Acro help

avelino78 · Apr 1, 2015

I picked up a few acros maybe a month ago. At the same time I got a Jedi mind trick monti. The acros don't look like they are doing so well. One almost lost all its color it's like it's skin all peeled off. Another started to die from the bottom up. The piece I cut from the plug and still had some of it left on the plug looks like it is doing well. Another acro is doing just fine. My monti is growing like mad. It has already grown over the sides of the piece of rock it came on. I have had my tank for over three years and everything has been growing fine I just never had a sps. Any help would be great.

zesty · Apr 1, 2015

First off, you'll be asked this every time you ask a question related to a coral not doing well.

What are your parameters?

Did you dip the frags?
Where did you start them in the tank?
What kind of flow?
How long did all of this take to happen?
What kind of lights?
What is your water source?

Those questions should be enough to get more information on your setup. SPS are touchy... I'm not an expert, I just haven't killed as many as I've grown. (not yet, yikes!)

avelino78 · Apr 1, 2015

I have a 29 gallon BioCube running a first gen radion.
Phos .04
Mag 1480
Cal 465
Alk 7.8
I make my own rodi TDS at 0. I got them in February and it started a week or so ago. I have a MP 10 for flow. I hope this helps.

zesty · Apr 2, 2015

If it were me, I would bring up the alk a little to around 9 and see what happens. I only say this because I had some similar things happening and they went away and I experienced some growth with an elevated alk level. Currently I am running around 9dkH. I was up around 11 for a while and nothing crazy happened, but I went up/down slowly. I also had a rapid alk swing and lost 2 SPS overnight. I try not to adjust alk too quickly.

avelino78 · Apr 2, 2015

I have been reading that. I'm going to try to get my ALK up little by little thanks for the help.

zesty · Apr 2, 2015

Also, on another note. Have you checked for pests, bugs, etc?

avelino78 · Apr 2, 2015

I looked and couldn't see anything.

swk · Apr 2, 2015

Did you dip the acros and monti? What did you use? How, and when are you looking? Looking at night can be helpful for some pests. Things like red bugs are easiest to see with macro photography, but taking the piece out and looking it over with a magnifying glass can be helpful. Another option is to dip in coral rx or bayer and see if any red bugs or AEFW come off. Both can cause things similar to what you're mentioning.

avelino78 · Apr 3, 2015

I dipped them in coral rx. I check all the time and didn't see anything on them. I think it's just dying maybe due to an alk swing or temp swing. I'm working on keeping everything a bit more stable.