LPS Issues

[d2mini]

I dunno if any of you have seen this thread yet, but I'm curious what the LPS experts make of it, specifically in regards to my LPS.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2427730

What I initially thought may have been a result of starting vinegar dosing, may have really been from Cyano die-off after a couple days of lights out.

Anyway, in regards to my LPS, what i'm experiencing is very odd to me. I have never seen this before. My gigantic Frogspawn colony has much smaller polyps than usual, revealing the mouth at the base of each branch. In other words, the polyps are not inflated enough to hide the mouth. My gold aussie torch has much thinner tentacles than normal. My hammers (wall and branching) are just not open as much as normal.

And then to top if off, I had another thread in this forum about my Open Brain that used to look really really good for the first year of my tank, and then for the past 8 months it's is always so closed up that you could see the skeletal structure through the flesh. And now... it's looking really good again! Before it was the only piece of LPS that looked terrible while everything else thrived, and now everything else looks terrible but the brain looks great.

Any thoughts on this???
I can see sensitive SPS having issues, but LPS are usually way more forgiving.
The thread above should answer most questions that pertain to water quality, lighting, and all that.
If you don't mind reading through that and then commenting here about the LPS I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks!

 

[mcfa2403]

I'm not an expert but I have a couple ideas to throw at you.

My experience with LPS has been that they are forgiving in the long run but react quickly to environmental changes. As you said your LPS don't look right but have yet to show die off of tissue or zooxanthelle.

What I wonder is what were your changes in nitrate and phosphate levels pre and post carbon dosing? Did you see any pH swings while dosing? When dosing carbon you are spiking your organics did your skimmer act accordingly and double or triple the skim pulled? How much cyano was in the tank and did you remove a substantial portion before dosing?

Keeping in mind that dosing carbon is purposely spiking bacterial growth a sudden stop in dosing could cause a massive die off and a large mature system might have quickly recovered from a spike in nitrates while the coral may not have. (that theory may have no weight just a guess) Considering the reaction of your LPS I doubt the lighting was the issue.

With regards to running the ozone generator, in theory ozone should help with carbon dosing because it breaks down organics in the system into parts more readily digested by bacteria (the product of carbon dosing). I likely would have turned off the ozone while adding the vinegar and then restarted it once completed.

It sounds like you have a lot going on in your tank equipment wise and running a heavy water change regimen over the last week, my advice would be to keep it simple for a couple weeks and let everything recover. As I said earlier my experience with LPS is that they react most substantially to drastic changes in the tank (I believe this to be due to the nature of their tissue, the fact that they absorb and expel water regularly in order to inflate and deflate). As for your trachyphyllia my guess is that it liked the decrease in light as they are a moderate to low light coral (just a guess)

 

[d2mini]

I'm not an expert but I have a couple ideas to throw at you.

My experience with LPS has been that they are forgiving in the long run but react quickly to environmental changes. As you said your LPS don't look right but have yet to show die off of tissue or zooxanthelle.

What I wonder is what were your changes in nitrate and phosphate levels pre and post carbon dosing? Did you see any pH swings while dosing? When dosing carbon you are spiking your organics did your skimmer act accordingly and double or triple the skim pulled? How much cyano was in the tank and did you remove a substantial portion before dosing?

Keeping in mind that dosing carbon is purposely spiking bacterial growth a sudden stop in dosing could cause a massive die off and a large mature system might have quickly recovered from a spike in nitrates while the coral may not have. (that theory may have no weight just a guess) Considering the reaction of your LPS I doubt the lighting was the issue.

With regards to running the ozone generator, in theory ozone should help with carbon dosing because it breaks down organics in the system into parts more readily digested by bacteria (the product of carbon dosing). I likely would have turned off the ozone while adding the vinegar and then restarted it once completed.

It sounds like you have a lot going on in your tank equipment wise and running a heavy water change regimen over the last week, my advice would be to keep it simple for a couple weeks and let everything recover. As I said earlier my experience with LPS is that they react most substantially to drastic changes in the tank (I believe this to be due to the nature of their tissue, the fact that they absorb and expel water regularly in order to inflate and deflate). As for your trachyphyllia my guess is that it liked the decrease in light as they are a moderate to low light coral (just a guess)

Thanks for the reply!
To answer or help clarify a bit...

I had only done 7 or 8 days of dosing, and following the typical schedule I started with a very low dose and was starting to work my way up. So I figured since I had just barely started, stopping wouldn't hurt much? That was my thinking anyway.

There was a lot of cyano all over the rocks and a little on the substrate.
I did the lights out, which caused it to disappear and at the same time I started with the first few doses of vinegar.

My skimmer did not seem to react to the vinegar dosing.
It wasn't until I stopped that the skimmer started to pick up and now weeks later it's still skimming like a beast. I'm skimming pretty wet and I'm filling the 8" diameter cup on a daily basis.
This is a pic from the other day when i was still skimming darker, and this is 4-5 days worth of skim.

As for the Trachy, the lighting has been back to normal for a couple weeks and he is looking better than he has all year. Strange.

And the ozone generator... i'm actually about to start looking into that. I tested it this morning and I do smell ozone, but I'm not sure it's getting into the tank anymore? My orp seems to be stuck at around 190-210 which is really low. And yes it has been calibrated and cleaned. Before this disaster, it used to be up around 380. I run the generator for a few hours each morning after the lights come on. I can watch the Orp readings and I no longer see more than about 5mV change.
But just the fact that the Orp is that low, even without running ozone, seems to suggest that there is a surplus of organics in the water.

In case you are interested, here is a vid I took last night and you'll be able to see the LPS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J434qQRxq-k

Thanks!