I am about to throw in a towel

[KritikaL]

dosed nitrate red field ratio kicked in reduced phos too quickly and stripped the tank imo

 

[Macdaddynick1]

im with you man. i have the original eddie's PM. if i lost that i would die. twice

Lol yeah , not the best feeling in the world but its all good , at least I know the general cause.

I'm not sure I understand any of this....you seem to be creating conditions ripe for abiotic precipitation just because you "tend to overdose". (Precipitation is what's keeping it from going too high....Mg has a preventative effect on this.

Why would you want to overdose (it's not necessary) and why would you make such a concession on Mg toward that effort to overdose?

You instead need to change the way you are dosing so you put the correct amount in the tank.



You're most likely correct - I've had similar experience. The PDF's attached will give you a better idea of what's going on.



I wouldn't go so far as to disagree with the action plan, I just wished there was some way we knew that "insane polyp extension" was a good thing. If corals could talk!

I don't intentionally overdose, my alk is usually at around 8 , however when i adjust my dosing , lets say add 1 ml over my consumption level, it creeps up much faster than when my magnesium is on the high side.
As far as the polyp extension goes, perhaps poor polyp extension may not be indicative of the poor health of the coral. In my personal experience individual acroporas with a nice polyp extension have always grew better than the ones without any PE (even of the same species). Thats the only reason i presume that the corals is generally healthy if it has nice PE.
Also thank you very much for the PDFs , this is actually exactly what i needed, I have some reading to do tomorrow.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

dosed nitrate red field ratio kicked in reduced phos too quickly and stripped the tank imo

I actually just started dosing the nitrates , after my initial post, I've been going very slow on the dosing to avoid the exact issue you're talking about.

 

[Russ265]

Yep LEDs will fry acros so fast.... especially 90 degree optics. I would be willing to bet that is the main cause of this. Yes acros that are burned by LED can easily RTN. RTN is due to infection of either bacteria or protozoa species. It usually doesnt occur randomly but rather there is a precipitating factor that causes damage to the coral allowing these bugs to gain a strong hold and then consume the coral in a matter of hours. Anything that "stresses" the acro can cause this such as swing in alkalinity, temp, salinity, or lighting. Magnesium will generally not cause it because SPS are stable with change in magnesium levels as well as wide ranges even on the low 1000 they will just grow slower. Low nitrates most likely will not cause RTN unless your tank has never been fed for months and has massive skimming and no livestock such as a clean up crew.

agreed. however the problem i see is that all his other corals are fine, and what i do see of this PM is not bleached at all. Very healthy zoox density.
it is possible that such low nutrients of no3/po4 and the addition of strong lighting shocked this one coral and the others brushed it off, but ime the symbiodinium housed by the coral is the first to thin out.

i did have a birdsnest rtn after a week of no nutrients but the polyps would slowly recede over the course of days and then let go. Lighting didnt change the length of time as i repeated this experiment over and over.

just sharing my experience

 

[smh254]

I actually just started dosing the nitrates , after my initial post, I've been going very slow on the dosing to avoid the exact issue you're talking about.

I might have missed this but what kind of salt mix are u using?

 

[rock_lobster]

agreed. however the problem i see is that all his other corals are fine, and what i do see of this PM is not bleached at all. Very healthy zoox density.
it is possible that such low nutrients of no3/po4 and the addition of strong lighting shocked this one coral and the others brushed it off, but ime the symbiodinium housed by the coral is the first to thin out.

i did have a birdsnest rtn after a week of no nutrients but the polyps would slowly recede over the course of days and then let go. Lighting didnt change the length of time as i repeated this experiment over and over.

just sharing my experience

A birdsnest would be unphased by one week of low nutrients it would take months before any noticeable change occurred from not feeding.

 

[Russ265]

A birdsnest would be unphased by one week of low nutrients it would take months before any noticeable change occurred from not feeding.

have video proof that states otherwise. takes about a week everytime, regardless of other params.

it is easily repeatable.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

I use Regular Instant Ocean on all of my tanks, yeah birds nest corals are not my forte .

 

[rock_lobster]

have video proof that states otherwise. takes about a week everytime, regardless of other params.

it is easily repeatable.

well thats interesting I guess I cant prove otherwise haha.

 

[Russ265]

well thats interesting I guess I cant prove otherwise haha.

ill pm you the threads of these experiments if you are interested.

everyone suggested tweaking alk, more flow, and it would bomb. every week. would look great and the polyps would be out, only to look like a bare stick before 7 days.

now i have that same genus wedged between rocks after being too lazy to fix him and he is just thriving.

all i did was dose nitrate

 

[WetWhistle]

Looking at those pictures it is light related. It is to convenient it happened soon after you changed the LED. See the top portions of the coral in your pics have white tissue not tissue slogging off? It is bleaching at least at first it was. From experience RTA caused by nutrients start at the bottom and center and spread to the colony like a fire burning from the bottom and inside out typically. Light induced RTN starts at the top and spreads out. Light induced bleaching retains white tissue like yours or you would see the calcium skeleton and you can't. Or you would see the coralites being exposed in you picture.

I would back your lights off a little more. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like yours still has tissue and has not melted away yet. Unless it got worse. Are the coral close to the top of the tank more effected then the ones lower down? If it is nutrient it will be all over the tank. Light related the hot spots under the LED or corals close to the top will be effected first.

I would add an air stone as well as the increased in O2 will help with respiration and side effects of super light saturation in bleaching like this. It will help increase respiration and release built up toxins\Co2 in the tissue and helps slow bleaching somewhat.

 

[mcarroll]

Yep LEDs will fry acros so fast.... especially 90 degree optics.

The implication behind "frying" and 90º optics being that too much intensity was the probem.

Which may be taking you too literally, but is our conventional thinking. Thing is, the OP lost his blue bank. Based on a quick Google of his light, that represents about a 48% drop in intensity. (It's 48% of the LED's.)

Again, it's outside what fits with our conventional thinking of "too much light" being the problem and "moving them low" to shade being a solution, but they've done studies in the wild on moving corals higher and lower (to brighter and dimmer locations) and both can lead to mortality with roughly equal likelihood.

The impact and severity are not uniform in the experiments, so I wouldn't expect a uniform response from corals in a tank either.

 

[mcarroll]

all i did was dose nitrate

I'm sure I've asked before, but do you know your tank's peak surface PAR or lux?

 

[Russ265]

I'm sure I've asked before, but do you know your tank's peak surface PAR or lux?

1175 par 1" below the surface
275 on the sand bed

 

[Vaughn17]

Wouldn't low mag be stressful as well?

All stresses are cumulative...no single one did it.

Lighting changes like he did (due to no fault of his own) are definitely stressful....and it's made even more stressful in a low-nutrient environment. That only account for what we know about the tank.

It's very possible for a lighting change to cause mortality....check that "Long term effects..." article... (I think i was that one...too many articles!!!)

 

[Vaughn17]

I've read that Ca, mag, and alk are supposed to be balanced...that is if you Ca is 430, your Alk should be between 9.5 and 10 dkH and your mag 1375 ppm. Is this accurate (what I've read) or bs?

 

[Vaughn17]

I'm not sure I understand any of this....you seem to be creating conditions ripe for abiotic precipitation just because you "tend to overdose". (Precipitation is what's keeping it from going too high....Mg has a preventative effect on this.

Why would you want to overdose (it's not necessary) and why would you make such a concession on Mg toward that effort to overdose?

You instead need to change the way you are dosing so you put the correct amount in the tank.



You're most likely correct - I've had similar experience. The PDF's attached will give you a better idea of what's going on.



I wouldn't go so far as to disagree with the action plan, I just wished there was some way we knew that "insane polyp extension" was a good thing. If corals could talk!

Thanks so much for clarifying how low mag prevents alk from getting to high. Precipitation was my conclusion, as well, but chemistry isn't my forte, so I figured I had missed something but felt too stupid to ask.

 

[mcarroll]

I've read that Ca, mag, and alk are supposed to be balanced...that is if you Ca is 430, your Alk should be between 9.5 and 10 dkH and your mag 1375 ppm. Is this accurate (what I've read) or bs?

420 ppm, 3.0 dKH and about 1325 ppm for Ca, alk and Mg are considered balanced and "standard". These are the targets I'd recommend.

I believe we maintain a sticky on the chemistry forum that details all the basic tank parameters.

When I was manually dosing my tank, I goosed alkalinity up to about 11 dKH so there was more time before the tank could get down to "critical" levels. Which seemed to be anything below 7 dKH.

Lots of folks these days impair their corals by carbon dosing (i.e. dosing vodka or vinegar, etc)....and they seem to have trouble maintaining health corals with alkalinity over 8 dKH.

I maintained a low nutrient tank by having lower bio-load (vs using a hack) and never had problems adjusting chemistry to what I wanted. Mostly FYI.

All that said, none of those numbers are written in stone.....actual seawater samples from around the world vary by a surprising amount.

 

[mcarroll]

1175 par 1" below the surface
275 on the sand bed[...]

That's a really bright tank - easily 2000 PAR at the surface, which is roughly equivalent to direct sunlight...not most corals' strongest zone, so they are probably under quite a bit of oxidative stress...so the nutrient sensitivity makes sense to me. I'm sure they can use the heck out of it.

I wonder if the stonies in my 14,000 lux (280 PAR) tank would be similarly sensitive though?

No place around me carries potassium nitrate or I'd be trying it already. Will have to road trip somewhere when I have time or mail order it when I feel like paying too much.

 

[Vaughn17]

420 ppm, 3.0 dKH and about 1325 ppm for Ca, alk and Mg are considered balanced and "standard". These are the targets I'd recommend.

I believe we maintain a sticky on the chemistry forum that details all the basic tank parameters.

When I was manually dosing my tank, I goosed alkalinity up to about 11 dKH so there was more time before the tank could get down to "critical" levels. Which seemed to be anything below 7 dKH.

Lots of folks these days impair their corals by carbon dosing (i.e. dosing vodka or vinegar, etc)....and they seem to have trouble maintaining health corals with alkalinity over 8 dKH.

I maintained a low nutrient tank by having lower bio-load (vs using a hack) and never had problems adjusting chemistry to what I wanted. Mostly FYI.

All that said, none of those numbers are written in stone.....actual seawater samples from around the world vary by a surprising amount.

Thanks!