Bubbling SPS disease

[justy]

@justy the 150w will be fine with that size of tank. Looking forward to seeing the results and most importantly, looking forward to your Acros getting healthy.

I really hope so, its been extremely frustrating.

 

[Reefer Dan]

I really hope so, its been extremely frustrating.

Well my icp came back and I didn’t see anything real concerning. I had Randy double check it and he said nothing elevated looked problematic, actually suggested I increase my trace elements.

So now I wait to see if your lighting experiment helps, otherwise I guess the pathogen route is next on my list.

 

[justy]

Well my icp came back and I didn’t see anything real concerning. I had Randy double check it and he said nothing elevated looked problematic, actually suggested I increase my trace elements.

So now I wait to see if your lighting experiment helps, otherwise I guess the pathogen route is next on my list.

Update, both frags moved to other systems continue to do well, all blistering gone and fresh signs of skeletal repair. On my tank nothingbto report, no real change but its only been a week with the halides on. But with the halides on all corals look like brown turds.

 

[Troylee]

I'm going to make a prediction. If you have at least 250w halides and good coverage, not just one fixture, you're definitely going to see a change.

I haven't posted this get, but I have a very valid theory that the reason Acros do better under Halides is that they destroy some bacteria strain that causes harm to the Acros.

LEDs can't produce the output of halides so you see this in LED usage. I'm VERY interested to see if it turns around after a week or two. Keep me posted.

I can debunk that for ya right now… I’ve never seen this Sps bubbling that’s seen in this thread in my 20 years of keeping reefs but! My old skool pink lemonade has begun to do this under 250w metal halides over the last 2 weeks where it’s encrusted on a rock… I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s not affecting the coral except polyp extension. If it was on the stick it’s self I’d clip a piece and throw it in my sump under my led frag rack to see what happens..

 

[Reefer Dan]

I can debunk that for ya right now… I’ve never seen this Sps bubbling that’s seen in this thread in my 20 years of keeping reefs but! My old skool pink lemonade has begun to do this under 250w metal halides over the last 2 weeks where it’s encrusted on a rock… I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s not affecting the coral except polyp extension. If it was on the stick it’s self I’d clip a piece and throw it in my sump under my led frag rack to see what happens..

Just wanting to clarify as we try and figure this weird phenomenon out. Do you have any leds over the pink lemonade (with your MH) and any changes you’ve made over the past month or so?

 

[Troylee]

Just wanting to clarify as we try and figure this weird phenomenon out. Do you have any leds over the pink lemonade (with your MH) and any changes you’ve made over the past month or so?

I have some xr15’s between my halides as supplements but they have zero punch so I don’t believe they have any effect on it personally. Only thing I’ve changed is I started dosing all for reef on top of my kalk top off.. my calcium tends to run high and I’m not sure why… 530-550 with a dkh of 10…

 

[Reefer Dan]

I have some xr15’s between my halides as supplements but they have zero punch so I don’t believe they have any effect on it personally. Only thing I’ve changed is I started dosing all for reef on top of my kalk top off.. my calcium tends to run high and I’m not sure why… 530-550 with a dkh of 10

interesting.

The other line of thinking from these types of threads is it is a bacterial issue such as vibrio, but vibrio is a generalist and can attack fish too, so I imagine that isn’t the problem?

 

[Reefer Dan]

interesting.

The other line of thinking from these types of threads is it is a bacterial issue such as vibrio, but vibrio is a generalist and can attack fish too, so I imagine that isn’t the problem?

I also double checked with Kessil since I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on this forum regarding the violet channel being related to UV and a whole spectrum that can be used by the corals, etc. Kessil confirmed that the violet is for visual preference (on kessils) and doesn’t add any UV, the UV is controlled by the “Kessil logic”.

I was a little concerned because I run my violet channel at 100%… sounds like in my case it is not as a result of this, but still interested in your results @justy since I may be overlooking something.

 

[Troylee]

I also double checked with Kessil since I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on this forum regarding the violet channel being related to UV and a whole spectrum that can be used by the corals, etc. Kessil confirmed that the violet is for visual preference (on kessils) and doesn’t add any UV, the UV is controlled by the “Kessil logic”.

I was a little concerned because I run my violet channel at 100%… sounds like in my case it is not as a result of this, but still interested in your results @justy since I may be overlooking something.

I’m not sure what exactly it is.. I’d guess the same thing that’s making mushrooms bounce lol.. I watched a video a couple weeks back of a store that got in some wild shrooms and after a month in their tank they started to bubble.. it could be bacterial but not really contagious? Haha! Idk.. I’m not a scientist

 

[justy]

I can debunk that for ya right now… I’ve never seen this Sps bubbling that’s seen in this thread in my 20 years of keeping reefs but! My old skool pink lemonade has begun to do this under 250w metal halides over the last 2 weeks where it’s encrusted on a rock… I’m not sure what’s going on but it’s not affecting the coral except polyp extension. If it was on the stick it’s self I’d clip a piece and throw it in my sump under my led frag rack to see what happens..

Keep an eye on it do you have any photos for comparison?

 

[justy]

For a while, I also considered if all 4 reef and kalc has some weird reaction if you use them both together, as I currently do?

 

[Troylee]

For a while, I also considered if all 4 reef and kalc has some weird reaction if you use them both together, as I currently do?

I do!

 

[Reefer Dan]

For a while, I also considered if all 4 reef and kalc has some weird reaction if you use them both together, as I currently do?

I don’t use all 4 reef or kalk.

 

[Troylee]

Keep an eye on it do you have any photos for comparison?

It’s only around the base… I have about 50 acros and this is the only one showing it.

 

[justy]

Certainly looks like the same thing, how are the rest of your corals growing? As I stated before not only the corals that blister have slow growth rates if any, corals showing no blistering in the tank also have very slow growth rates.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

@Troylee your Calcium is running high because of Kalkwasser and All for Reef. Both raise Calcium. All for Reef is particularly interesting because it doesn't raise it immediately, it raises levels as time goes on.

You might dose AFR Monday and not see a change in Calcium until Wed/Thurs. Kalk definitely raises Calcium as well depending on your saturation point.

So my MH theory may work in @justy experiment. I am almost positive there are certain bad bacteria and pathogens in all water that MH sterilizes. I don't think LEDs have the opportunity to do this as they lack many outputs that MH has, like true UV, etc.

In short, I think the SPS color up more under LEDs to protect themselves from this bad bacteria. Call it either a protective response or an aggressive approach that repels the bacteria for whatever reason, one of the two.

Under MH, the SPS aren't that colorful, but grow fantastic as they don't need to color up as much to protect themselves from the bad bacteria.

I'll do a complete write up or video on this soon and add some things I've discovered. It's no debate that using MH, SPS do better health wise and under LED they display magnificent colors. I've noticed MH is more forgiving of mistakes in water chemistry than LED. I can bring back AN Acropora 90% of the time that has almost completely expelled it's zooxanthellae and is totally white skeleton. I have numerous examples of this that I've done this year with Maricultured. Maricultured has been looked at as almost impossible to keep alive past 4 to 6 months in the home aquarium. My reef system is 90% Maricultured and they almost all looked pretty bad after coming to me from stress during shipping.

At any rate, these discussions we've had here are very good as every one of you has an open mind and is willing to test and try different approaches. That's how the industry will find breakthroughs in science as it pertains to corals, lighting, water chemistry, feeding, etc. So thank you all for the excellent discussions, keep it up!

@justy or @Goonter any difference in your corals so far? Just I believe you switched to 150w MH?

 

[drawman]

@Troylee your Calcium is running high because of Kalkwasser and All for Reef. Both raise Calcium. All for Reef is particularly interesting because it doesn't raise it immediately, it raises levels as time goes on.

You might dose AFR Monday and not see a change in Calcium until Wed/Thurs. Kalk definitely raises Calcium as well depending on your saturation point.

So my MH theory may work in @justy experiment. I am almost positive there are certain bad bacteria and pathogens in all water that MH sterilizes. I don't think LEDs have the opportunity to do this as they lack many outputs that MH has, like true UV, etc.

In short, I think the SPS color up more under LEDs to protect themselves from this bad bacteria. Call it either a protective response or an aggressive approach that repels the bacteria for whatever reason, one of the two.

Under MH, the SPS aren't that colorful, but grow fantastic as they don't need to color up as much to protect themselves from the bad bacteria.

I'll do a complete write up or video on this soon and add some things I've discovered. It's no debate that using MH, SPS do better health wise and under LED they display magnificent colors. I've noticed MH is more forgiving of mistakes in water chemistry than LED. I can bring back AN Acropora 90% of the time that has almost completely expelled it's zooxanthellae and is totally white skeleton. I have numerous examples of this that I've done this year with Maricultured. Maricultured has been looked at as almost impossible to keep alive past 4 to 6 months in the home aquarium. My reef system is 90% Maricultured and they almost all looked pretty bad after coming to me from stress during shipping.

At any rate, these discussions we've had here are very good as every one of you has an open mind and is willing to test and try different approaches. That's how the industry will find breakthroughs in science as it pertains to corals, lighting, water chemistry, feeding, etc. So thank you all for the excellent discussions, keep it up!

@justy or @Goonter any difference in your corals so far? Just I believe you switched to 150w MH?

To be devil's advocate my case happened in a tank fully lit by T5s (ATI).

Not trying to disparage your thoughts I just think we would need a repeatable trial to verify the claim across multiple tanks. That said can't beat metal halides for acro health. It certainly could be that the coral are more healthy in a given system (ie metal halide run) which allows them to beat whatever this irritant/pathogen/etc is.

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

To be devil's advocate my case happened in a tank fully lit by T5s (ATI).

Not trying to disparage your thoughts I just think we would need a repeatable trial to verify the claim across multiple tanks. That said can't beat metal halides for acro health. It certainly could be that the coral are more healthy in a given system (ie metal halide run) which allows them to beat whatever this irritant/pathogen/etc is.

I didn't take it that way, no worries.

Your blistering of Acros happened with T5s? No, I'm not saying I know it's one strain or something that's working like I think it is. I don't know, but there's definitely something to it.

Now T5 is similar to MH in that it is a combustion of internal gases or chemical reactions that display light.

Again, it may be some waterborn pathogen and that's why Cipro usually helps in certain instances.

 

[Tonycass12]

I had this happen to some birdsnest colonies early on with my tank. The bubbles would even build up a calcium skeleton under them. Ended up just going away with time. After 1.5yrs I have not seen the issue appear again. My opinion is this is caused by some type of bacteria or bacterial imbalance in the tank but I could be completely wrong.

 

[drawman]

I didn't take it that way, no worries.

Your blistering of Acros happened with T5s? No, I'm not saying I know it's one strain or something that's working like I think it is. I don't know, but there's definitely something to it.

Now T5 is similar to MH in that it is a combustion of internal gases or chemical reactions that display light.

Again, it may be some waterborn pathogen and that's why Cipro usually helps in certain instances.

Totally agree I don't think the T5s had anything to do with it just putting it out there as a data point.