What is wrong with this green acro?

[jefferythewind]

No, unfortunately it is just about completely dead now. I am not sure what happened but this week it pretty much turned completely white and lost most of its skin. There are still a couple small bright green polyps in the very center of it but I'm sure they will be gone soon. I am wondering if there is still something wrong with my water or if it was just too injured from before. 

 

I've been continuing with testing and dosing once per day, Alk, Ca, and Phos. Phosphate has been pretty solid with just the 5ml of neophos each day, its around 0.1 each time I test. Alk has been requiring more dosing recently and now I'm up to about 5ml per day. Seems recently a test or 2 has been down near 7.5. I have had a target of about 8.5 but like I said seems to be using it up pretty quickly so I've been playing catch up a bit. I think it might be time for me to get a dosing pump. Now looking back at those graphs by @Thrassian Atoll it is interesting to see the fluctuations that could happen even with a nice constant dosing pump. I think the pump would make things easier. Of course what I would really like is that Trident system but baby steps.

 

I've noticed the nitrates are now down between 1 and 2.5 the last 2 times I tested, so pretty close to zero. I wonder if that is an issue?

 

The orange setosa continues its slow recovery. Other corals seem pretty good. The (new) montipora that I added about a month or even more ago is doing well, no signs of harm yet. All the soft corals still are growing/ look good.

 

So now the biggest things I am contemplating are 1) getting dosing pumps for Alk, Ca, Phos and 2) trying another acropora frag now that I seems to have the water parameters pretty stable. What do you all think? 

 

Again thanks so much for the help.

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Looks like a goner for sure.  If the other sps are doing well, I wouldn’t change a whole lot.  My nitrates stay pretty consistent at 2.5 even though I try and bring them up all the time.   How’s the flow?  Acros need a lot of flow.  Acros are the hardest to rebound too, so it might not of even recovered in my tank.  Sometimes they just aren’t happy.  
 

I personally wouldn’t get any more acros until you see growth out of the other sps.  Make sure they are growing and doing well.  After that grab a cheap acro like a green slimer or something like that.

[jefferythewind]

@Thrassian Atoll Yeah I have to say the other SPS seems to be doing pretty good. I have a green monti, red monti, orange setosa and theen this new like neon green montipora. The new one still looks great and seems like it has been growing around the base pretty well. The green monti has just been growing like crazy ever since it got in the tank. Before I figured out what I was doing with the phosphates it was getting whiter and whiter, but still the polyps would come out every day. Since correcting the phosphate issue the color has all come back very well, and continues to grow very well. Even healed a small portion that seems to have died during the stress. The red monti never took as well to the tank, now the color seems decent but the polyps don't seem to come out much and not much growth. Finally the orange setosa was growing great until it almost died. that shock seems to have slowed it down a lot, but I think it has grown a bit since recovering, a lot of it is still not re-growing the orange skin but the parts that have it look good, polyps come out every day.

 

I think I am going to dose a little nitrates to get them up a bit. What do you use for nitrates? I have read that low nitrates makes things hard to grow. Flow I think it OK. I have a 75 gallon filter on my 29 gallon tank and regularly clean it. Also have an aqua clear 50 power head in the tank.

 

I found this great LFS last time so I may go down there in a week or 2 and pick out a little acro to try. Biggest thing is the Alk gets used up quicker and quicker it seems. Probably want to look into dosing pumps pretty soon.

[farkwar]

Way not enough flow

 

Get a couple cheap gyres for that system

 

Way

 

Did I say, way?

[jefferythewind]

@farkwar you did say way. Just looked up gyres, so are those just for more flow?

[farkwar]

You have a standard 29?

 

Put one on one side, high

 

And the other on the other side, low

 

I've never had any problems with Jebao pumps.  If I were frugal, that's what I would have

 

I like the IceCap gyres, they now come with a two pump controller. So you can alternate flow

[jefferythewind]

Interesting, I was thinking I was pretty good for flow. Definitely don't have any dead spots. I have a lot of wavy soft corals that move pretty well. I'll try to get a little movie here.

[farkwar]

I dunno, vid looks flowy

 

I have 2 IceCaps gyres in my 20g and it's just enough.  But they alternate from -100 to +100 respectively.

 

Everything likes it but the snails

 

When you replace that acro, put it up high

 

And you're growing GSP beautifully, so what do I know. My tanks are always GSP death traps.

 

 

[jefferythewind]

Those gyres are pretty pricey! Look cool though I can't figure out why they are that shape. Anyways this I have is the green star polyp, I was under the impression that this was pretty indestructible. My tank has been through a lot this first year and you can see this one has taken over this entire rock, thats why I have put it to the side there. 

[farkwar]

GSP indestructible?

 

I've heard that too

 

IceCap dropped the 1K & 3K line, for the 2K & 4K line.  And increased the price a bit.

 

The Jebao gyre is $109

[Thrassian Atoll]

I dose brightwells neonitro and neophos in my 130 gallon system.  I go through a lot but you shouldn’t with that tank size.  
 

Flow wise, I have 2 mp40s at about 65% each.  My acros get a ton of flow. I also only have a couple lps and no softies so I turn my flow up as high as I can without blowing sand all over the place.  Acros need a lot.  I would get another power head on the opposite side.  
 

As long as things are stable and your numbers stay stable, go for it with a cheap acro.  Me personally too, I put my acros where they will be forever.  I never put them on the sand bed or low.  All of them but 1 have done great that way.  The one that bleached is bouncing back.

[jefferythewind]

Great thanks for the advice. I'll just see how things for for a few more weeks keeping the levels steady.

[jefferythewind]

I want to get that Apex system so bad. Anything else seems like a bandaid solution. I feel like in the future if I upgrade to a larger tank I can use all that stuff as well. The tank seems to be using Alk more and more quickly. The last 2 days the level was down around 7.5 or below when I tested and I've added more and more to try to keep up. Target is 8.5. Getting that apex with the trident and automatic pumps and all that would be amazing. Probably about $ 2,000, haha.

[mcarroll]

On 11/7/2020 at 7:53 PM, jefferythewind said:

what I would really like is that Trident system but baby steps

Keep it simple while you learn.  Manual dosing is better until you really get the hang of what you're doing.

 

Once you get what's happening with each dose, and there's a dosing rhythm a dosing pump is better.

 

For what it's worth, I dosed manually for about 7 years on a totally packed stony coral system.  Doable.  But IMO not recommended now that there are dosing pumps for around $20 a head.  (They were $100-200 a head when I was getting started.)

[jefferythewind]

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

For what it's worth, I dosed manually for about 7 years on a totally packed stony coral system.  Doable.  But IMO not recommended now that there are dosing pumps for around $20 a head.  (They were $100-200 a head when I was getting started.)

Do you have a link to those? Thx.

[mcarroll]

Just referring (mostly) to the Jebao auto-doser....widely available online with from 2 to 5 dosing heads.  I think 4 is usually the best value, maybe depending on what's available.  👍

 

Manufacturer support is the always the weak link on stuff like this....they do have a website now at least:

http://m.jebao.com/displayproduct.html?id=2857065803040192

[mitten_reef]

On 11/10/2020 at 7:49 PM, jefferythewind said:

I want to get that Apex system so bad. Anything else seems like a bandaid solution. I feel like in the future if I upgrade to a larger tank I can use all that stuff as well. The tank seems to be using Alk more and more quickly. The last 2 days the level was down around 7.5 or below when I tested and I've added more and more to try to keep up. Target is 8.5. Getting that apex with the trident and automatic pumps and all that would be amazing. Probably about $ 2,000, haha.

There are plenty of success without the automation afforded by apex and its trident unit.  tbh, @Thrassian Atoll’s setup is rather uncommon in the nano world. It’s probably not all that common on that other forum either. 
You don’t need your tank tested any more than once a day. You can then average out the dosing rate using any dosing pump.  It’s all about understanding the basics of why you dose and how you dose. 
of course if you have $2K+ laying around not knowing what to do with, then that’s your money 💰 💰 that I won’t tell you how to spend it. 
look at @Cannedfish, @pokerdobe, my tank, we don’t use apex, and we’re not doing half bad.  
PS start a build/journal thread and keep us updated with progress. These discussions are kinda pointless unless we can follow along the actual progress of the tank. 

[mitten_reef]

On 11/9/2020 at 1:48 PM, jefferythewind said:

Interesting, I was thinking I was pretty good for flow. Definitely don't have any dead spots. I have a lot of wavy soft corals that move pretty well. I'll try to get a little movie here.

also, just noticed this.  you have the corals with some of the highest lighting requirements sitting at/near the tank floor.....  unless you're certain of your lighting power (PAR or proven growth of other high-light sps), this is definitely not the ideal placement.

[jefferythewind]

6 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

also, just noticed this.  you have the corals with some of the highest lighting requirements sitting at/near the tank floor.....  unless you're certain of your lighting power (PAR or proven growth of other high-light sps), this is definitely not the ideal placement.

I think you're right. I had my light down very low for a while, afraid I was gonna hurt them with too much light, but now it seem like it's been too low. I have that red monti down there I am thinking about moving it up. Also I guess you're refering to the setosa?

[mitten_reef]

20 minutes ago, jefferythewind said:

I think you're right. I had my light down very low for a while, afraid I was gonna hurt them with too much light, but now it seem like it's been too low. I have that red monti down there I am thinking about moving it up. Also I guess you're refering to the setosa?

nothing specific to setosa or any other corals in the tank, the general lighting requirements would be sps > lps > softies, so by that logic your sps should be up higher than your other corals in the tank.  by placing them all at roughly the same level, you're certain to have at least one coral type being unhappy.  turning down the light probably didn't help either.  

[jefferythewind]

OK great I will see what I can do. I will start a tank journal as well since the green acro is dead now, this thread might as well be.