Acropora Bleaching / STN and Mixed Reef Coral Warfare

SEPDXReef

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Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share my experience with a mixed reef and acropora bleaching / STN.
I have been running my Waterbox Reef 70.2 (65 gallon system) for about 9 months at the time of writing this post and I have lost my fair share of acropora in that time.
At first I chalked it up to the new tank not being properly established but I am not at a point where 95% of my scape is covered in Coraline and i have a thriving mircofauna population along with a few other notable attributes of a fairly established system.
I began my SPS journey with a few different varieties of Montipora and a birds nest and Green slimer. The Montiporas were growing and coloring Nicely but the sticks were slowly bleaching from the base. I tried a few more stick frags and same outcome, always bleaching upwards starting at the base. Even a few of the acropora frags would begin to slowly encrust their plugs over the course of a few weeks and In the end they would eventually begin to bleach from the base. All while these issues were going on I didn’t change any parameters, additives, levels, etc. in the water or the equipment. Stability is maintained with once weekly water changes of about 10-15% and a Neptune Apex, Trident, & DOS testing/dosing system. A few other pieces of the equipment: (2) Radion XR15 Gen5 Pros, (2) Nero 5’s, Fleece Roll, Skimmer, Refugium, and BRS Pro Media reactor. I was able to rule out any issues with lighting with a Par meter and I am confident that my flow is sufficient without going overboard and all my home testing of water chemistry was right on. I finally decided to have an ICP Test performed to rule out any other issues with my chemistry and as I suspected, all parameters came back in the acceptable ranges except for Iodine. I added the recommended amount of iodine to the tank and have been monitoring it since. With all of this work testing, checking, and re-checking, I still wasn’t able to keep acropora from bleaching in my system. My final decision was to hit the tank hard with Carbon. I filled up a large canister with BRS ROX and ran it at full flow volume. Within 2 days I began to see significant changes in most of the corals in the tank. Of the few acropora frags I had left, all of them that were slowly bleaching from the base have stopped and they all began to show signs of improved health (full polyp extension) that they never had before.
This long story is to provide information to those Who may be struggling keeping more sensitive species in their mixed reef systems. During my struggles with the tank I was not able to find any definitive information on the affects of Coral Warefare and sensitive species of coral in a mixed reef. It is important to remember that not all coral warfare is visible and easy to detect. A lot of the chemicals produced by the inhabitants of the mixed reef cannot be seen or even tested for. I would recommend to anyone that is running a mixed reef and having difficulties (or would like to prevent possible issues In the future) to start running Carbon to remove the undesirable coral chemicals that may be present and building up in your tank.
Please feel free to chime in with your own experience or correct anything I may have missed. Thanks all and I hope you find success with your mixed reef tanks!!
 

homer1475

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Well known that softies do coral warfare by chemical means. Running carbon removes those chemicals, resulting in the ability to keep softies and stonies together in the same tank.

I've seen a few posts from people who have leathers, and are not able to keep stonies. Run some carbon 24/7/365, and 99% of those problems go away.
 
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SEPDXReef

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Well known that softies do coral warfare by chemical means. Running carbon removes those chemicals, resulting in the ability to keep softies and stonies together in the same tank.

I've seen a few posts from people who have leathers, and are not able to keep stonies. Run some carbon 24/7/365, and 99% of those problems go away.
Thank you for your thoughts Homer, I couldn’t agree more. Carbon has seemingly done the trick for me and I hope it can for others as well who are attempting to keep a mixed reef style tank Happy Reefing!
 

Arego

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Carbon like anything else comes and goes with popularity because of people complaining about things that are preventable by simply rinsing well and replacing it regularly. I run 1 cup per 100g passively in a bag and it literally couldn't be easier to maintain.

I honestly can't think of a single reason why carbon should not be used in a mixed reef unless it's for a very specific issue for a certain amount of time.
 

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I am having similar issues. I have a 350g tank plus 150g sump with refugium, large skimmer, filter socks. Tank is 1 year and 8 months old. I started off with a mixed frag from WWC and lost all except the 2 zoas, 1 mushroom. I have tried beginner Sps frag packs from coral euphoria, Battlecorals and Harry's frags. All died. Even montis. I had one green birdsnest doing well but lost it after I went on vacation and my BRS doser overdosed alk. I blamed high nutrients. I a started rowaphos, dosed carbon from reef pro and my nitrates are at 5 and phos at 0.02. I just got a pack from fraghouse 3 weeks ago and I have one frag turn white at the base 3 days ago and overnight this morning was fully white.
 

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SEPDXReef

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I am having similar issues. I have a 350g tank plus 150g sump with refugium, large skimmer, filter socks. Tank is 1 year and 8 months old. I started off with a mixed frag from WWC and lost all except the 2 zoas, 1 mushroom. I have tried beginner Sps frag packs from coral euphoria, Battlecorals and Harry's frags. All died. Even montis. I had one green birdsnest doing well but lost it after I went on vacation and my BRS doser overdosed alk. I blamed high nutrients. I a started rowaphos, dosed carbon from reef pro and my nitrates are at 5 and phos at 0.02. I just got a pack from fraghouse 3 weeks ago and I have one frag turn white at the base 3 days ago and overnight this morning was fully white.
I’m sorry to hear you are having troubles Kingston. Here are a few steps you might want to consider to narrow down what your challenges may be:

1. What source water are you using? Do you have an RODI system set up? Has it been well maintained? Have you sent in a sample of water to have an ICP analysis performed on it? This would be crucial to rule out any possible contaminants or issues with the water.

2. What kind of lighting are you using? Have you tested the lighting with a par meter to get an understanding of light levels?

3. What kind of power heads and flow solutions have you implemented?

4. Are you testing consistently and frequently all of you major parameters? Are you keeping Alk & Calc stable? Is Salinity stable?

It sounds like you need to key in on the issues lots of reefers including myself have with SPS and more sensitive species. If you’re able to maintain softies then you are on the right track but you should work with a process of elimination to review what kind of environmental issues you might have when it comes to lighting, water quality, water stabilityand flow.
 

Kingston

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I’m sorry to hear you are having troubles Kingston. Here are a few steps you might want to consider to narrow down what your challenges may be:

1. What source water are you using? Do you have an RODI system set up? Has it been well maintained? Have you sent in a sample of water to have an ICP analysis performed on it? This would be crucial to rule out any possible contaminants or issues with the water.

2. What kind of lighting are you using? Have you tested the lighting with a par meter to get an understanding of light levels?

3. What kind of power heads and flow solutions have you implemented?

4. Are you testing consistently and frequently all of you major parameters? Are you keeping Alk & Calc stable? Is Salinity stable?

It sounds like you need to key in on the issues lots of reefers including myself have with SPS and more sensitive species. If you’re able to maintain softies then you are on the right track but you should work with a process of elimination to review what kind of environmental issues you might have when it comes to lighting, water quality, water stabilityand flow.
That is what is most frustrating.

1. RODI with inline TDS meter. Mostly meaeure 0. Occasionally will also do a handheld TDS Probe. Rarely will let TDS go to 1 before changing DI resin. Mostly anion runs out quickest.
2. Did an ICP a few months ago after working to bring down my nutrients. Nothing significant abnormal. In fact I was happy my ICP results match well with my home test kit.
3. 4 kessil A360X and 8 T5s hybrid. Test par 18 months ago. Will have to look at the numbers again. At worst I was thinking low par will cause browning and not RTN
4. Powerheads..I have 2 gyres and 2 tunze. One each on either side of the tank.
5. Parameters have been very stable. I was doing reef pro part A and B by hand but I even switched to red sea doser to avoid the swings.

I haven't tried carbon so far because I have tangs and I hear carbon can be harsh on tangs.
 

Greg P

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Running carbon in a mixed reef tank has always been a recommendation to fight coral warfare. Nothing new here.

Sorry to the OP but there are so many variations for our tanks that no one reefer can take any solid advice from this post, just good info.
 
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That is what is most frustrating.

1. RODI with inline TDS meter. Mostly meaeure 0. Occasionally will also do a handheld TDS Probe. Rarely will let TDS go to 1 before changing DI resin. Mostly anion runs out quickest.
2. Did an ICP a few months ago after working to bring down my nutrients. Nothing significant abnormal. In fact I was happy my ICP results match well with my home test kit.
3. 4 kessil A360X and 8 T5s hybrid. Test par 18 months ago. Will have to look at the numbers again. At worst I was thinking low par will cause browning and not RTN
4. Powerheads..I have 2 gyres and 2 tunze. One each on either side of the tank.
5. Parameters have been very stable. I was doing reef pro part A and B by hand but I even switched to red sea doser to avoid the swings.

I haven't tried carbon so far because I have tangs and I hear carbon can be harsh on tangs.
Sounds like you are right where I was. You have ruled out most of the obvious issues. Do you see any significant change in the health/appearance of your corals when you do a water change? When I was at the point you are at I began to notice that each week I performed a WC the corals looked much better for a few days and then began to look progressively worse, and the larger the water change, the better the corals did. Finally I pieced together a plethora of research and decided to try Carbon. I haven’t looked back and the tank has been utterly amazing with zero loss.
I would also advise to not worry about the issue with Tangs and Carbon. From everything I have heard of and all of the research I have done and my personal experience with my own Scopas Tang the issues Only arise from IMPROPER use of carbon. As long as you use quality Carbon and WASH WASH WASH it with RODI water you will have no issues with the tangs. Make sure that when you wash the Carbon, rinse until you don’t see any black left in the water running through it and then dump another gallon through it to be safe. Also, make sure that however you install the Carbon in the tank, ensure it is not tumbling. Tubling can cause the Carbon to break down into micro dust and this will irritate your I habitants.
I hope this helps!
 

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When taking About a mixed reef what are we talking about here? Some giant leathers, a tank packed wall to wall or a few softies frags? While I do passively run carbon, frequent water changes as you say you are doing ‘should’ help as well. Not sure I’m 100% sold that chemical warfare on its own is the source of all your issues. But if carbon solved the problem kudos!
 

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I have been running my Waterbox Reef 70.2 (65 gallon system) for about 9 months at the time of writing this post and I have lost my fair share of acropora in that time.

Can i ask what was the tin level on the icp please?
 
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When taking About a mixed reef what are we talking about here? Some giant leathers, a tank packed wall to wall or a few softies frags? While I do passively run carbon, frequent water changes as you say you are doing ‘should’ help as well. Not sure I’m 100% sold that chemical warfare on its own is the source of all your issues. But if carbon solved the problem kudos!
Two leathers, Five Mushrooms, Various Zoas, 2 chalices, blasto, bowerbanki, multiple montiporas, birds nest, 5 different acropora species, 3 hammers, 3 torches, Alveopora, etc.
The issue for me was definitely an organic build up because carbon was the solution.
 

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Thanks for the recommendations. I will keep looking into what the potential issue is. I have carbon on hand but have never run it yet. I have 6 torches, 2 blastos, 2 gonis, 2 small ricordia mushrooms and 2 zoas. I was looking Acros even before I added the torches and gonis. I may just try the carbon just in case.
 
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Thanks for the recommendations. I will keep looking into what the potential issue is. I have carbon on hand but have never run it yet. I have 6 torches, 2 blastos, 2 gonis, 2 small ricordia mushrooms and 2 zoas. I was looking Acros even before I added the torches and gonis. I may just try the carbon just in case.
One other thought I had: where do your Acro’s typically start to show signs of stress? From the tips, base, or sides?
 
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From the base...
Definitely something in the water. Excat same response from my dying acros at the time. Every single one bleached from the base. Carbon is your best bet. Give it 1-3 days and you will see change. Good luck! Please let us know how it progresses.
 

Kingston

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Definitely something in the water. Excat same response from my dying acros at the time. Every single one bleached from the base. Carbon is your best bet. Give it 1-3 days and you will see change. Good luck! Please let us know how it progresses.
Will do
 

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