Mitten_reef’s IM30L

[specore]

That sucks

[HarryPotter]

😞 

 

Was it the BTA? 

[DaveFason]

Ugh. 

 

Curious, was that colony receiving a good amount of flow? In my old 35g years ago I had two ~ softball to salad plate size colonies of bird nest. One STN randomly one night after receiving less flow over the course of a few weeks. Or at least all I could think of. 

 

Regardless, kick in a balls. Maybe the unknown colorful acro can take its place?

[mitten_reef]

42 minutes ago, ninjamyst said:

I feel your pain.  I just threw out my birdsnest colony the size of a basketball.  Grew it out from a 2 inch frag over 3 years.  Sigh.  My purple stylo is starting to STN all over too...

Thnx. This guy was grown from a tiny 2” frag from CR too.  

25 minutes ago, specore said:

That sucks

Thnx man

18 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

😞 

 

Was it the BTA? 

Don’t think that it was the BTA. They look close to each other in that second pic, but they had been separated for a while (months). The only change was me putting the hawkins frag in the middle of the BoP colony the weekend before last. I thought I had a cool frag rack idea, oops.

Hawkins is also becoming another casualty of coral war, I think. It’s all pale brown last night, it was its usual steely blue green the night before that. 

10 minutes ago, DaveFason said:

Ugh. 

 

Curious, was that colony receiving a good amount of flow? In my old 35g years ago I had two ~ softball to salad plate size colonies of bird nest. One STN randomly one night after receiving less flow over the course of a few weeks. Or at least all I could think of. 

 

Regardless, kick in a balls. Maybe the unknown colorful acro can take its place?

Flow - no change. Light - maybe, increase to fast? Can’t tell, nothing seems adversely affected. 

[DaveFason]

I would say hold off on increasing any light for the next month. 

[specore]

4 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Flow - no change. Light - maybe, increase to fast? Can’t tell, nothing seems adversely affected. 

I was wondering about the light...what %'s are you running now anyway?

[mitten_reef]

10 minutes ago, specore said:

I was wondering about the light...what %'s are you running now anyway?

50% blue’s violet

40% mint

20% white 

midday - 4 hours. 

[DaveFason]

2 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

50% blue’s violet

40% mint

20% white 

midday - 4 hours. 

FYI that is a TON of blue/violet spectrum over the tank. 

 

Did you happen to try no white and supplementing with a higher mint output? 

[mitten_reef]

Here’s the hawkins this morning

 

unknown acro that was near/touching the birdnest is in the RTN mode this morning too. Saw a little tip burn last night, more similar to typical coral touching issue. 

 

 

Went ahead and checked alk last night anyway in case it wasn’t coral warfare, ~6.5-6.7. It did take a bit of a dive, if you consider over the course of almost two weeks a dive. It was near 10 around two weeks ago. 

Been really busy with work, didn’t have time to monitor the alk change properly as I’m ramping up the light intensity. 

I think I’m giving up on trying to get growth for the acro grow out contest, not gonna ramp up the tank any more. 

 

[mitten_reef]

5 minutes ago, DaveFason said:

FYI that is a TON of blue/violet spectrum over the tank. 

 

Did you happen to try no white and supplementing with a higher mint output? 

I’ve always liked white, opposite to most ppl 😊. And I haven’t had much of an algae problem, if any. So white is not “growing” algae in my tank. 

I’m thinking of backing of the blues/Violet about 5% 

[Travis]

4 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

Went ahead and checked alk last night anyway in case it wasn’t coral warfare, ~6.5-6.7. It did take a bit of a dive, if you consider over the course of almost two weeks a dive. It was near 10 around two weeks ago.

There's your smoking gun.  Sorry to hear 😞

[mitten_reef]

4 minutes ago, Travis said:

There's your smoking gun.  Sorry to hear 😞

Hope you’re not right. Have my fingers crossed that isn’t the case cuz I’d be in for a long week 😱

[Travis]

What is your NO3 levels running?

 

From what I have seen...

 

Higher levels of NO3 and higher levels of Alk are fine, but if you have High NO3 and Low Alk, bad results follow.

 

The same is is true for high Alk and Low or 0 NO3, bad results.

[mitten_reef]

5 minutes ago, Travis said:

What is your NO3 levels running?

 

From what I have seen...

 

Higher levels of NO3 and higher levels of Alk are fine, but if you have High NO3 and Low Alk, bad results follow.

 

The same is is true for high Alk and Low or 0 NO3, bad results.

oh?  Only heard of the very last one.  I haven't tested nitrate in forever - will take a look at it tonight.  FWIW, I don't run any nitrate remover AT ALL for at least a month now - if not two.  No purigen, no skimmer, nada. In my InTank basket, is just basic phosphate and carbon pads , nothing fancy.   

 

Is it possible that my tank got "too clean" suddenly after water change and changing out floss on Saturday night?

[DaveFason]

Dropping ALK in a short time from 10 - 6.5. That is the ticket. 

[A Little Blue]

14 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

FML, one step forward, 3 steps back 😖

good bye BoP, hopefully some frags of you survives  

What you once were:

Welp, I’m starting to solve my tank real estate issue - just RTN the big colonies every couple of months, and soon I’ll have an empty tank to start from scratch. Yay! 

 

4 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

I feel your pain.  I just threw out my birdsnest colony the size of a basketball.  Grew it out from a 2 inch frag over 3 years.  Sigh.  My purple stylo is starting to STN all over too...

Any clues what caused it? 

 

Sorry to hear about your colony getting wiped out. 

[A Little Blue]

BTW Alk drop could have been an issue but,I had my Alk dropped from 9.5 to 6.5 in a matter of week without catastrophic aftereffect.

[mitten_reef]

9 hours ago, A Little Blue said:

BTW Alk drop could have been an issue but,I had my Alk dropped from 9.5 to 6.5 in a matter of week without catastrophic aftereffect.

I really don't think the sliding of alk over two-plus weeks would be catastrophic either.  I always insist that corals are more resilient that what we give them credits for.  

 

so far the casualties are still limited to the 3 that were semi at-war with each other.  So that could be an added stressor to whatever else they weren't happy with. 

[A Little Blue]

4 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

I really don't think the sliding of alk over two-plus weeks would be catastrophic either.  I always insist that corals are more resilient that what we give them credits for.  

 

so far the casualties are still limited to the 3 that were semi at-war with each other.  So that could be an added stressor to whatever else they weren't happy with. 

Wounded coral is prone to bacterial infection that can end it super quickly. 

I hope it stops at 3. 

[specore]

14 minutes ago, micoastreefing said:

I really don't think the sliding of alk over two-plus weeks would be catastrophic either.  I always insist that corals are more resilient that what we give them credits for.  

 

so far the casualties are still limited to the 3 that were semi at-war with each other.  So that could be an added stressor to whatever else they weren't happy with. 

I was actually thinking about this when I was acclimating my new additions today.  My alk is running on the high side at 10-10.5 and most likely the LFS tanks are closer to 8-9.  Seems if corals were as sensitive as we think they are we would have to spend weeks acclimating them instead of floating them for 20 minutes.    

[A Little Blue]

3 minutes ago, specore said:

I was actually thinking about this when I was acclimating my new additions today.  My alk is running on the high side at 10-10.5 and most likely the LFS tanks are closer to 8-9.  Seems if corals were as sensitive as we think they are we would have to spend weeks acclimating them instead of floating them for 20 minutes.    

I have received SPS shipped priority mail without issues. You can imagine Alk swings during that trip. Lol 

 

 

[A Little Blue]

BTW during my 6 day trip my Alk dropped from 9.5 to 6.8 (I didn’t trust my cheap doser that needs constant recalibration. So I took it off line) and now (few days later is back up to 7.9. 

No issues whatsoever. As if I never left. 😉

[Cannedfish]

That's a huge bummer man. Really feeling your pain right now. Battling STN as well and hoping it doesn't spread. Similarly, I haven't had anything happen out of the no ordinary which makes things harder to accept. 

[Polarcollision]

If it makes you feel any better about the loses, I have a “collage” of mini colony skeletons on my bathroom display shelf. 

[mitten_reef]

so just got around to look at the tank for the first time today. F-ing BTA walked into a powerhead. ?‍♂️

So far, things seem to be Ok. It didn’t get blended up into smoothie, thank goodness. I just saw a big chunk of remnant being eaten by hermit crabs on the tank floor, scooped it out.  Literally was about to take this one to the LFS tomorrow too. Damn BTAs, they keep splitting.