What is wrong with this green acro?

[mcarroll]

4 minutes ago, jefferythewind said:

I recently checked the Alk, Ca, Mg, and Nitrates and they are all steady. [....] Alk is like 8.8 now, down slightly. Nitrates were about 10.

Are you saying that alk is not stable now?  Unstable alk can cause major problems like this too.  What is the normal variance you see between water changes or between doses?

[jefferythewind]

The Alk is usually right at 9 (9.1~8.9) with weekly 20% water changes that i did in the past. But for going on 3 weeks now you had recommended that I stop doing water changes to allow the phosphate to increase. I think the alk is stable but i would imagine it will drop slightly without any water changes. I will test again today to check. I checked a xouple days ago and it was 8.8 after 2 weeks w/o changing water.

 

The salt i have been using for a while is a higher Alk salt. One of the ideas in this thread was to start using a Salt with a slightly lower (normal) Alk, so i bought a bucket of Tropic Marin which has Alk at 7.5. I was thinking about slowly mixing in this new salt for the weekly water changes before it was recommended I stop them altogether.

[jefferythewind]

Well it seems that the drop in Alkalinity has picked up speed a bit. Now the Alk is down to about 7.8. I feel like I should do a water change with the old salt.

I think I might go back to my weekly water changes but dose the phosphate in the water. Or else I need to start dosing Alk? There was some talk that keeping Alk at 7.5 or so is good as well?

[jefferythewind]

Also recently I've been getting lots of tube worms and feather dusters growing everywhere. Also there are these little spiral white things started growing everywhere. They don't get very big. I guess they are Spirorbid Worms.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Life in the tank will pick up with more nutrients.  Which is a good thing.  How big of water changes are you doing?  10% should be fine and not cause any issues.  Alk slowly coming down is fine.  You don’t want it to drop more than .5 in a day though. I have heard 1 is fine but that’s a lot imo.  I personally don’t like my alk dropping more than .2 in a day but that’s me and having a trident.  Maybe test again if the numbers dropped a lot.  It happens to me sometimes manual testing alk where the numbers are off. 

[jefferythewind]

OK, yes I was expecting the ALK to drop. but in the first 2 weeks it only went from 9,1 to about 8.8. Then in 5 days or so it went down to 7.8. Anyways I did a 15% water change with the old salt and it went back up to 8.7. Another thing to monitor. I think I am going to get back in the habit of regular water changes, maybe not weekly, bi-weekly or 10 days or something, with dosing phosphate if its low. If I don't do that then I'll have to start dosing the Alk too. oh man this is getting complicated.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Its time consuming, complicated, expensive but seeing the hard work pay off in the end is very rewarding! Automation is a great thing though.  Alkalinity gets tested 6 times a day in my tank.

[jefferythewind]

wow so is that automated testing or you do that manually? Never came across an automatic tester. Before this thread i was doing the weekly water changes and that was keeping the levels very consistent for Alk, Ca, Mg, and Nitrates. I didnt have the phosphate test because i didnt know or realize how important it is. 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Just now, jefferythewind said:

wow so is that automated testing or you do that manually? Never came across an automatic tester. Before this thread i was doing the weekly water changes and that was keeping the levels very consistent for Alk, Ca, Mg, and Nitrates. I didnt have the phosphate test because i didnt know or realize how important it is. 

That’s with a Trident.  I have had one since I set up this tank pretty much.   Game changer for sure.  I hand test nitrates and phosphates at least once a week.  I also do triton icp tests every other month pretty much which I’ll probably slow those down to once every few months or so. 

[jefferythewind]

I can see why this tank is finally working out for you! Wow I just looked up the Trident online. That is amazing. I was just saying to my friend the other day, you can really spend as much as you want on this stuff. I'm sure its worth it. Well at the end what I learned through all this is Phosphates are important too and I need to keep this above zero. I think I will go back to doing some water changes in order to keep the levels consistent and dose phosphate. Might look into getting a pump if I need it. Also thinking about getting a fish. Now sure what would go well with the mean clown fish I have.

 

You know whats crazy, my clown fish has been biting me every time i put my hand in the tank for last couple months as well. I don't know what happened but she hates me now. So today during the water change it bite me so hard it startled me and I bump a rock and the setosa became unglued and fell over! Luckily I think i got it glued back with minimal damage. The clownfish has really been making cleaning the tank difficult.

[Tired]

Clownfish are territorial. Probably she's maturing, and as part of that is now more determined to defend her territory from intruders, i.e. your hand.

[jefferythewind]

Happy to say that the setosa is looking much better today. There are brighter tips and all the polyps on the tips are coming out. Tested Alk again this morning and it already dropped a little bit. I feel like something finally clicked with the tank and now it is starting to consume Alkalinity which it didn't seem to do previously. It must be that I finally have enough phosphate. Just about on my last phosphate test, need to re-up on supplies. Probably need to get something so I can dose Alk if I need to. Any recommendations?

 

My plan for now is just to do water changes to regulate the Alk. I have a huge bucket of the Tropic marin salt that I need to get into the rotation somehow. I'll mix up a little batch and test the Alk first to see what it is. I think it is gong to be lower than my current salt, ~7.5 - 80 based on what I've read. My idea is to make a plan where I slowly mix it into the water changes over many weeks.

[jefferythewind]

Keep learninging things every day. I just tested the Alk of the 2 kinds of salt.

 

Marine Power Reef Salt Plus - Alk ~ 12

 

Tropic Marin Sea Salt - Alk ~ 10.5

 

So I guess my system was consuming some Alk before. Weekly changes of just the Marine Power were keeping the Alk right about 9. I think slowly mixing in the Tropic marine will work.

[mcarroll]

On 9/30/2020 at 6:37 AM, jefferythewind said:

The Alk is usually right at 9 (9.1~8.9) with weekly 20% water changes that i did in the past. But for going on 3 weeks now you had recommended that I stop doing water changes to allow the phosphate to increase. I think the alk is stable but i would imagine it will drop slightly without any water changes. I will test again today to check. I checked a xouple days ago and it was 8.8 after 2 weeks w/o changing water.

 

The salt i have been using for a while is a higher Alk salt. One of the ideas in this thread was to start using a Salt with a slightly lower (normal) Alk, so i bought a bucket of Tropic Marin which has Alk at 7.5. I was thinking about slowly mixing in this new salt for the weekly water changes before it was recommended I stop them altogether.

 

On 9/30/2020 at 2:50 PM, jefferythewind said:

Well it seems that the drop in Alkalinity has picked up speed a bit. Now the Alk is down to about 7.8. I feel like I should do a water change with the old salt.

I think I might go back to my weekly water changes but dose the phosphate in the water. Or else I need to start dosing Alk? There was some talk that keeping Alk at 7.5 or so is good as well?

Either start dosing (e.g.) two part, or resume water changes but dose the water change bucket with the correct ppm of phosphate before adding it to the tank.

 

The alk level isn't ver important IMO....as long as it's above 7.0 dkH.  Higher levels are fine, as they act as a reserve.  This reserve is your "margin of error".

 

Consistency at whatever level you choose is the key.  Dosing daily (or better) is pretty much a requirement for stony corals if you want to keep more sensitive corals happy.

 

19 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

The clownfish has really been making cleaning the tank difficult.

Your skin will toughen up over time.  Welcome to reef living!  (You've got a small idea what it's like to live with them on a reef!!!)  😉

 

8 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

Happy to say that the setosa is looking much better today. There are brighter tips and all the polyps on the tips are coming out.

👌

 

 

8 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

My plan for now is just to do water changes to regulate the Alk. I have a huge bucket of the Tropic marin salt that I need to get into the rotation somehow.

If it's their standard formula you should be good with it as-is.  If it's Pro Reef, I'd try to exchange it....or plan to amend it with some baking soda every water change.

 

4 hours ago, jefferythewind said:

Marine Power Reef Salt Plus - Alk ~ 12

 

Tropic Marin Sea Salt - Alk ~ 10.5

Either of those is fine.  I wouldn't even sweat the changeover...just switch buckets when it's time.

 

 

[jefferythewind]

Thanks to all of you for your help. I feel I've made a lot of progress in my understanding of what it takes to keep these more delicate corals. I've just tested phosphate and Alk again tonight, the Alk was still steady at 8.7 and the phosphate was fine. Today I've added 25ml of NeoPhos to keep it at about 0.1, less than a few days ago. I'm going to get back to the weekly water changes and see how steady the Alk will be. Like I said when I first started testing, while doing the weekly water changes the Alk was pretty solid all week, always between 9.1 and 8.8. But anyways we will see how it goes. If I need to will start dosing Alk. The guy who sold me the corals said he realized he needed to start dosing when the Alk would drop considerably in one day. I guess as your corals grow they require more and more. 

 

I assume this acro has really been through the ringer here over the past few weeks with all these changes.

[jefferythewind]

Orange Setosa looking much better today. Polyps on the discolored parts are opening up. Seemed to really like the water change. Just checked parameters, Alk ~8.4. Phosphates and nitrates good. The green acro keeps looks worse. We'll see what happens.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Looks like the setosa is barely holding on.  I can’t tell if the white is bleached or dead.   You may have to frag the acro to just the healthy part of it, but it’s probably on its way out too.  Sucks, but at least you got a hang of things now and hopefully the next sps fare better.  
 

ph fluctuations also fluctuate alkalinity.  If my ph goes up alkalinity goes down.  Not a lot but something to think about.

[jefferythewind]

So you can see the acro is white around the base. That white area has been spreading too. How do you suppose I frag it. Should I just break off all the parts besides the middle section? Yeah it really doesn't look so good besides a little sheen that it still has on the green part. Really not sure if it is even still alive. The more I read about the acros and the alkalinity, it seems that maybe this kinda can't even handle the Alk swings that I will have with the weekly water changes.

[mitten_reef]

1 hour ago, Thrassian Atoll said:

Looks like the setosa is barely holding on.  I can’t tell if the white is bleached or dead.  

with the pods crawling all over the white portion on another thread, I'd say that the white part of the setosa are goner, as pods are probably there to pick off the tissue remnants.

 

34 minutes ago, jefferythewind said:

How do you suppose I frag it.

get a pair of coral clipper from LFS (if you need it now/today, or otherwise order online).  Then trim off the dead part, save the living part, for best results, you want to ignore/avoid any parts that had gone white already by at least 1/8".  In case of the setosa, that might not leave much tissue left for you tho, so save as much as you can while avoiding any of the white portion.   good luck.  emergency fragging definitely saved me a handful of pieces in the past.  

 

 

[Thrassian Atoll]

Yeah, emergency fragging saved a couple pieces for me as well.  But, there’s always a but, all the other sps were healthy otherwise and no clue why they stnd.  I have tried that too with sps in my nano a few years ago when everything was going down hill, and it didn’t work.  

[jefferythewind]

Setosa continues to improve. Overall the colors in the tank are looking great. The acro still seems to be knocking on heavens door. I'm controlling the phosphate pretty well i think. As you all suggested  i've been having to add less as time goes on. I got a new test kit from Red Sea, i really like it. matches what i think i was reading from the aqua forest kit but this is much easier to read. I've been reading more about alkalinity and I i've been doing daily monitoring since the last water change. Now i understand more about keeping it stable at the same value. In the past i wasnt monitoring it and just blindly doing weekly water changes. Now i am going to wait until the alk drops just below 8 before i do each water change. My calculations say the water change should raise the level by 0.3, so my target will be keeping it at 8. I am going to see how that goes.

[mitten_reef]

On 10/4/2020 at 5:43 PM, jefferythewind said:

Setosa continues to improve. Overall the colors in the tank are looking great. The acro still seems to be knocking on heavens door. I'm controlling the phosphate pretty well i think. As you all suggested  i've been having to add less as time goes on. I got a new test kit from Red Sea, i really like it. matches what i think i was reading from the aqua forest kit but this is much easier to read. I've been reading more about alkalinity and I i've been doing daily monitoring since the last water change. Now i understand more about keeping it stable at the same value. In the past i wasnt monitoring it and just blindly doing weekly water changes. Now i am going to wait until the alk drops just below 8 before i do each water change. My calculations say the water change should raise the level by 0.3, so my target will be keeping it at 8. I am going to see how that goes.

Looks like I’m eating my own words about fragging and those pods cleaning up the “bone”. Very impressive recovery so far. 

[jefferythewind]

Well i dont know, the water params all are steady and today the setosa isnt opening any polyps for some reason. Did a small water change, alk increase slightly from about 8 to about 8.4 by measurements. Acro continues to look worse and whiter.

 

just checked phosphates and nitrates and they are 0.1 and 5 respectively. The levels of these 3 are right where i want to keep them. We'll see how it goes.

[jefferythewind]

Thought I'd give a little update with pictures. Last week I was testing morning and night, and then this week I was confident enough to just test once a day at night. Phosphates have been good, right around 0.1 every time I test, I add about 10 ml of Neophos every day, which is enough for about 0.1 ppm, each day.

 

I had chosen an Alk target of 8 after reading up and asking people, and previously i had always tested about 9. The tests were very stable day-to-day, the level slowly drops each day, maybe 0.05 or less per day. I noticed each time the alk got close to 8 the Orange Setosa stopped wanting to open the polyps. Polyps opened back up for a few days after each water change when the Alk went back closer to 9. I've done 2 water changes over the past 2 weeks and it seemed to happen each time. Not completely sure if it is because of the Alk level or not. But the idea is that it seems to like a slightly higher Alk, closer to 9.

 

The orange setosa a couple weeks ago seemed to bounce back after I got the phosphate adjusted correctly. But then over the last week or so it does seem like it has lost a little more color. A few days it didn't open the polyps. The areas that lost color have had algea a couple times, but doesn't seem too bad. I was kinda losing hope, but then I come in today and it looks pretty healthy again, with all polyps wanting to open up, even in the "dead" areas (see picture)... 

 

So yesterday I took my son to an LFS reef store, first time going. This place was really nice, really nice corals. We picked up a new fish ( indigo dottyback ), and I got a nice SPS frag, Confusa Montipora. (see pics)

 

I noticed in the store that the colors of all the corals are just amazing. I figured it was just the special lights, but then I got my frag home, installed it and the colors are just really bright and strong. It should be noticeable in the picture. Compared to that frag, the colors of my corals just look kind of dull and drab, for the most part. I think my corals, especially the soft corals have been looking pretty good, but this frag I got has such deep nice colors. All the corals in the store had colors like this, really popping. I'm not sure if maybe it is just from a long time with low phosphates or if there is something else drastically different to the way they are dong things in the store.  Maybe its the lights? Any ideas?

 

My plan going forward is to use an Alk target of 8.5, since the setosa seems to like the higher Alk, and the guy in the store said they keep theirs at 8.5. I measured last night about 8.8 or so. Phosphate target of 0.1. I've check nitrates periodically and it is always around 5.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Just for reference for what I said I run my parameters at.   
 

Here’s my setosa.