Sps issues.. thin tissue around the tip,and algea growth.

[Livingjewels]

Just wondering why the tissue on the tips of my sps coralites are becoming eroded away and showing exposed skeleton.

I have brown/yellowlooking strands that start to grow from this area... I'm not sure if it's the brown algae burning the tissue away, or if it's the tissue receding and then allowing the algae gronunds to start to grow off.

It started on a tricolour acro I have, the tips went white then an amber looking algea appeared and it's receding locally just around the tips..

I then noticed a tenuis looking frag suffering the same..i can see the white structure of the skeleton exposed and yellow brown strands / microbes sticking to it.

Most of the others all apear fine, and don't show any signs..

(My sand is something to do with it..)

I keep getting the said orange algea on my sand bed which resembles diatoms; if it's left to accumulate it clouds the water up..
I often use filterwool to capture the waterborne fines when they build up, although it's now becoming more prolonged and quicker to re establish itself..
Sometimes I have to syphon it out and water change... but I feel it comes back quicker the more cleaning up I do..

I suffered dino in my previous tank, (NOT THIS TANK MY OLD ONE) so I've seen the damage that did to sps when I had it..I'm not suggesting it's that because I've not yet seen any snotty slime or bubbles that usually give it away: what I have seen is the similarity in the effect on sps tip damage when I had them..

The tank is 5 month old.. low phos 0.024ppm & 0.25 ppm no3
KH is 9.5 stable.
I don't dose anything just feed plenty of food to the fish and occasional reefriods.

Would any of you guys/girls have anything relative that you could make comment on to help me out..

I have no idea on what to do with this to get rid of it..

View attachment 373488

 

[airwaybill]

Just wondering why the tissue on the tips of my sps coralites are becoming eroded away and showing exposed skeleton.

I have brown/yellowlooking strands that start to grow from this area... I'm not sure if it's the brown algae burning the tissue away, or if it's the tissue receding and then allowing the algae gronunds to start to grow off.

It started on a tricolour acro I have, the tips went white then an amber looking algea appeared and it's receding locally just around the tips..

I then noticed a tenuis looking frag suffering the same..i can see the white structure of the skeleton exposed and yellow brown strands / microbes sticking to it.

Most of the others all apear fine, and don't show any signs..

(My sand is something to do with it..)

I keep getting the said orange algea on my sand bed which resembles diatoms; if it's left to accumulate it clouds the water up..
I often use filterwool to capture the waterborne fines when they build up, although it's now becoming more prolonged and quicker to re establish itself..
Sometimes I have to syphon it out and water change... but I feel it comes back quicker the more cleaning up I do..

I suffered dino in my previous tank, (NOT THIS TANK MY OLD ONE) so I've seen the damage that did to sps when I had it..I'm not suggesting it's that because I've not yet seen any snotty slime or bubbles that usually give it away: what I have seen is the similarity in the effect on sps tip damage when I had them..

The tank is 5 month old.. low phos 0.024ppm & 0.25 ppm no3
KH is 9.5 stable.
I don't dose anything just feed plenty of food to the fish and occasional reefriods.

Would any of you guys/girls have anything relative that you could make comment on to help me out..

I have no idea on what to do with this to get rid of it..

View attachment 373488

Looks to me like a secondary algae bloom. This would go along with a phosphate spike. If the algae is growing rapidly you will get a false positive on a phos test.

Lessen the light cycle and do a water change. See how they respond to that.


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[Livingjewels]

I waterchanged about 15% last Friday, and took a large proportion of the orange mulm in the tank.
It was horrifically dirty.

The sand was pristine white after that but then after a day or two the orange on the surface was back the same.


I'm trying to work out why the tips on the sps are deteriorating around the tip?

 

[mcgyvr]

Frankly your tank is still new and really IMO SPS corals don't belong in a new tank..
Your rocks are insanely green and you are clearly still having "new tank" algae issues..

IMO you need to ensure all parameters stay stable and in recommended ranges.. Maybe let alk get a little lower.. Shoot for 8.5 and see how that goes.. Then keep up with 20% weekly water changes..

May want to increase flow in the tank too..

 

[firefly73]

id have to agree with mcgyvr (god i hope you have a mullet haircut)

at 5 months with those parameters its suprising to see green algae.

without knowing all the details id suggest possible causes
high/med alk (9.5) combined with high light. tip burn can be a issue.
high light (bright green algae on the bottom rock. perhaps causing heat burn (know idea of depth of sps etc.
low flow around sps and sand leading to detritus build up
uneaten foods
ammonia spikes due to poor bio filtering
poor skimming
too many fish
high temps
large ph swing from day to night
and the list goes on.

your rock really should be just the lightest shade ting of green. any more can inhibit coraline .

id test ammonia and nitrite , halve feeding, double water changes, check temps , lower alk (does smaller more often) reduce light period for the time being, lower cal , increase flow around tank , wet skim for awhile , remove as much as possible of the algae.

 

[airwaybill]

I missed the 5 month part. Yes...very new tank for sps and you are probably getting burn from the high alk combined with high reading of other levels.

Agree with all said above. Need to get all params stable and in control along with the algae.

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[zsuman101]

Tank is too young, really low nutrients with a pretty high alk can cause tip burn. Good luck n stuff...zsu

 

[Livingjewels]

Thanks for the responses all,

Please could it be explained what the difference is between a tank of 5 months and one that's been running for much longer..

I'm getting what you mean in regards to balancing out the the water parameters and the need for stability; I've watched various phases of the tank maturing and settling out..it does seem to be getting better in terms of cleanliness because at one point I had hairy looking rock...then sand... then the rear glass...

After carbondosing early on this eventually went, I had secondary phases of cyano form in spots on my rock.. again this phased out as I raised nutrients and added fish..

My rock is deceiving to your eye on the photo... it's not as green as I make it look; in order to capture the yellow look in my sand I had to alter the spectrum on my radion to 10 k.. the blue makes the photo show the sand as a red reflectance which wasn't the way of getting you to see my problem..
So the rocks in general are grey coloured with the odd tuft of Gha in places.

In summary the rest of my sps are rowing well, they are in reasonable flow and around 600 mm to the light and sit roughly 200mm to 400 mm below the surface.

I've used small doses of lananthanum chloride to reduce/ maintain low levels of po4, nitrate generally doesn't rise, although I agree that will be used up as soon as it's produced by Gha.

 

[airwaybill]

Thanks for the responses all,

Please could it be explained what the difference is between a tank of 5 months and one that's been running for much longer..

I'm getting what you mean in regards to balancing out the the water parameters and the need for stability; I've watched various phases of the tank maturing and settling out..it does seem to be getting better in terms of cleanliness because at one point I had hairy looking rock...then sand... then the rear glass...

After carbondosing early on this eventually went, I had secondary phases of cyano form in spots on my rock.. again this phased out as I raised nutrients and added fish..

My rock is deceiving to your eye on the photo... it's not as green as I make it look; in order to capture the yellow look in my sand I had to alter the spectrum on my radion to 10 k.. the blue makes the photo show the sand as a red reflectance which wasn't the way of getting you to see my problem..
So the rocks in general are grey coloured with the odd tuft of Gha in places.

In summary the rest of my sps are rowing well, they are in reasonable flow and around 600 mm to the light and sit roughly 200mm to 400 mm below the surface.

I've used small doses of lananthanum chloride to reduce/ maintain low levels of po4, nitrate generally doesn't rise, although I agree that will be used up as soon as it's produced by Gha.

Generally speaking, a tank with "age" will be more stable. Meaning, it will be less likely to spike in nutrient, bacterial and chemical levels. This stability is important in the care and housing of more delicate species, i.e. sps corals.

With that being said a tank of 5 months is not going to be any where near as stable as a tank of say 1 to 2 years. The timeframe is debatable but most would agree that until you reach a plateau with your levels and maintain them for a lengthy period of time, months or more, you should avoid said corals.

Only problem is you already have them. So, do whatever you can to get that stability, so the health and color of these corals are at their best. If you are persistent and monitor things I feel you can achieve this.

Good luck!

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[firefly73]

IMO NEVER STOP START C DOSING AS A TREATMENT FOR NO3 OR P04 AS A SPOT TREATMENT ETC. THAT MAYBE A CAUSE OF SOME OR ALL OF THE ISSUES. pls read up about how it actually works and results of misuse

to further the tank only 5 months old query

younger tanks have younger owners as well. dont take that the wrong way!!!! but experience can be the defining point between healthy or crash.

i had lots of knowledge before i had a salt tank but quickly realised there are so many little things we all do that we dont write up or even know we are doing.

my current tank got its first sps acro inside of 6 weeks however the sump had been running for 2 months before and its a large tank. makes it easy.........well easier!!! lol. colour was lost on most frags and colonies why ? no idea but if i changed alot of water id see a improvemnt for a week or so. then slowly slide back to brown out. i knew that maintaining colour wasnt really a possibility so i kept the tank clean and balanced, 3 weeks later i saw a positive change in colour. did a water change and then then the tank went backwards!!! a reverse of the previous issue. there are so many variables in salt water then add co2 additives and other exotics no wonder it takes months to settle into a middle ground.

plus a new tank is subject to fiddling. that can really p off a coral.

your radions combined with 9.5 alk would likely be the cause of tip losses.

esp if sps are high in the tank . they are coral killers unless treated very carefully. some corals can take weeks if not months to adjust to them and other light sources (leds seem to be worse than mh imo)

 

[Livingjewels]

Found a few things wrong as a quick update..

Calcium reactor at 9.5 found that a lot of dissolved carbonate was entering the DT.. that caused quite severe clouding of the water.

I dosed some continuum bacteria m and clean M... this cleared my sand and water

I also introduces ozone which I keep on at a very low level.. the tank as now greatly improved..
Even some of my damaged coral are coming back..

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

younger tanks have younger owners as well. dont take that the wrong way!!!! but experience can be the defining point between healthy or crash

I agree with this, generally. There's no specific reason why SPS can't thrive in a very young tank, waiting until the tank is "old" is just as much (if not more) about waiting until the owner has learned the nuances of the tank and how to keep it stable.

I also don't mean for you to take this the wrong way, but it sounds like this is a case in point. If your calcium reactor is dumping too much into the display, that's almost certainly why you were having the SPS tissue loss. Not because the tank was "only" 5 months old.

Coral don't know if the system has been up for 5 years or 5 minutes, but if alkalinity suddenly skyrockets before settling back down, or there's a ton of reactor effluent making the water cloudy, or whatever - those are the things that matter. And those things can happen when the tank is 5 days old or 5 years - it's the owner that needs to "mature" in the sense of understanding the equipment and knowing if it is set up appropriately.

Livingjewels, I'm glad your tank is doing better. I'm directing this post as much at the community as I am at you. I understand the whole "wait until a tank is mature" argument but I really wish people would put in the effort to talk about stability, getting used to your equipment, getting used to your water change and dosing schedules, making sure your flow and lighting are dialed in, and other actual important factors - instead of just acting like a tank will magically be perfect for SPS once it hits a certain age, which is complete BS.