SPS dying slowily from the bottom up

[toothman]

For my tank, too much carbon or gfo and too much carbon dosing my cause some stn.
All things that deplete nutrients in excess will cause stn from base up.
If you can get your corals accustomed to eating more it really helps, daily feeding of food that makes a cloud of small particulates is very helpful, feed 2 to 3 times a day. Acros are much bigger eaters than most people think.

also in my tank kh of 7 works better, temp not over 80.
Since I have zeolites in my tank potassium is also a factor, I have to add K.

These suggestion my be contrary to many, even on the rowa phos web page they say it is hard to add too much gfo, but they are selling gfo. You should also buy a hanna meter to really see what your phosphate is. I also really like salifert nitrate.

 

[acroholicreefer]

From looking at your frags and other pictures, it looks like they are a little bit starved. This would also explain why you are loosing coraline. I would turn off all GFO and Carbon reactors. The STN should stop fairly soon.

Is the frag rack new?

 

[ctniners]

Interesting.....I'm gonna check my levels again but couple of days ago I had readings of 425 calcium, 8.5 alk, 0 phosphates (again I doubt it cause I see algae on some rocks and sand) and 1450 mag....all my test are Salifert.

In terms of carbon/gfo all I use is 2 x 11oz bags of Chemical-pure elite....(each suppose to treat 40 gal) my system is about 70 gal total...I have a 40 breeder display and a 40 breeder as sump with a 10 gal refugium...the sump however has about 200 lbs of live rock so half of it is rock...so I doubt I am overusing carbon/gfo....

The puzzling part for me is why only few are affected...I already took about 4 frags that died but some look like nothing is wrong.....the rack is new cause I had to move them.

I'm going to test everything again today......thanks again

 

[toothman]

If I were you I would take the carbon and gfo out for a week and see there is any improvement. Also try feeding a fine particle food like 5-50 microns. Reef roids is one. It takes about 3 days to see the result of your changes, in my opinion.

 

[REEF SMAC]

Interesting.....I'm gonna check my levels again but couple of days ago I had readings of 425 calcium, 8.5 alk, 0 phosphates (again I doubt it cause I see algae on some rocks and sand) and 1450 mag....all my test are Salifert.

In terms of carbon/gfo all I use is 2 x 11oz bags of Chemical-pure elite....(each suppose to treat 40 gal) my system is about 70 gal total...I have a 40 breeder display and a 40 breeder as sump with a 10 gal refugium...the sump however has about 200 lbs of live rock so half of it is rock...so I doubt I am overusing carbon/gfo....

The puzzling part for me is why only few are affected...I already took about 4 frags that died but some look like nothing is wrong.....the rack is new cause I had to move them.

I'm going to test everything again today......thanks again

I'll throw in my guess.

Your params look fine to me. They could have dipped (particularly Alk) at one time causing the stress that your corals are recovering from now. Unfortunately they don't recover as fast as they stress out.

Adding any kind of Phosphate remover, too much, too fast has never turned out good for me. If you really have 70 gallons in your system and you've put in enough Chemical-pure elite to treat 80 gallons, I think I would WAY back off with that stuff, the way your frags are looking.

Those little tufts of algae you speak of might actually be using up all the phosphate in your tank, not in indication of having too much. If your frags turn brown from too much PHO4 right now so what. That's better than losing them from not having enough PHO4 to keep them alive.

In your FTS it looks like your Setosa is getting more flow being higher up in your tank in front of your powerheads. Your frags are down in a valley not receiving as much flow. Can you raise your frags up into more flow and raise your lights instead.

I have had some sucess with stopping STN by placing crazy glue all along the receding edge. This is alot easier than trying to slice up a small frag to stop it.

Hope you figure this out. Good luck.

 

[toothman]

crazy glue works for me as well, but I usually break off the top and re glue it. I often get new wild pieces and sometimes they do not prosper as well as I hoped.

 

[ctniners]

So i went ahead yesterday and did epoxy thing around the receding line..they r just too small to refrag....i moved them to the bottom and i fed the fish the rods food original blend which it should also cover corals.. i dont have any reef roids...as long as i dont see a receding line on them then im just gonna leave them where they are.

Thanks everybody...

My other worry is that right before i noticed the change on my frags i prepaid for a new order of frags that i will be getting in 2 weeks so since i cannot change that i have to get my tank in working order....however this time i will make sure all frags no matter how light demanding they may be i will put them in the bottom for a couple of weeks

 

[hazey62]

any updates? Did the STN stop?

 

[dg3147]

updates?

 

[mos90]

when I switched from 400w halides to 6 bulb Ati T5's all my SPS died, bleaching from the bottom up, I believe it was the light change. T5's are that strong.

the same happended to my 125g. went from 2-250w phoenix with t5's to a 6bulb t5's. lost all acros but 1. i also has a calcium reactor malfunction and alk went from 8.5 to 11 in 3 days.

i strongly believe that lack of light or too much light without proper acclimation and/or alk swings are the main culprit for stn from the base up.

 

[Falcao]

updates?

 

[rogergolf66]

Update