Acro and birds nest algae?

[twenty12]

I have a birds nest and and acro that have been doing wel and growing. Recently they acquire algae ona few tips. I was thinking it was contact from a Kenya tree coral near by that had gotten big. So I cut about half of it away and the brown spots still exist. I can brush off so seems algae. 

 

Tank in general pretty clean. By high flow. So not sure if casue. Anyone suggestions.  Here are a couple pics of the algae and then general location with pump. 

 

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Burnt tips caused by nutrients being lower than the alkalinity level can handle.

[jservedio]

What's your alk? The whole tort is really light, so I'm guessing higher alk and low nutrients. A tip or two dying isn't a big deal - if you start getting tissue receding from the base or lots of tips dying, that's when you really have issues.

 

I don't see any algae anywhere except the dead skeleton, so bringing up nutrients by feeding more is probably your best bet. If alk is crazy high, you probably want to bring it down a bit.

 

If everything is otherwise healthy, it'll recover very quickly.

[twenty12]

Everything is healthy in tank.  Alk is always low side in my tank but never below 8dkh. Calcium usually 400.  Stays stable as I dose seachum part 1 and part 2. 

 

The white is bleaching. When I switched lights to led hydra26hd I burnt some corals. Adjusted and color is coming back. So it’s not dead skeleton (or so I think) as it has new growth in those areas. 

 

Lights are set to night right now but this picture shows the brown on it. I can brush it off or blow off with water change but comes back.  I’ll try for better picture in morning when lights back on. 

 

You still may be right. What dkh is recommended? Other nutrients I should check? 

[Thrassian Atoll]

What’s your nitrates and phosphates?  

[twenty12]

Ammonia 0. Sometimes .25 if I’m close to my water change date. Nitrite and nitrate always zero.  Phosphate 0. But my test kit is the cheap api one for that. 

 

Salinity 1.25. Temp 77. Ph 8. 

 

Acans, monti (plating and encrusting), other birds nest, hammer, Duncan, zoa, leather all doing well and growing.  

 

These only ones ones with this issue. 

[jservedio]

53 minutes ago, twenty12 said:

Ammonia 0. Sometimes .25 if I’m close to my water change date.

There's your problem. If you have any ammonia that is testable, your tank is still cycling or going through a mini-cycle. SPS ain't got no time for that and the entire lack of nutrients is going to bite you in the ass sooner or later.

 

How old is your tank? Recently add a ton of fish?

[A.m.P]

53 minutes ago, jservedio said:

There's your problem. If you have any ammonia that is testable, your tank is still cycling or going through a mini-cycle. SPS ain't got no time for that and the entire lack of nutrients is going to bite you in the ass sooner or later.

 

How old is your tank? Recently add a ton of fish?

I think, in this case, the api kit is likely giving false-positives on ammonia, but they definitely need to get their P04 and N03 up.

[twenty12]

Tank is probably close to 14 yrs old. No new fish.  My ammonia is essentially zero, if it registers at all it’s around the time im scheduled to do a water change.  I don’t think it’s that as I would have other issues. I just did my Red Sea test and reads zero. I test weekly. 

 

Had to go go to work before I could try for a better pic. But do burnt tips allow you to blow off the brown? It’s not something permanent on the corals hard structure. 

 

 

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

2 hours ago, twenty12 said:

Tank is probably close to 14 yrs old. No new fish.  My ammonia is essentially zero, if it registers at all it’s around the time im scheduled to do a water change.  I don’t think it’s that as I would have other issues. I just did my Red Sea test and reads zero. I test weekly. 

 

Had to go go to work before I could try for a better pic. But do burnt tips allow you to blow off the brown? It’s not something permanent on the corals hard structure. 

 

 

 

The coral will stn if you don’t get your nutrients up.  You need at least registering nitrates and phosphates.  IMO burnt tips are the first sign that something is off.  It’s fixable for sure and the sps can rebound but it will take some time for new skin to grow over the skeleton.

[twenty12]

So lack of nutrients we mean I need nitrates and such to register?  My mind was that the Kenya tree blowing into and touching it may have been causing the issue.  No basis just wondered if coral warefare

[Thrassian Atoll]

Do you have any other sps?

[twenty12]

I have one other acro and it’s perfectly fine

[Thrassian Atoll]

2 hours ago, twenty12 said:

I have one other acro and it’s perfectly fine

Just keep an eye on things.  Nothing will be concrete on what the issue with the sps are.   If you are running 0 nutrients though then alk around 7 is recommended.  Basically your running an ultra low nutrient system. 

[mcarroll]

On 2/18/2020 at 10:04 PM, twenty12 said:

Nitrite and nitrate always zero.  Phosphate 0.

How are you cleaning and filtering the tank?

 

FYI, "burnt tips" never existed in the hobby before folks started running zero nutrient levels like it was a Good Thing(tm). 

 

AFAICT "burnt tips" is simply a term made up by ULNS fans that somehow got traction.   

 

Biologically irrelevant term though.....in the same category of meaninglessness as "SPS" and "LPS".  

 

The phenomena really has nothing to do with alkalinity....or with burning for that matter.  😉

 

In fact if you take phosphates the other way from zero and go HIGH with them (>0.50 ppm), you'll see the "white growth tips" disappear altogether and branches will get covered with tissue and pigments all the way to the tips.

 

It's totally lack of nutrients.  (If there was incidental damage from another coral, that would certainly compound the issue.)

 

Nitrates are far less crucial for you to worry about though as they are only one of MANY forms of nitrogen available to corals.  Plus your corals actually have SOME ability to make organic nitrogen from dissolved N2 gas.

 

Check out this article and look at the effects of low phosphate on the coral animal....on its tissues....and even on their symbionts....pictures of all three are shown:

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

 

Those effects are what really lies behind "burnt tips"....but an acro has MUCH thinner skin, so the damage leads much more directly to tissue necrosis.  Not surprising when you look at the damage.  Here's the main pic from the article....definitely click through and read the original article....it's good!

 

(H=high; L=low; N=nitrate; P=phosphate)

(left = coral animal; middle = coral tissue showing dino's; right = dino's)

[twenty12]

Wow lots of information there. Yes I’m almost zero on everything. 
 

I have 30 gallon biocube. I do weekly water change of 5 gallon bucket. I run chemipure elite and purigen in my back chambers. 

 

i don’t run anything else. My alk is 8dkh for ever but sometimes drops to 7. 
 

only one fish right now so not lots of boo load. 
 

so far it has not gotten any worse but has. It improved either. 

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, twenty12 said:

Wow lots of information there.

I know.. Sorry.

 

3 hours ago, twenty12 said:

Yes I’m almost zero on everything.

Nowhere to go from there but up!  👍

 

3 hours ago, twenty12 said:

I run chemipure elite and purigen in my back chambers. 

Those can take a break.  If they're on the new side, I've seen someone here recommend storing them in RO water in the fridge until you need them.

 

3 hours ago, twenty12 said:

My alk is 8dkh for ever but sometimes drops to 7.

If it's a slow drop, that's pretty normal...tank biology uses a little bit of carbonate out of the water.  Water changes should easily moderate the effect.  If not there might be somethig else going on. (pH too high?)

 

3 hours ago, twenty12 said:

only one fish right now so not lots of boo load. 
 

so far it has not gotten any worse but has. It improved either. 

Good position to be in, all things considered! 

 

In the short term I would boost phosphate levels by dosing liquid nutrients becuase it is immediate relief and you can apply it with precision just my carefully estimating your system volume and calculating an accurate dose (easy).  Something like Seachem Flourish Phosphorous.  They have dose calculators online and dosing apps.  (Flourish is in the plant section.)

 

I would keep levels at 0.10 ppm or higher until you see obvious signs of improvement.  I don't think it will take long.

 

Other than taking the extra filtration offline, that might be all you have to do differently than you are doing now.  In the medium and long term, a good feeding routine and good strong tank flow should keep things heading in the right direction.

 

Keep working on getting your feeding, cleanup crew and everything else dialed in of course.  👍