Acro help!!

[G&B Reefing]

All, I dont know which way to go to fix this.

I have a handful of sps frags and they are not happy. I am seeing the following.

1. Tips are losing flesh
2. Bases are fading, some are receding
3. Colors and fluorescence are gone, except for two
4. Polyp extension is good on one frag, most others have none

Example pics are below:

White tips and receding base. Brown. No PE.

Fading base. Some fluorescence on the tip and back side. Some polyp extension at night.

Lights.
Kessil a360xe @ 50% intensity and 15% color. I am using their 50deg reflectors to minimize light bleed. Lights ate set 13” above surface. I have measured par and everything is 200-300. Three total units over a 40” length.

Alk: 8 dkdh
Nitrate: 2 ppm
P03: 0.02 ppm

I have been dosing aminos and nitrate to keep the levels where I am at.

I am torn on what to do. The lack of color and brown implies either not enough light or to high of nutrients.

The burnt tips and fading base implies to much light or not enough nutrients.

I am leaning toward decreasing light intensity. Thoughts?

I have had these frags since March. I attempted to light acclimate them. The PE was decent until I jumped my lights up above 40%. I kept increasing the intensity b/c the colors faded and turned brown.

Help!

 

[Red_Beard]

2-3 hundred par should not be cooking them. Your nutrient levels are definitely not too high, if anything you may want to bump the po4 up a tad. What are you doing for trace? what about water changes and or salinity stability? I am wondering one of 2 things, if they are getting starved for something they need, or if something else has maybe accumulated and is irritating them.

 

[G&B Reefing]

I do water changes every 2 weeks. ~10 gallons. System is 70gal total.

Not doing much for trace as the system is pretty bare beyond these ~7 frags.

 

[G&B Reefing]

Salinity is stable. I have an auto top-off that maintains it. I also check it every weekend.

 

[dwest]

If your tank is a year old or less and you didn’t use liverock, you just might need more time.

I wouldn’t mess with lighting.

 

[G&B Reefing]

The tank is about 7 months. I have been through some of the uglies, cyano and a hair algae outbreak. I have coralline algae starting to grow.

 

[G&B Reefing]

I am half thinking I should do an icp test.

 

[Mchava]

Have you tried doing a coral dip on them. If you numbers are what you say they are, then you should not be having some of these issues. What test kits are you using, are you using ro/di to make your saltwater? If Im not mistaken on your first picture there seems to be green algae growing inside the coral skeleton around the base which if I remeber cause by high p04. Brown corals usually mean that nutrients are high in abundance.

 

[G&B Reefing]

Test kits are hanna and red sea for alk, nitrates, and phosphates. Both test kits read 0.02-0.03 on P04. Nitrates run 1.6-2.5.

I use a 5 stage rodi. Tds reads 0.

 

[G&B Reefing]

I dose brightwell neonitro and neophos every few days, typically align with my water tests. Use coral ab+ at ~3ml daily.

 

[MegabiteOG]

Did you start with only dry rock and sand 7 months ago? If so, tank is a still a little young and developing. Stability can be tough to achieve in younger tanks. How are the swings day to day, week to week? If you’re starting to see coralline grow, you’re headed in the right direction though. Like Red_Beard said, I’d bump the phos a bit and would actually not have a problem seeing a bit more NO3.

I really don’t think par is too high (assuming your par numbers are correct) but nutrients may need a gentle bump. I have the same corals participating in the same event. I never light acclimated these corals and they are sitting at 500 - 600 par. My alk is 8.5 to 9, my PO4 sits at around .2, and NO3 around 20. My tank is also just over 7 months old, but started with all live rock and sand in a 180 gallon.

I’m just guessing here, but I’m thinking your parameters are swinging a bit more than the corals like. SPS love stability, because nothing seems too out of whack. Again, just a guess. I wish you luck and hope they recover.

 

[G&B Reefing]

I did start with dry rock, used “live” sand, basically the carribsea sand the add bac to. The maturation process of the tank is slower than I expected, my smaller tank went through the stages a bit quicker years ago.

 

[slingfox]

I believe you tank is likely still too young. My tank is only 9 months old but I also started with 100% live rock from the ocean and sand from my prior tank which had been running for two years.

I don’t see any need to reduce light intensity. I think you just keep on monitoring and let the tank continue to mature.

You will know you have the parameters and stability to grow SPS when you start seeing coraline spread everywhere on the rockwork. I see coraline in your pics so you are is their or very close. See the rocks below which are at month 9 for my tank. I started making a push to add SPS corals 2 months ago which was month 7:

 

[slingfox]

One other issue: The fact that you have to dose to keep phosphates and nitrates detectable even with very low coral load likely means your rock and sand are still absorbing nutrients and have not hit a stable state yet. Your nutrients are at a decent level now (I would probably let phosphate creep higher) but only time will tell where parameters will settle.

If you have low nutrients that may mean you can add more fish.