Birdsnest STN or Bleaching ???

[Nick Rose]

I bought a Green Birdsnest on June 21st and the last few days I have noticed the bottom is turning white. I don't know if its STN or bleaching. 40 gallon Tank with 20 gallon Sump, 1.026, 450Ca, 1380Mag, 8.9Dkh, .2No3, .03Po4 or less, 79Temp, two AI Vegas, Icecap Gyre 1k. Before I bought the birdsnest I was using the API KH test kit which was giving me a 9dkh reading but when I bought a Saliferet test kit it was reading 7.7. So over several days I brought it up to 8.9dkh. Maybe that was too fast? The white strings you see is from a Vermeted snail that is near by. I moved the coral to this location last night its at the bottom of the tank.

 

[Pete_the_Puma]

In my experience with very low nutrients (Phos of 0.03 or less and Nitrate at 0.2) you want to stick to DKH around 7-7.5, I get in trouble with anything near 8.0 or more and if rising quickly.

 

[CMO]

I know they're sold as beginner SPS but some birdsnests can actually be quite sensitive to water chemistry changes IME. Good news though is they grow like weeds when happy. It's common for the base to bleach like that once they get larger and light is cut off to the base but that shouldn't be happening at this point. IMO bet course of action is to cut off the dead tissue, dip to stop any STN if that is what's going on and glue to a new plug.

 

[Nick Rose]

In my experience with very low nutrients (Phos of 0.03 or less and Nitrate at 0.2) you want to stick to DKH around 7-7.5, I get in trouble with anything near 8.0 or more and if rising quickly.

How could I increase the nutrients. I have 4 Nemurus Chromis and 2 baby clownfish, Frogspawn, Candy Cane, Acans. I feed the fish 2 cubes a day, one in morning and 1 at night. I use no socks, the sump has live rock and large amount of Chaeto. I run the skimmer during the night. Could the chaeto be sucking out a lot of nurtrients?

 

[bobby.w.hodges]

How could I increase the nutrients. I have 4 Nemurus Chromis and 2 baby clownfish, Frogspawn, Candy Cane, Acans. I feed the fish 2 cubes a day, one in morning and 1 at night. I use no socks, the sump has live rock and large amount of Chaeto. I run the skimmer during the night. Could the chaeto be sucking out a lot of nurtrients?

It's best to just let the alk drop over time or do a water change to bring it down some rather than try to increase nutrient levels IMO. If your corals were happy before when you "thought" you had 9dkh but it was 7.7, i would let it just be 7.7 because you apparently already have a good nutrient export method that doesn't need to be changed. Like a previous post mentioned, with lower nutrients the alk should be lower as well.

 

[ello42]

How could I increase the nutrients. I have 4 Nemurus Chromis and 2 baby clownfish, Frogspawn, Candy Cane, Acans. I feed the fish 2 cubes a day, one in morning and 1 at night. I use no socks, the sump has live rock and large amount of Chaeto. I run the skimmer during the night. Could the chaeto be sucking out a lot of nurtrients?

I have 3 clowns and one springer damsel in my tank NO3 is 0 and PO4 is 0 i have a 33g sps dominated tank.
Ca 450
Mg 1400
Alk 8dkh
Salinity 1.025
I run carbon and phosguard and a skimmer.
Coral stock: leptastrea,pink monti cap,green digi,forest fire digi,2 confused rainbow montis,garf bonsai,green slimer,pocillapora,stylophora,3 birdsnets,gsp,chalice,elkhorn monti and two colony zoas

Maintenance every second week and when i do it i add red sea colors a,b,c,d and red sea coral nutrition a,b with ro/di water seeing there is no detectable NO3 and PO4

Any ill effects or coral dying in my tank no none .

 

[Nick Rose]

It's best to just let the alk drop over time or do a water change to bring it down some rather than try to increase nutrient levels IMO. If your corals were happy before when you "thought" you had 9dkh but it was 7.7, i would let it just be 7.7 because you apparently already have a good nutrient export method that doesn't need to be changed. Like a previous post mentioned, with lower nutrients the alk should be lower as well.

I actually don't really have a good nutrient export or at least it wouldn't seem like it should be but apparently it is. I have no socks, skimmer is only running 12hrs a day, I do have a large amount of chaeto, I do a 4 gallon water change a week and this is on a 59gallon system .

 

[Nick Rose]

Here is a overall shot of the tank and the light schedule. It two AI Vegas. 12hrs with 6hrs40min at peak which is 58%blues and 15 Whites/Green 5%red. The lights used to be at 85%blues and the others stayed the same. Do you think the Chaeto is taking up to much nutrients?

 

[bobby.w.hodges]

With only 6 small fish there won't be a lot of nutrients to absorb, except that you feed two cubes per day, i feed two cubes per day with 3 tangs and 10 small fish in a 120 gallon tank, with that being said the cheato is probably absorbing the nutrients pretty well. Do you trim it back at all? I like to cut mine back every two weeks.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Did you dip your corals?

It's possible that it's getting shaded by itself, causing the loss of zooxanthellae and bleaching.

 

[Nick Rose]

With only 6 small fish there won't be a lot of nutrients to absorb, except that you feed two cubes per day, i feed two cubes per day with 3 tangs and 10 small fish in a 120 gallon tank, with that being said the cheato is probably absorbing the nutrients pretty well. Do you trim it back at all? I like to cut mine back every two weeks.

Last week I sold 5 quart bags of it. I guess maybe I should trim another 5 quarts and then wait and test the nutrients. Also maybe not do a water change for a few weeks. I do have some algae in the tank but I don't consider it a lot.

 

[Nick Rose]

Did you dip your corals?

It's possible that it's getting shaded by itself, causing the loss of zooxanthellae and bleaching.

No I did not dip the birdsnest. I only have iodine from Walgreens and I didn't know if thats safe on SPS. It might be shading itself. It does have a lean to it and that is where the white is but there is a bit of white on the non shaded area. Do you think I should up the lighting. I don't have a PAR meter so don't know what the Vegas are putting out with the settings I have.

 

[Flippers4pups]

No I did not dip the birdsnest. I only have iodine from Walgreens and I didn't know if thats safe on SPS. It might be shading itself. It does have a lean to it and that is where the white is but there is a bit of white on the non shaded area.

Dipping is advised with coral dip. Revive is a good choice. Has this piece been losing color since you got it?

 

[Nick Rose]

Dipping is advised with coral dip. Revive is a good choice. Has this piece been losing color since you got it?

It was going good the first week but then after I moved it slightly up into more light the polyps weren’t as open as the first week. The base started to bleach or STN this past week. I’m hoping it’s just bleaching especially since there is a few polyps in the white area that still has color. I would think if it’s STNing those wouldn’t have color still.

This was Day after I put the Birdsnest in the tank.

 

[ello42]

I just want to bring to your attention birdnest(staghorns) has been notorious for doing and growing well for months/years and suddenly just stn or rtn i know a couple of reefers it happend to.

 

[SeansNanoReef]

Birdsnest corals usually shade the bottom parts of themselves. It looks pretty dark where it’s “bleaching”.

 

[Nick Rose]

I have noticed the whitening is the worst on the backside and the front side has very little. Should I reposition the frag on the plug where its more straight or should I just increase the lighting. I have noticed that the tips of the frag are growing. One thing to add is that the tank is a bare bottom. I wonder if that is not helping since there is no reflective light bouncing off white sand.

 

[ello42]

I have noticed the whitening is the worst on the backside and the front side has very little. Should I reposition the frag on the plug where its more straight or should I just increase the lighting. I have noticed that the tips of the frag are growing. One thing to add is that the tank is a bare bottom. I wonder if that is not helping since there is no reflective light bouncing off white sand.

I also run bare bottom took out my substrate because my NO3 and PO4 was off the scale i had algae like crazy brown and green everywhere dang it was a pain corals died my sps rtn/stn overnight but since i took it out wow everything in there that didnt die took off like weeds new sps editions open s up in a couple of mins and take off since then no algae not a spec of hair/grain of algae my tank looks like i bought it yesterday clean healthy i wont put in substrate every again if i should advise someone only cycle the tank with live sand run it for 2-3 month with the sand and take it out to go bare bottom

 

[Nick Rose]

It's best to just let the alk drop over time or do a water change to bring it down some rather than try to increase nutrient levels IMO. If your corals were happy before when you "thought" you had 9dkh but it was 7.7, i would let it just be 7.7 because you apparently already have a good nutrient export method that doesn't need to be changed. Like a previous post mentioned, with lower nutrients the alk should be lower as well.

Can High Alk and low nutrients cause Candy Canes and Acans to recede? Because I was looking at my spreed sheet of the testing I do and looked back at the 2 times(April and right now) my Candy Canes started to recede and it seems to correspond to having a higher Alk. I only dose 20ml of both ALK and Ca. Is it ok to just stop dosing cold turkey and let the Alk drop. Hopefully when the Alk get to 7.7 and lower I will see the Birdsnest, Candy Cane and Acans perk up. Its funny because my Frogspawn, GSP, and Xenia are growing like weeds.