New monti cap fading

[paulsz]

Hi all,

 

Pretty new to SPS. Got frags of purple monti cap and reeftech starburst monti cap as well. Both came from the same tank, which had 6 T5s. The corals in the tank were fairly close to the surface (maybe 6" below the top of the water).

 

My tank is 18" on all sides (35g cube). Ive got an AI prime HD. Ramps up for 3 hours, stay on of 5 hours then ramp down for 3 hours. I placed the purple monti about 9" from the top, right in the center. The starburst is 11" from the top. 

 

They were put in about a week ago. The purple seems fine.  The starburst is fading. The polyps on the starburst are extending, but not much. 

 

Water parameters are as follows:

SG 1.025

Temp 78-79

Alk 8.6dkh

Cal 440

Mg 1500

Phos 0.03

Nitrates 2.5 

 

Do I move the starburst to a lower location? Most threads say a fading montti is due to high lights but I'm not sure if moving it a week after getting it will cause even more stress

 

 

 

 

 

[paulsz]

Screenshot of settings

[Tired]

Definitely move it. It's being stressed by too much light, so you need less light on it. It's often recommended to put new frags, especially SPS, on your sandbed to be sure they have time to get used to your lighting. Especially with such bright lights.

 

Alternately, you could lower your lights and then very slowly raise them, but that would disturb your other corals rather than just the one.

[RedCrow]

Corals MUST be acclimated to LED lighting. Move it to the shade and slowly move it up 

[GetPsyched2124]

depending on what other corals you already have in there and their lighting needs, you could just run the acclimation mode on your AI prime.

 

If you have a bunch of other softies that wouldn't have an issue with the lighting intensity being lowered a bit for a couple weeks, then acclimation mode will be the easiest option. it'll keep you from having to put your hands in the tank/moving the coral any more and it'll provide a steady gradual increase back to your normal settings.

 

the corals, going from T5s only to LED's will need to acclimate, like everyone else said.

[paulsz]

Okay I will set it to acclimation mode for a few weeks. The other corals are softies that will do fine with the lower lights

 

Thanks everyone!

[mcarroll]

On 12/8/2019 at 10:38 PM, paulsz said:

Phos 0.03

Nitrates 2.5

It's troubles are probably hinging on these VERY low nutrient levels. 

 

If your tank is very stable and mature, then low levels like these may not be a problem. 

 

But in a new tank where far less nutrient recycling goes on, the tank's development is much more dependent on ready availability of dissolved nutrients.

 

New corals going through photo-acclimation/-adaptation will have a larger demand than existing, established corals.

 

If you're doing anything to keep nutrient levels that low, stop. 

 

At least for a while until levels get to more reasonable levels....say around 0.10 ppm for phosphate and 5-10 ppm (or more) for nitrates. 

 

Things to stop would include chemical media, extra bio-media, organic carbon dosing, excessive water changes, an active macro algae refugium, et al.

 

The troubles you described could be viewed as light-related, but those kinds of troubles also hinge on low phosphate levels (in particular, but also nitrate). 

 

IMO if your corals came from a tank with 6 T5's and they were just under the surface, you aren't hitting them with any more light than that in your tank with your light.  (Use a light meter...even a free app...to measure your lights and their lights for a comparison vs guessing like we are.)

 

So, IMO, the issue for your new corals is more about the lack of nutrients and related troubles, such as:

1. making the proteins for photo-adaptation
2. repairing from damage during non-adapated photosynthesis
3. the basic need of phosphate during photosynthesis itself
4. all the other basic essential uses of phosphates across the animal and it's symbionts

These activities are all VITAL and all take LOTS of nitrogen and phosphorous.

[paulsz]

14 hours ago, mcarroll said:

If your tank is very stable and mature, then low levels like these may not be a problem.

I'm not doing anything, unfortunately. I've battled dinos last year and that was a good 6 months of just getting the tank dirty as hell. As a matter of fact, I dose seachem nitrogen (once a month) and seachem phosphorus (twice a week) to keep the levels from dropping any further. 

 

All I have in this tank is a yellow clown goby and a bicolor blenny. Very little poop being generated. 

 

I've dropped the lights and it looks a little better after two days. But I've noticed a bit of "leftover" dinos growing on the edge of the monti. Must've died in that area. I blew off the dinos with a turkey baster. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

 

[mcarroll]

How long has it been since you've noticed a dino outbreak before this?

 

How long has it been since nutrient levels returned to these lower levels?

 

Seems like you have room to feed those little fish more often if you want.   Hard to feed them more at once since they can only eat so much and will miss a lot....so more frequent feedings are often better.  Consider an auto-feeder like the Eheim to dose a small amount of flakes or pellets if you're not around enough to facilitate more feedings per day.   Eheim's feedSTATION or another feeding ring to go with the auto-feeder (and the dry food) wouldn't be a bad idea.

[paulsz]

Quote

How long has it been since you've noticed a dino outbreak before this?

It was the only outbreak i had. It started about 8 months after i got the tank. In those 8 months I had absolutely no nitrate or phosphate readings (hence the dino takeover). I dirtied the tank up for a good 6+ months until the algae was sufficient enough to outcompete the dinos. The long strands of dino left, but there's still leftover "fuzz" on the rocks. I'm debating turkey basting it off as much as possible, but I worry I would be spreading it around some more. 

 

4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

How long has it been since nutrient levels returned to these lower levels?

 

The only time the levels were higher was during my dinos battle. At which point nitrates when to 5ppm and phosphates were up to 1 ppm (after a 3 day blackout that I attempted to do).  Since then, it's always been nitrate between 1-2.5 and phosphates between 0.03-0.05 (it drops back down to 0 every so often but I try to get it up asap. I test once a week.

 

4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Seems like you have room to feed those little fish more often if you want.   Hard to feed them more at once since they can only eat so much and will miss a lot....so more frequent feedings are often better.  Consider an auto-feeder like the Eheim to dose a small amount of flakes or pellets if you're not around enough to facilitate more feedings per day.   Eheim's feedSTATION or another feeding ring to go with the auto-feeder (and the dry food) wouldn't be a bad idea.

I had set up an eheim autofeeder but i believe a large amount of the food went to waste. A couple of weeks after setting it up, the bristleworm population exploded. So I'm guessing a large amount of food would and be "wasted". I try to feed twice a day now. Once I get home, then again before bed.

[Tired]

Most reef fish will gladly eat when offered food. If food is going to waste, that means they were fed too much at once, not too often.

[paulsz]

38 minutes ago, Tired said:

Most reef fish will gladly eat when offered food. If food is going to waste, that means they were fed too much at once, not too often.

I had the eheim autofeeder open to the smallest slot, and had it blocked further with a piece of paper taped to it. The dry food i was using was small algae pellets (for the bicolor blenny) and a lot was still coming out. 

 

Maybe i'll test it with flakes or a different sized food. The issue is that the pellets one size up are too big for them.

[Candymancan]

I wont make a long post on what youre doing wrong so ill make it simple.

 

Your phosphates and nitrates are dangerously low. And 1500ppm of magnesium is too high.  Drop the mag to 1300-1400 and raise your nitrates to 10-20 and stop checking and using gfo to remove your phosphates.. 

 

Trust me sps and lps love dirty tanks.  I use 0 sumps.. no skimmer.  No gfo.. i use a 4 bulb t5 fixture on my 135.. i have 60+ coral species and probably 30 are sps. Including 4 colors of plating monti and 10 or so diff acroporas.   The rest are just regular montis.   

 

I have my plating montis on a rock wall in the corner of my tank..  they are bout 20 inchs down to 10 inchs down and they all grow equally.

 

My nitrates are 40ppm and phosphates are .25ppm.  Nitrates i try to keep at 20. But ive been feeding alot to fatten up a skinny long nose butterfly i have.  Not worried about 40ppm though.

 

As for dinos i cant give advice on that.  I have dinos but its confined to the sand bed. Never really went on my rocks and bothered anything so i just leave it alone.

 

This is my tank you can see my monti plates on the left.  Those were all from colonies i had.. i just redid my tank so i broke the colonies up and glued em on that big rock.. and put some in my other tank.  So it was much larger but yea.

 

 

[paulsz]

6 hours ago, Candymancan said:

Your phosphates and nitrates are dangerously low. And 1500ppm of magnesium is too high.  Drop the mag to 1300-1400 and raise your nitrates to 10-20 and stop checking and using gfo to remove your phosphates.. 

 

Not sure how to lower the mag. I don't dose it and it's coming in high from my salt (fritz rpm). I also don't do waterchanges anymore (I've done maybe 15 gallons in the last 6 months and only because I had to use medication. 

 

I don't use gfo. I'm dosing both nitrate and phosphate. I've been dosing about 0.15ppm worth a week to get it stay at 0.03 or 0.05. I'll up it moving forward. And I'm increase my nitrates too