7 years old Setosa colony RTN

ninjamyst

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I had this Setosa colony for over 7 years now. 3 years ago, I trimmed the colony in half since I was moving and it was taking too much room. It's now about 10 inches by 6 inches. Last week it started to STN out of nowhere. My other acros and monti are all doing fine. In last ditch effort, I broke the colony off the rock and made frags and put the frags into my frag tank and a nano tank. All the frags also RTN overnight. Parameters are stable in the main tank. I even have frags from the same colony I made a month ago in my frag tank that are doing fine. In my research, Setosa are pretty hardy. Is there something particular they are sensitive to??

PXL_20221002_203854679.jpg
 

Nano sapiens

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It's pretty rare to see a Setosa have difficulties when Acros and other SPS are doing just fine in the same tank. I had a 6" colony that went through some occasional big param swings (9-14 dKh in a few hours once!) and barely showed any distress other than closed up polyps.

Any recent changes or additions (chemical or otherwise)?
 
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ninjamyst

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It's pretty rare to see a Setosa have difficulties when Acros and other SPS are doing just fine in the same tank. I had a 6" colony that went through some occasional big param swings (9-14 dKh in a few hours once!) and barely showed any distress other than closed up polyps.

Any recent changes or additions (chemical or otherwise)?
Nope. Everything just running same as always. Doser still online and dosing correctly. No alk swings and this colony has survived through plenty of alk swings and even tank crashes before. When things are really bad, it will loose some color but never RTN or STN like this.
 

Timfish

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What are you dosing? What are your PO4 and nitrate numbers and have they changed over the last few months? Have you changed your feeding regimen as youyour corals grow? Any fish loss recently? Unfortunately there's microbial issues corals can have even when they look "healthy" and changes in nutrients (C, N & P) can precipitate infections. Research has shown immune systems can vary at the genotype level so it's not unreasonable for a single colony to have issue. Research has also shown microbial levels in the water will change significantly without any change in husbandry.
 

Nano sapiens

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Nope. Everything just running same as always. Doser still online and dosing correctly. No alk swings and this colony has survived through plenty of alk swings and even tank crashes before. When things are really bad, it will loose some color but never RTN or STN like this.

That's what I suspected since no other coral seem to be doing poorly.

I have a 14 yar old Sunset Monti that is similar. All stony corals (SPS and LPS) in the system are doing fine and growing, but the Sunset will die out over 1/2 - 2/3 of it's area every so often for 'no apparent reason'. What I've noticed is that if I rub some flakes between my fingers under water for a few days to get a fine paste, the Sunset perks up and starts regrowing. Since I use kalkwasser exclusively, it tends to keep phosphate low (via precipitation) and my theory is that this particular coral is sensitive to the lower limits (~0.01 PO4). Of note, it did much better when I had a 2x higher fish mass, which is what lead me to adding more PO4 via the smushed flakes.

Is your system a bit nutrient limited, perhaps?
 
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ninjamyst

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It could be nutrient related since I been struggling with low nutrients. However I been feeding more and dosing np-plus for the past month and all my corals colored back up. Even the Setosa was brightly colored last week and I didn't change my feeding or np-plus dosage. The funny thing is I have a frag of the Setosa on another rock in the same display tank and that Setosa frag is fine. It's literally something with just this one colony. So bizarre. I guess I will just have to grow out another colony from the other accidental frags I made whenever I bumped into this one.

Lesson learned. Always keep a frag of your main colonies around =P. Just sucks to see such a large colony die off ..
 

Nano sapiens

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It could be nutrient related since I been struggling with low nutrients. However I been feeding more and dosing np-plus for the past month and all my corals colored back up. Even the Setosa was brightly colored last week and I didn't change my feeding or np-plus dosage. The funny thing is I have a frag of the Setosa on another rock in the same display tank and that Setosa frag is fine. It's literally something with just this one colony. So bizarre. I guess I will just have to grow out another colony from the other accidental frags I made whenever I bumped into this one.

Lesson learned. Always keep a frag of your main colonies around =P. Just sucks to see such a large colony die off ..

May be a 2-part thing. Nutrients are low (but enough for all the other organisms) and the coral that's having issues is in a location where it doesn't receive enough of the available nutrients.

I have areas in my small reef that may look like they should receive enough flow, but when I add BBS or similar small food items and I can see that actually they don't (food particles slow down and/or are directed slightly away by protrusions and such thus largely by-passing a coral). Another consideration is that coral growth form is largely determined by the available flow over time. Tilt the coral or move it around a bit and it will effect the flow dynamics (often negatively). The coral may need to sit in it's new location for months for it to regrow in a way that positively impacts nutrient assimilation. Changing the overall system flow dynamics even in seemingly minor ways) can also disadvantage certain corals that might have been doing fine before in a certain location, but then are not.
 

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