. I highly suggest you read as many of the articles written by Randy Farley as you can in the chemistry forum. You will learn much.

If you dont believe me about the alk, do a little poll here on RC and you will see that most folks who run SPS tanks try to run natural sea water type levels of everything. Pay closest attention to those with established, kick *** tanks....

 

[Acronana06]

hmm no need for a heated discussion fellows I would rather this board be left to discuss my tank I will not be changing anything what works for one person may not work for another I plan on keeping things the way they are!