Burnt tips but why...

[Reefer40b]

So I know if you have higher alk and low nutrients you can get burnt tips... but my alk is around 8.3-8.5 and is not fluctuating/swinging, nitrates around 10ppm. Yet I have a couple acros that are getting burnt tips PC rainbow/mellow yellow, couple millies...

Any ideas what could be going on? The only thing that's really changed is that I have stopped water changes as I had a dino bloom which is now subsiding, so a couple days ago I did a 10gal water change. System volume around 200gal

Thinking about doing smaller consecutive water changes each day or should I do large water changes do you think? First time seeing this so not sure if water change is just going to make things worse...

 

[GoVols]

Where do your phosphates test too?
And do you carbon dose?

I always dose Red Sea Reef Energy to keep the organics up in a reef, and it protects your sps, from getting burnt tips.

 

[Reefer40b]

No carbon dose and phosphates was tested at .2ppm with hanna ulr egg

 

[jda]

You can burn tips from bad LED light... usually turned up too high.

When people say low alk, they mean 6 to 7. I would still consider 8.X to be too high if your building blocks were indeed too low, but I do not think that they are. 10n and .2p is plenty growth limiting enough to impede calcification. In any case, you might want to aim more to the 7.0 level if your disposition is to keep it safe.

You can get burnt tips with too much direct flow - the water peels the tissue right off.

Fish that get a taste for acropora flesh can cause damage too.

Do you have any photos?

 

[29bonsaireef]

IME, if the Dinos are heavy in the tank.. they will really compete out corals for nutrients. You could just be seeing post symptoms from the bloom. If you're running LEDs.. I agree, they can cause burning issues when nutrients get low.

 

[Reefer40b]

I think I will aim for a little lower Alk, 7.7 always seemed to be a sweet spot for me and see if that helps. The corals are not being hit by direct flow, and the dinos are no longer heavy but possibly still present it may just be cyano that looks brown but haven't confirmed yet. I will try to get some pictures maybe tomorrow after work. Running LED/T5's tested Nitrate this morning and its at 5ppm.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Chould be fro the water change. Whats the alk of you new satlwater? What salt mix you you use? Salts like Reef Crystals and RSCP have high alk. Change anything, replace gfo or active carbon, increase lignting?

 

[Reefer40b]

I use instant ocean or fritz rpm. Dont use gfo and only carbon once in a while not of which were changed. Lights havent touched in 9 months or so

I forgot i went on an aptasia bender and I think it was due to using too much aptasia x and the fact that i forgot to turn my pumps back on after a while...

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Could be from the aptasia mass killings.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Lights appear to be a bit bright. I question the Ph which seems a tad high and what is your water flow like. I tuned mine down to Moderate and the SPS are very happy.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

How do you know if his lights appear bright? There is no pic of his tank and nkthing mentioned about par numbers. All the op stated about lights is t5 led combo and he has not messed with the lights in 9 months.
My bet is the burt tips is due to the Aiptasia X in heavy amounts and not turning the pumps back on. Little to no surface movement of the water can effect light penatration and make led hot spots worse, surface movement of the water helps blend and disperse the light.

 

[vetteguy53081]

How do you know if his lights appear bright? There is no pic of his tank and nkthing mentioned about par numbers. All the op stated about lights is t5 led combo and he has not messed with the lights in 9 months.
My bet is the burt tips is due to the Aiptasia X in heavy amounts and not turning the pumps back on. Little to no surface movement of the water can effect light penatration and make led hot spots worse, surface movement of the water helps blend and disperse the light.

Light penetration yes and led generally when bright- the tips get burnt. Was Waiting for response from him to describe intensity. See far too many with burnt tip having one thing in common- lights generally high on whites and ironically from LED, not T5

 

[PhreeByrd]

I wouldn't say that 8.5 dKH is 'high' with 5-10ppm nitrate. Are you sure what you're seeing is burned tips and not new growth? What color are the 'burnt' tips?
Some photos would be extremely helpful.

 

[Reefer40b]

Its 100% burnt tips... i have only seen stuff get burnt when I'm over 9 even with 10ppm nitrate. Since dropping Alk a little and a couple 10 gal water changes things looking a lot better. And the acros that were near where i hit the aptasia hard showed the worst symptoms, even some random tissue loss poor red dragon.. Lesson learned

 

[MichaelsReef]

I was getting what looked like burnt tips in an established tank. Lost a bunch of corals . Turned out to be extremely high levels of zinc from a rusting copper pipe hanger above the sump . It’s worth $50 to do a triton rest. I went for months without figuring it out .

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

I’d bet you don’t dose iodine. Iodine low means bad o2 export. Good alk,good light,good growth, good zooanthella, too much o2. Burnt tips. O2 byproduct of photosynthesis which uses co2 to create sugar and o2. O2 in high dosage kills coral and coral evacuates zooanthella for life support!

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Red Sea is a decent iodine test kit. Lugols is good iodine supplement. Small amounts = good. 0.06 is the number!

 

[Reefer40b]

I will look into the iodine test could be low with the amount of macro I grow! Already have some lugols that I use to dip corals with. May do a Triton but doesn't seem like I'm having those kind of issues, would be nice to see where my tank is sitting trace element wise though.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

I use 1 drop on Monday and 2 on Thursday. 300 g system.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

Definitely do triton test. I do every 3 months to validate my dosing scheme.