potatowned Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Picked up my first SPS this past weekend. It's looked good for the most part, but today I came home and half of it was bone white. The other half looks normal. I assume that this is bleaching? Should I lower my light intensity or my photo period? Or both? Will it affect my other corals? http://m.imgur.com/obKDphr Link to comment
RollaJase Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 Sorry to say but the left half of the piece looks almost completely dead and the right half is definitely not happy. It doesn't look like bleaching to me, looks more like RTN (Rapid Tissue Nercrosis). RTN can be caused by a number of things. Light, water quality, contaminents etc. Without some water parameters and some info on the light, intensity, height from water and coral it is a little hard to say for sure. Link to comment
potatowned Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 OK well my water quality is pretty good: Nitrate: 5-10ppm Calcium: 450 Alk: 11 dKh 78° 1.025 salinity I don't have a phosphate test, but I run a tiny bit of gfo in my fuge, along with chaeto and carbon. I don't have any fish and I rarely feed, just a tiny bit of Coral Frenzy maybe once a week. The light is a tough one. Its a 120 watt full spectrum LED, which I was running at about 50% power for blues, 40% whites. Its pretty high above the tank however, approximately 16 inches. The coral itself I bought from a guy at a local reef expo this weekend. He was saying that the coral is a stylophora pistillata. Link to comment
Red_Blenny Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 OK well my water quality is pretty good: Nitrate: 5-10ppm Calcium: 450 Alk: 11 dKh 78° 1.025 salinity I don't have a phosphate test, but I run a tiny bit of gfo in my fuge, along with chaeto and carbon. I don't have any fish and I rarely feed, just a tiny bit of Coral Frenzy maybe once a week. The light is a tough one. Its a 120 watt full spectrum LED, which I was running at about 50% power for blues, 40% whites. Its pretty high above the tank however, approximately 16 inches. The coral itself I bought from a guy at a local reef expo this weekend. He was saying that the coral is a stylophora pistillata. Since you rarely feed + gfo + cheato, I think your phosphate level is at zero. You might have too clean of a water, despite your 5-10ppm nitrate. Since your water is clean, your alk is way to high. I'd say bring your alk down somewhere to 8-7dkH. How old is your tank? Link to comment
potatowned Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 It is approximately 3 months old. I've measured my dKH at 8-9 in the past, but I did water change Monday and tested yesterday. Link to comment
Red_Blenny Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 It is approximately 3 months old. I've measured my dKH at 8-9 in the past, but I did water change Monday and tested yesterday. When do you test your alk? When testing alk, you generally do it within the same time (I test my alk every week or so around 11pm. I never test my alk at any other time). Link to comment
potatowned Posted April 11, 2014 Author Share Posted April 11, 2014 When do you test your alk? When testing alk, you generally do it within the same time (I test my alk every week or so around 11pm. I never test my alk at any other time).I didn't know that! I just tested it whenever.Anyways, the coral is definitely dead now. Its white and there is tissue coming off of it. Should I remove it from the tank? I've read that I can RTN can spread, but I've also read people say to just leave it in the tank. How stable are your parms?Pretty stable I think. The only thing that fluctuates much is calcium and alk. It is highest right after I dose and it drops slowly until I dose again. Link to comment
Red_Blenny Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 I didn't know that! I just tested it whenever. Anyways, the coral is definitely dead now. Its white and there is tissue coming off of it. Should I remove it from the tank? I've read that I can RTN can spread, but I've also read people say to just leave it in the tank. Hard to say RTN can spread. IMO, I believe that RTN is a sign of tank conditions. The reason why some people say to leave it in the tank is because there might be a tiny patch of tissue of the receding SPS somehow survived the STN process. Pretty stable I think. The only thing that fluctuates much is calcium and alk. It is highest right after I dose and it drops slowly until I dose again. Are you dosing? How much are you dosing and what corals do you have? Link to comment
Mstefa1 Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Pretty stable I think. The only thing that fluctuates much is calcium and alk. It is highest right after I dose and it drops slowly until I dose again. What is your parms b4 dosing and after? How stable is stable? Several small doses is better than 1 large dose. Link to comment
potatowned Posted April 14, 2014 Author Share Posted April 14, 2014 Hard to say RTN can spread. IMO, I believe that RTN is a sign of tank conditions. The reason why some people say to leave it in the tank is because there might be a tiny patch of tissue of the receding SPS somehow survived the STN process. Are you dosing? How much are you dosing and what corals do you have? OK well I left the SPS in and everything else looks fine. The SPS is bone white. Copopods seem to like it since they are always hanging out on it. It actually looks kind of nice. I dose Seachem brand calcium and alkalinity. each capful (5mL) i think is supposed to bring up my calcium 50mL. I will dose it if it drops to around 350, since I want to keep my calcium up over 400. I wont dose alk if I am at 8 or 9. What is your parms b4 dosing and after? How stable is stable? Several small doses is better than 1 large dose. I mix in the calcium with some fresh water and add it when I top off. My calcium will jump 50 ppm at a time. Link to comment
jestep Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Fluctuating ALK and SPS don't go together. Also, definitely get someone with a Hanna PO4 or other precision test to test your PO4. No point making assumptions about it. The rock could be leaching PO4 even. Is your temp stable throughout the day? Link to comment
jservedio Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Fluctuating ALK and SPS don't go together. Also, definitely get someone with a Hanna PO4 or other precision test to test your PO4. No point making assumptions about it. The rock could be leaching PO4 even. Is your temp stable throughout the day? ^ This. Alkalinity swings are a killer for acro. You want your Alkalinity to be stable to within one dKh consistently and any changes need to be made very, very slowly. Anything more than a 1/2 a dKH in a single day - and even that is really bad if that happening frequently - just isn't acceptable for acros. You can have a "whoops" every once and a while moving a dKH in a day - but that has to be very far and few between and even a single "oops" can spell death for your acros. Going from 8 to 11 dKH is fine if you are doing it over the course of months - but doing that over a week, every week, is a recipe for disaster. With Alkalinity spikes, there is no way you are going to keep acro alive - you need to get that under control by either doing more water changes so you don't have to dose, or dosing small amounts every day. You will need to be testing your alkalinity daily if you want to know what your usage is so you can dose or do water changes appropriately. Once it is stable, than you can test weekly like normal. Link to comment
Reefpro Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 My money says the tank it came from and your tank are way different in alk levels. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.