Acropora base showing decreased colouration & lack of PE

[reefdude101]

Hi guys, in need of some advice i have 7 sps frags in a max nano started with mature live rock all doing well except one thats seeming to have a sudden decline.

Green staghorn i received brown two weeks ago now almost fully coloured up.
Birds of paradise coloured up excellent PE.
Pocillopora great PE.
Smoothskin acro coloured up great PE.
Digitata great PE regaining colours.
Purple acropora doing great.

so im stumped as to why one is suddenly showing loss of colouration at the base/90% loss of PE, could it be that this is just one of those corals ?
When changing systems do some tend to go downhill randomly before they perk back up ?
Have had it two-three weeks now & in that time it has retained its colour/PE .. its

parameters;
SG: 1.026 with refractometer & calibrated each time.
Dkh: stable at 8.
No3: 2-3ppm.
Po4: tested on nyos - low to undetectable - 0.01-0.02.
CA: 440
MG: 1320-1340

Weekly water changes of 10%.

So I’m thinking po4 might be too low but I'm unsure as inconsistent test from hobby grade so will be picking up a hanna ULR tomorrow & i doubt its a true zero as im seeing film on glass daily white/light brown.

have had a friend test par with this tank & it showed 220-250 approx at frag height, so im at the point of not wanting to make a lot of changes for one wild acro frag that isnt doing great when all others from what i can see have had no decline & are thriving with alkalinity/calcium consumption going up each day & colouration getting better daily i can see the growth is there albeit slowly .. am i missing something here ? Should i really make any sudden changes that could affect my whole system for one frag, this seemed to happen overnight & only one coral is retracted/showing signs of colour loss around base.

TIA for any insight.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

could have a parasite…try a dip on it.

 

[reefdude101]

could have a parasite…try a dip on it.

Hmm ok im hoping not since everythings been doing so well, would you think having a look at it tomorrow afternoon would be ok ? it seemed to happen overnight so my thoughts are.. give it some time to see if theres any changes/improvement in PE if not give it a dip, or would you act quickly ?

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Hmm ok im hoping not since everythings been doing so well, would you think having a look at it tomorrow afternoon would be ok ? it seemed to happen overnight so my thoughts are.. give it some time to see if theres any changes/improvement in PE if not give it a dip, or would you act quickly ?

tomorrow will be fine

 

[reefdude101]

tomorrow will be fine

Will update tomorrow, thanks for your help man.

 

[rusgum]

Hi guys, in need of some advice i have 7 sps frags in a max nano started with mature live rock all doing well except one thats seeming to have a sudden decline.

Green staghorn i received brown two weeks ago now almost fully coloured up.
Birds of paradise coloured up excellent PE.
Pocillopora great PE.
Smoothskin acro coloured up great PE.
Digitata great PE regaining colours.
Purple acropora doing great.

so im stumped as to why one is suddenly showing loss of colouration at the base/90% loss of PE, could it be that this is just one of those corals ?
When changing systems do some tend to go downhill randomly before they perk back up ?
Have had it two-three weeks now & in that time it has retained its colour/PE .. its

parameters;
SG: 1.026 with refractometer & calibrated each time.
Dkh: stable at 8.
No3: 2-3ppm.
Po4: tested on nyos - low to undetectable - 0.01-0.02.
CA: 440
MG: 1320-1340

Weekly water changes of 10%.

So I’m thinking po4 might be too low but I'm unsure as inconsistent test from hobby grade so will be picking up a hanna ULR tomorrow & i doubt its a true zero as im seeing film on glass daily white/light brown.

have had a friend test par with this tank & it showed 220-250 approx at frag height, so im at the point of not wanting to make a lot of changes for one wild acro frag that isnt doing great when all others from what i can see have had no decline & are thriving with alkalinity/calcium consumption going up each day & colouration getting better daily i can see the growth is there albeit slowly .. am i missing something here ? Should i really make any sudden changes that could affect my whole system for one frag, this seemed to happen overnight & only one coral is retracted/showing signs of colour loss around base.

TIA for any insight.

There are many options. The first ones I would look at are planaria, red beetles, not enough phosphate. If everything is okay with the above, then light and flow. And if everything is okay with this, then be patient, some acroporas stand up to two years without growth

 

[Staghorn]

Which frag is it that’s doing bad? How stable are all your parameters including temperature? Any swings?

 

[reefdude101]

Will update tomorrow, thanks for your help man.

There are many options. The first ones I would look at are planaria, red beetles, not enough phosphate. If everything is okay with the above, then light and flow. And if everything is okay with this, then be patient, some acroporas stand up to two years without growth

I ended up pulling it & dipping in coral rx, had one tiny free swimmer in the shape of a flatworm but he was tiny less then a mm & could only see him looking through clear glass into light i couldn’t get an ID, plus another tiny critter almost looked like a tiny pod but too hard to tell.

have him sitting on the frag rack now to monitor, showing signs of PE again but only 20-30% of what it was at the moment & also night time here.

so far im not sure its out of the woods yet but seeing some good signs post dip compared to earlier.

picking up a hanna ULR po4 tester tomorrow & that will be my next step .. everything else is looking pretty good but will be good to have on hand for future testing as im not getting much from hobby grade kits at the moment.

 

[reefdude101]

This is the coral one week ago.

 

[reefdude101]

Yesterday.

 

[reefdude101]

Today, this coral usually has PE all the time, morning throughout the day etc

lost all PE & noticed paling on base towards the right coming up over the base towards the nub & overall just looking rough.

 

[reefdude101]

Which frag is it that’s doing bad? How stable are all your parameters including temperature? Any swings?

Parameters are pretty rock solid mate, i test alkalinity every day & make small adjustments where needed im usually between 7.7-8.

no3 consistently stable at 2-3ppm
Po4 consistent from what i can see with hobby grade at .01-.02 .. but will need a hanna checker to get a better idea on it.

sitting in 220-250 par so its just odd that its lost PE & noticing paling from base upwards towards centre as its been going strong over two weeks now & there’s been no big swings that i know of.

 

[reefdude101]

Well the good news is after the dip i flicked my whites on a few hours later & getting a lot more PE then ive seen all day, fingers crossed & im hoping this means its back on the up & up, at this point i feel like there’s not much i can do except wait so im going to keep watching it for the next week & if all goes well I’ll put it back down into its new spot & hopefully its just a hiccup, have thoroughly inspected for eggs etc & i cant find anything.

going to check po4 tomorrow when i pickup a hanna & keep pushing forward from there, had me questioning myself/system for a minute as im adding a walt disney & cherry bomb in the next two weeks as my final frags/showpieces & have been going very slow to make sure things are on point/consistent but looking at system overall its just one frag thats been a bit off while all the others have been colouring up well so I’m thinking it should be fine.

will update thread as the next few days progress, putting it down to a parasite of some sort at the moment that got through my lfs QT that got knocked out by the dip & with no eggs in sight im feeling confident

thanks everyone for the suggestions/advice so far !

 

[reefdude101]

update, have picked up a hanna ulr & turns out po4 was higher a fair bit higher then i initially thought according to the nyos test kit which was showing 0-0.1 maybe .02 max.

hanna read .04-.08 consistently, have performed two water changes & dosed some lanthanum into filter sock, now consistently reading .02-.03 .. im happy with these numbers & will continue to monitor twice a week & dose lanthanum as needed/if it creeps up.

as for the acro i have dipped it once more & placed him back down onto the rock work polyp extension has improved slightly but sadly colours haven’t returned as of yet but with this i will give it two to three months too adjust & im hoping over time colour returns which im thinking theres no reason it shouldnt given everything else has been stable, also hoping to see signs of increased growth over the next month now po4 is in a more acceptable range.

will be supplementing my led/switching to a hybrid setup with red sea reef led & some T5’s so here’s hoping to see a lot more growth in the coming months.