I added sps too early. Is it possible to save some of them?

[paal]

Tank specs:
* About 100 gallon, 40x30x20
* 2x MP40QD anti sync 90% reefcrest / Vectra M1 Return at 75%
* Pacific Sun T5/Led hybrid 8x39W T5 + 2x145W LED. Close to perfect light coverage over tank. T5 on for 8 hours, LED on for 9 hours. (Started with LED power at 10% and increased 2% every day after adding the acroporas. Ended at 40%. After I noticed STN issue I turned LED power back down to 15%
* Bubble King DC 180 skimming wet
* Used to run a rather large bag of activated carbon in the sump (changed monthly) Removed this today

Parameters:
Alk: 8
Ca: 420
Mg: 1420
Salinity: 1.0255 (Refractometer calibrated with pinpoint 1.026 solution)
NO3: 0
PO4: 0
Temp: 78-80
0 TDS ATO

Fish:
1 Copperband Butterfly
6 Chromis
2 Orchid Dottybacks
(Copperband refuses to eat anything but frozen mysis, so mostly this is what I feed the tank. One cube 3 times per day)

Started my new tank early June this year. Mainly dead rock (marco) + a few seed rocks from my friends tank.
Added a few fish about 6 weeks in and most corals just over 3 months in.
I have a million stomatella snails, so it is not really possible to find any algae except a green film on the glass (+ a few bubble algae unfortunately) Overall tank looks very clean.

Using Aquaforest's probiotic salt, changing about 7,5% water weekly. (at least 3 times per month)
Dosing with Aquaforest comp 1+2+3 (similar to balling) but doser is currently disabled as I have no consumption in tank. Measuring Alk every day to make sure there are no changes. Other values measured weekly.

When I bought my first fish at about 6 weeks, I also bought a small Hystrix frag. The plan was to use this as a kind of "indicator"; when this would show good growth I would try some acropora frags. If it perished, so be it: small and cheap frag anyway.
The Hystrix looked rather bad for the first few weeks, then slowly regained its colors. At about 6 weeks all branches had healthy growth tips / new branches were forming.
I do not have access to any LFS, so when I saw this guy online selling/shipping acro frags for a descent price I figured I could try a few.
Although they did not show much signs of growth (except 2 stags that grew bases), most of them seemed healthy in the beginning. After a few weeks though, some of them started to STN from the bottom. The week after some more. Somewhere along the same time, the Hystrix also lost it's white growth tips. Even the stags' newly built bases went white.

I guess the issue is simply that my tank is too young. I never thought I would add acropora this early, but the growing Hystrix persuaded me. :hmm2:
Anyway, now that the "damage is done", what do you suggest I do inn order to at least try to fight the STN?
* Further decrease lighting? (intensity and/or Lighting period?
* Increase feeding? (Planning to add more fish, but could of course just dump in more food in the meantime)
* Increase Alk/Mg/Ca?
* Decrease ^ (will take a long time with my low consumption)

Some pictures from today: (mobile phone only, sorry)

This is how most of the small frags have started STNing:

My only "big" coral. Looks healthy to me, but this one is also STN'ing. Not much is shown on this pic (small white area on plug only) but coral has lost at least 1/2 square inch of tissue on the underside (could not get a good pic)

Overview:

EDIT:
Meant to post this in the "SPS Keepers"-forum. Oh well...

 

[vhuang168]

When you added the frags, were you continuing to measure Alk/Ca levels? Was there consumption?

Those frags look pretty low in the tank. What's the par reading at those levels?


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[pisanoal]

Check for pests? Its odd to have the hystrix start to go bad after adding the new frags if it was doing well to begin with. I don't think its just that you added them early. Sounds like your tank was pretty stable. I would look into a change. Maybe a test kit gone bad, or my vote would be a pest from the pieces you picked up recently.

 

[paal]

When you added the frags, were you continuing to measure Alk/Ca levels? Was there consumption?

Those frags look pretty low in the tank. What's the par reading at those levels?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the reply vhuang168. I am writing down all my parameters.

I received the dosing additives the same day as the acropora (Sept.1)
At the time, Alk/Ca/Mg were 6.8/380/1370.

I began dosing and came close (slightly lower) to today's mentioned values within a week. I started turning down the dosing a little by little until i finally just disabled the whole thing Sept.23. (Alk then at 8, same as today. Mg/Ca was not measured that day)

Since there were some minor growth to some of the corals, there were for sure some minor consumption, but I never really got to calculate this as I was constantly tuning the dosing.


I have not measured PAR.
I just thought (based on what I have read online) that with 8x39W T5 in one of most efficient fixtures available, I would not lack light. (Even without the LEDs) Given that I do not have a PAR-meter, would you still try to increase the LED intensity again?

(The guy I bought the frags from also ran a T5/LED combo, but I do not know his details/intensity)

 

[paal]

Check for pests? Its odd to have the hystrix start to go bad after adding the new frags if it was doing well to begin with. I don't think its just that you added them early. Sounds like your tank was pretty stable. I would look into a change. Maybe a test kit gone bad, or my vote would be a pest from the pieces you picked up recently.

Thanks pisanoal.
Wish I had a LFS available. I will order a new alk -test kit right away.

I did not dip the corals :/
I have tried looking for pests on both the corals inside the tanks and also the ones I have taken out. I have not seen anything. I guess I can ask the guy I bought them from. Hopefully he will not be offended

If it is some kind of pest; what type can attack both acropora and seriatopora? (Note: the Hystrix still looks OK. It "only" lost the growth tips)

 

[JPMagyar]

Any updates P?