[peterdavies]

Hello everyone, im new on here as i was recommended by chris-s on ultimatereef to come over for some good advice.

Ive been keeping SPS for just over a year and have now got a tank (which i am about to change but thats another story) that is full of SPS that are growing well.

I have recently encountered my first problem in a while and i thought it best to ask for some advice.

I bought some colonies off a local reefer about 4 months ago, i think ones acro formosa, the other is similar but blue. When i bought them the bases were receding by STN, and after a few weeks in the tank this stopped. It never however recovered, and coraline just covered the dead bits.

over the last week ive noticed the bases of the two corals have restarted their recession, and ive also noticed that one of my other corals thats usually healthy has a tiny area of recession on the base. Ive fragged up the blue one today, and am considering fragging up the green one, but i really like its appearance as it looks like a nice mature piece.

heres a link to my tank thread: http://www.ultimater...ad.php?t=333861

photos:


two acros at the middle back are those affected, you can see from my tank thread that the corals have also browned recently.

im running a 250w lumenarc that i recently changer the bulb on - 2 weeks ago. i reduced the photoperiod to 3 hours at first then upped it by 30 mins per day.

im running a tmc calcium reactor with a ph controller - ive kept my alkalinity stable at 8 ish over the last few months then changed up to 9dkh over the course of a few days about 4 weeks ago.

i recently installed a phosphate reactor about a month ago and added rowaphos very slowly over the course of a week so as not to strip phosphate out of the water too fast.

Im running tetra salt and change about 10% per week.

params are:
calcium 425
magnesium 1200 ish (a bit low i know)
dkh 9.6 today

readings over the last few weeks, gaps are days i didnt test.

9
8.6

8.6

7.6
8.7
8.7
9
9.4

9.5
9.6
9.9
9.6

9.45
9.75
9.75

9.6

my nitrate is nil on the salifert
my phosphate is .015 on the d+d
my other tests were on salifert

most of my corals browned off about a month ago, and i put this down to an old bulb at first, which i replaced (the old one was over a year and a half old)

i then realised my RO was 15tds, so fixed that to 0 about a month ago

just writing this ive noticed a lot of things have changed over the last few weeks and this is most probably a cumulative effect of that stress.

So ive set the scene so to speak, my questions are basically:

1 whats going on with the basal recession and can i do anything to fix it apart from frag the coral and wait and keep things stable.

2 is it likely to have been the light or the water that caused the corals to go brown.

thanks for any help and thanks to chris-s for the referral!

Im upgrading to a slightly larger rectangular tank in a few weeks, which is full of SPS, it was totm on UR in Jan. but i will be using most of the corals i have now. this trigon is the wrong shape for my house

Pete

[chriss]

Welcome to the forum Pete. The tank looks good and there is plenty of info there too. I'm sure some other guys will be along soon.

Chris

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Hi Pete

Welcome to I/R m8

You do have a little drift with the dkh and this can course Base recession and loose colour .Also the TDS From the RO Unit was high so this two cant be ruled out as another factor towards a combination of reasons .
Myself i wouldn't blame the Lighting as you may loose a little tip colour but to have the tank brown out i would say no

One question i do have ,,the summer is here now and the temperature is on the rise ,,what has the Temp of the system been ?


If i were to Take a Guess Pete i would say there are a few issues that have coursed the resent problem in your system .One being the dkh Drifts ,however most of the time there quite stable i do see a bigger drift in your tests as low as 7.6
Also the TDS ,15 TDS is not good and if mem serves me Right Simon G put his last problem down to High TDS so one worth looking into .
I wouldn't rule out the Tanks Temperature but unsure if you monitor this .

Problem is there are a few reasons that can course this and unless you have your hands on the tank and do the day to day monitoring of the system it is hard to be sure what could be the course.


One last thing i maybe able to add ,,when did you last change you salt ? .Tetra salt .

By any chance have these problems started to show there head on the change of a brand or a new bucket of salt ,,some salts are better than others and some salt do drift from bucket to bucket


Let us know how you go


yours


jas

[lindsay]

Welcome to IR ,sounds like its stress of some kind,jas has pointed out a few possibility's above,also is there enough flow around the base areas of the corals because flow can be tricky in tanks of this shape.Are any other corals showing any signs of stress?.Did problems start around the same time you added the phos reactor?.

[peterdavies]

my temps fairly consistently at 26 - 26.5 but did reach 27 one day last week but i dont have any charts.

my salts been tetra for ages, i have recently changed buckets though.

my dkh dropped when my co2 ran out when i was away one weekend so its usually pretty good.

my flow is massive, like 70x turnover so i dont think its that and its been like that for months.

its only affected a small number of corals so im not too concerned at the moment. ive fragged up the blue one and will leave it in the frag tank until it bases out then start afresh with my new tank next week. What salt are you guys all using, ive noticed my mag is a little low and i will definitely consider switching when i set the new tank up.

thanks for the help so far but i think i should have waited until i set my new tank up as i cant really make changes and see effects now can i. the problem with changing too many things at once is that its impossible to single out what caused what.

thanks and ill keep you updated when i set up the new tank

[lindsay]

Look forward to updates on your new system,when you change tank keep an eye out for a possible crab,they too can cause this kind of damage at night.

[peterdavies]

i actually do have a crab, its a bad one as well but i couldnt catch it after trying and gave up, is that honestly a possiblilty? im going to make sure none end up in the new tank, probably going to get some dip of some sort and dip all the corals as well to be sure. any recommendations?

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Has this base die back and colour issues been since you have had the new bucket of salt ?. You may find its the new bucket your using as i have seen this before .

We Use Tropic Marin Pro Reef and i have to say i Think its an all round good salt ,I know some may say different but we like it .

Like Lindsay said m8 ,,good luck with the changeover and if you need out post away ,,be great to see some progress pics

yours


jas

[peterdavies]

alright jason ill keep some photos as i go along. the die back is since changing buckets, but the colouration is a few weeks before that, someone local also lost colour when their RO crept up, so i suppose ill just have to be patient now ive fixed a couple of problems and ill re-post in a month or so if things arent looking good.

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Ok M8

Need out post up or PM me

yours


jas

[lindsay]

peterdavies, on Jun 26 2010, 09:46 AM, said:

i actually do have a crab, its a bad one as well but i couldnt catch it after trying and gave up, is that honestly a possiblilty? im going to make sure none end up in the new tank, probably going to get some dip of some sort and dip all the corals as well to be sure. any recommendations?

Yep crabs will eat acros,have seen crabs living in one type of coral hop off at night and eat another type of sps but be back in the coral they spent the day in looking innocent lol.

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Any idea as to how the new build is going ?

jas

[peterdavies]

jason@jasonsaquatics, on Oct 31 2010, 06:10 PM, said:

Any idea as to how the new build is going ?

jas

going well jas, about 4 months in now and heres a fts. no real problems with the SPS so far, ive been keeping the pH up using kalk in combi with the calcium reactor to maintain the dkh and its been pretty steady.

just letting it all grow out now which will probably take 6 months for it to look reasonably matured.

im planning on removing some of the trumpet higher up and adding some nice branching SPS, and perhaps sorting out the bottom of the right hand side similarly. going to get rid of the nem as the clowns dont even use it and my mate wants one.

[peterdavies]

literally unbelievabley, the day after posting that, all my sps have partly bleached overnight. theyre all a really pastel shade. ive put it down to a powerhead that was electrocuting the tank, as my brother overheard it and pulled it out in the night as it was making some weird noises. The polyps on the corals are still there as of now and there appears to be no tissue loss. is it likely they will recover after this, and should i do anthing to help. ive reduced the photoperiod and raised the lights slightly as im assuming their zoos will have removed some protection from the light.

any help would be greatly appreciated ill get a pic tonight to compare to the above.

pete

[chriss]

I would look more towards a temperature drop or alk/ph crash. Sorry to hear the bad news, talk about sod's law!

Chris

[peterdavies]

definitely no pH crash or temp drop as all of thats been steady as usual. turns out the urchin in the frag tank bit through some wires. ive had bleaching like this before from temp fluctuations, defo not though in this instance. it would be an immense coincidence for some other thing to cause this on the same night the powerhead went buzz what do you rekon.

[peterdavies]

heres the tank today, bearing in mind it was like the other pic above yesterday evening when i went to bed, luke pulled the powerhead out a few hours later and there are urchin bite marks on the plastic.

[lindsay]

peterdavies, on Nov 23 2010, 05:46 PM, said:

heres the tank today, bearing in mind it was like the other pic above yesterday evening when i went to bed, luke pulled the powerhead out a few hours later and there are urchin bite marks on the plastic.

Very odd,any updates?.

[peterdavies]

lindsay, on Nov 26 2010, 05:43 PM, said:

Very odd,any updates?.

Still alive lindsay, the SPS are still growing at their usual rate and the calcium reactor did not need to be dialled back as i had expected. Still pastelly coloured though. Cant see it being anything other than the powerhead thats caused this but its defo odd and ive not found the exact thing happen to anyone else.