Acro help

E

Eckolancer

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Yesterday I woke up and one of my big acros that I have bleached out over night with only the base still looking ok. Then this morning another acro I have same thing. I have a few other types o acros and sps that seem to be doing fine. Ive also noticed two of my zoa frags are not opening up anymore. They would open up fully each day until a couple days ago. Now they look like they maybe shrinking an going away. Im not sure if it is my LEDs doing this or not. But i have a nice big birdsnest very high in the tank and it has new growth all over it. Both of the acros are lower by about 2-4" also have other acros and sps lower then the ones that died. As well as a second colony of the first one that died same height and water flow as the first one.

I have 24 10k and 24 blue cree leds on a 92 gallon corner. Parameters are 0 ammonia 0 nitrate 0 nitrite 470 calcium .25ppm phosphates unknown alk and mag but test kits are on the way.

On a side note not sure if this could be the cause but I did find a very small crab that was in a hole by one of my montis. Its body was about the size of half a grain of rice. Could not get him out so I super glued him in the hole. He looked like a baby emerald crab. I do have 4-5 of them in the tank for over a year now. Could it have been a baby emerald? Could there be more eating my sps and/or zoas? He looked a little bit gray with black but the body looked kinda greenish color.

Now as well as the unknown crab. I have seen a lot of bristle worms in the tank at night. Could they cause this damage to corals?
 
Are you dosing alkalinity and calcium, dripping kalk, running calcium reactor? Alkalinity is one of the most important numbers along with calcium and magnesium.
 
i'm not sure if i was seeing it right, but i do remember your signature that displays your tank information, was at 11.8-11.9 pH a few days ago. that might've shocked the corals and inhabitants quite a bit, but i would expect a whole tank crash rather than a few corals bleaching. also, are you sure it bleached or did it RTN?
 
I remember him saying somewhere that his pH probe was messed up.
 
@Hook'em2006 wrote:
I remember him saying somewhere that his pH probe was messed up. said:
well, that throws my theory out the window. i guess he'll have to figure out now whether is bleached or RTN'd, cause it sounds a lot like RTN if it was overnight.
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@vrba wrote:
Are you dosing alkalinity and calcium said:
I do dose 2 part calcium as well a mag and alk. But like I said my testers are on there way for the mag and alk.

Also new ph probe is on the way last one just wore out. Tested ph and it is 8.3-8.4 with api test kit
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With everything else looking to be in the right areas I would put my money on the Alk being too low. I know that once I got my calcium reactor set up an running my corals took off. Good luck!
 
I'd be ready to jump on the alk bandwagon except for he mentioned problems with the acro and zoas at the same time. Almost all of my zoas have hung in there, even when my alk dropped to a low 6 when I was away for the summer. Of course, a lot of small pests are class or even species specific obligate.

I can drag my API test kit over tomorrow if you want.
 
@shse666 wrote:
I'd be ready to jump on the alk bandwagon except for he mentioned problems with the acro and zoas at the same time. Almost all of my zoas have hung in there said:
Very good point! Now im very interested to know what is causing the problem
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@shse666 wrote:
I'd be ready to jump on the alk bandwagon except for he mentioned problems with the acro and zoas at the same time. Almost all of my zoas have hung in there said:
Im running to fort worth tomorrow so maybe i will just pick up a test kit. Not sure I can wait for it.
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I think you can find the test kit for around $10.00 That would eliminate at least one variable. I saw someone post their default salt read out at 15 dkH! Scary.
 
The NSW at 15 dKH was me while using regular Tropic Marin salt. I got complacent and wasn't testing the NSW before a water change. I would do the water change then test the tank the next day. I felt like I was giving it plenty of time to mix and/or settle out in the tank before testing. Tank water was within normal ranges around 9 dKH by the next day. At the same time I was fighting a very long drawn out "tank crash" losing mostly SPS, some LPS receded, and a few zoas melted. In response I was doing' larger water changes more often.

I am obviously not certain that alk is your issue, but I would definitely rule it out sooner than later.
 
burbarry, out of curiousity how often do you do water changes? and do you run anything else like biopellets, gfo, etc? The reason I ask is because a while back i got into a swing of doing water changes weekly and changing my gfo/carbon media in reactors more often than i should have at an attempt to better my husbandry skills. While nothing RTN'd, i did notice a slight bleaching event where the corals got lighter in color as time went by. I reacted by just feeding my reef. As soon as i started feeding the tank at night everything came back relatively quickly. Just a thought. As far as the ALK is concerened, everyone above is on the money. That is a test kit you need asap especially with getting into sps. I lose a lot of dkh per evening to the point where i couldn't keep up with it with my work schedule. I ended up buying a dosing pump i got from a buddy and it has saved me. I would love to get a calcium reactor but i just cant do it right now so i do the pump. The controller turns it on every night from 3:00AM to 3:15AM at 1.1mL per minute.
 
I am doing about 5 gallon water change weekly, with every 6 weeks doing a 10 gallon water change after blowing pumps behind the rocks to stir up any excess food left behind. I run a little bit of carbon and GFO in filter socks right were the water enters the sump for a high flow area. Looking to them up in a reactor soon just need the parts (hose pump clamps). I ended up dosing twice my normal amount of kawk to try and see if that would help. That same day my other blue acro was already dying and is dead now. But the rest of the reef looks to be ok for now. I am looking into investing a little more into a dosing setup to keep cal and dkh under control a little better. Tomorrow my test kit will be here and I will have a better idea of where I am at with all my levels.
 
Understood, that doesn't seem like what i thought then. I do 25 gallon WCs every two weeks and change medias around 3-4 weeks on 125. I guess I'm curious to see what your ALK test has to say. what PO4 kit do you use? And how long has your rock been in your tank?
 
Current tank has been setup for about 3 months. But, was moved from last house. The Rock is pretty old rock, I've had half of it for over a year, and the other half from a guy on here that had it in his tank for over 5 years.
 
I didnt reread everything so I may have been mentioned but have you seen anything "pest" not just your fish eating on them. Maybe something got transfered in with the new rock.
 
I recommend you check your alk every other day to make sure you're not getting any swings. That's likely your culprit.
I've heard so may people tell me they bleached or lost colonies because their alk dropped overnight. My opinion is most were too lazy to test their water and stopped meeting the coral's demand.
 
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