Temperature extremes on the reef

[karimwassef]

My concern isn't that it dipped below 70. It's that it's a sustained chill in the 60s for several days now

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None of the fish are floating dead and the coral looks normal but I don't think we'll know until the temperature returns and they "thaw" out - that's where the biological crisis controls stop and damage shows up. Like having fingers and toes visible but frostbite will manifest afterwards.

 

[Timfish]

Well, at this point it's a wait and see. You might see some problems in a week or a month. It would be very educational for all of us if you could post the corals you have, descriptions of how they look and pictures of the individual colonies (weekly would be nice ).

 

[Kevin Guthrie]

Cover with double-wall poly polycarbonate? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Sunlite-24-in-x-96-in-Polycarbonate-Clear-Twinwall-Roof-Panel-132506/202091947

 

[karimwassef]

Pictures tomorrow. The largest green acro is bleached white.

 

[Timfish]

Very sorry to hear that!

 

[karimwassef]

Thanks. Bleached isn't the same as dead... we'll see what happens

 

[karimwassef]

So all fish and inverts look to have survived
Surprisingly, the largest coral colonies died but the smallest seam to have weathered it ok. It did vary significantly by species.

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The two largest losses were a large green acro and large green hydnophora. The green slimer also died.

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And some smaller pieces died too but all the tricolor acropora seems to have made it. I don't know it being large creates a burden on survival that smaller colonies don't contend with?

All birdsnest seemed dead. The stylophora seems to have preferentially jettisoned some polyps. The satosa looks ok but it may have gotten preferential heating since it was literally under the heater. The monti cap looks fine.

My small brain coral and pocillopora look ok.

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[karimwassef]

Oh.. all the softies I've been trying to kill are GREAT! Xenia and GSP and buttons are happy as a clam...

So, my conclusion (so far) is that some coral are less susceptible to these extremes.

Monti cap & setosa
Tricolor acro & other acros
Closed brain
Pocillopora
All softies I had

Some had to take drastic actions like the stylophora

And some couldn't weather

Green acro
Hydnophora
Green Slimer
Birdsnest

This is after three days (and nights) in 60-66F

No fish or invert deaths

Painful but an interesting learning

 

[karimwassef]

Complicating unknowns..

With the low temperatures came darkness ... this actually persisted for a few days before the event leading to nearly a week of cloudy sub-200 peak PAR days compared to a usual 1600-1800 peak PAR.

Also- (admitting to my own stupidity here), the water line, kalk reactor and RO were too close to the door and far from the warmth of the greenhouse... the result is that the lines froze and the RO exploded (yes, really).

The result was that pH dropped hard and swung all over the place with no kalk additions and I expect Alk dropped too. pH went from a steady 8.34 to swinging between 7.8 and 8.2... I didn't measure Alk before restarting everything yesterday (doh!) but the damage was done by then.

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[karimwassef]

I wish I could have fixed the Kalk to isolate the drivers of mortality but it was sub 20 and the greenhouse is remote

If I'd gone out, my wife would have been "unhappy".

So sorry about that but that's the data.

I have a few videos before and after that I'll post soon.

 

[Timfish]

I realize it may not be much consolation but it is educational and important data.
Can you give more info on the specific species or varieties or color morphs of each colony? Research looks at how corals react to increasing temperature so data in response to reduced temperatures is scarce.

Some of the differences could be different clades of zooxanthellae, even in the same colony. We know corals "learn" thier environment and the same colony may have areas with different responses even though DNA testing shows the same zooxanthellae.

We know stress events alters a corals holobiont and genomics testing has shown the different genotypes of a species have different resistance or immunities to increases in pathogenic bacteria. Any information you can give would be helpful.

 

[karimwassef]

Sure. It seems that all the green only corals died. The hydnophora, acro and slimer... the birsdnest was brown with green polyps. All the pink, purple, brown , red & multicolor are ok. Interesting comnection to color... I had that data but didn't make the connection. Grief can be a distraction

Thanks for pointing that out

On the softies, the GSP seems ok though. I had green mushrooms that were becoming a plague and I had removed most during the transfer... I don't recall seeing any after the freeze... hmmm

 

[karimwassef]

This tank will likely hit high 80s to 90s in the summer... so we'll learn a lot together.

 

[karimwassef]

Second day post freeze.. no big changes but confirmed that green SPS all died. Green softies stil there.

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[karimwassef]

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[karimwassef]

I am not planning on removing the dead for another month or so... mostly out of curiosity... I don't have hair algae, so I think they'll turn green with burrowing algae that only parrotfish can get at.

By the way, all the coral that died had frags in friends' tanks that are fine so I could regenerate them. Given their poor survivability, I don't think it's prudent until spring.

 

[karimwassef]

So apparently there's GFP (green fluorescent protein) that scientists are looking to correlate with coral thermal stress tolerance...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3594756/

 

[Timfish]

Yeah, that's the only paper I've so far found that specifically looked at cold stress on a coral. Acropora yuongii makes lots of GFP and maybe melanine as the only colors I see in it are green and brown which maybe why the researchers used it. It would be interesting to see how other FPs react in identical experiments. One of the intriguing responses is shown in fig. 2 where the flourescence increased even though the GFP was significantly reduced in the heat stressed examples.

 

[Subsea]

Karim,
Considering the extreme temperature fluctuations on our outdoor mariculture systems, I have been in contact with mariculture technicians from AgriLife Texas A&M Corporate Extension Service at Flour Bluff below Corpus Christi. Without a doubt, adding underground storage capacity will dampen out temperature fluctuations. Considering that it took 1000W of resistive heat to hold temperature at 54.8 degrees against four days below 32 degrees. I will deeply bury a 1500G tank into the ground and couple it to three 150G Rubbermade tanks in ground and a seaweed growout of Gracilaria Tikvahiae for a pilot study here in Austin on Red Ogo market as a Super Food. I will grow out grass shrimp, Palaemonetes vulgaris in Rubbermade system and pump thru 40W UV Sterilizer.

https://www.livebrineshrimp.com/ShrimpJanitor.htm

Considering 1000W of resistive heat as a standing expense each cold winter month of $72, I will bite the bullet with a one time expense to eliminate monthly heating and cooling expenses.

I say, bring the cold down. I am tired of all the bugs eating up my garden.

 

[Subsea]

I agree. Some people advertise GFO and GFO reactors as something that needs to be used in all tanks 24/7. But imo GFO is one of those compounds that should only be used if you are battling extremely high phosphates (or extreme algae growth). And this should only happen in new tanks that the rock or sand leaches Phosphate. If you need to use GFO in a mature tank, you are either overfeeding or dont have enough filtration.

Most of the explainable issues with corals can be traced back to over reduction of phosphate and/or an unbalance of nitrate and phosphate (N/P unbalance, mainly high N but trace P, is something that is rarely discussed by, in my experience is one of the main suspects for SPS bleaching). All this is tanks to over-advertisement of GFO.

GFO even cause nitrates to increase because it cause P to become a limiting factor for bacterial growth. And since we dont have a media that can strip water of N like GFO does for P, it causes the high N, trace P situation I explained above.

The point that Timfish made is drowned out by vendors and their fans. To further make the point about phosphate as a necessary component to organic life forms, every organic complex compound will have phosphate holding the molecules chained together. Why break the chains that mature our reef tanks?

While my reef keeping style would not agree with someone operating a low nutrient SPS tank, I choose to feed heavy and supply abundant nutrients to grow biomass. If some unsightly algae or cynobacteria were to grow because of the excess nutrients, then I would weed my garden. Either I would pull it or get an appropriate janitor.