Canary in a coal mine

[Bri Guy]

So ive heard of people having corals/fish/inverts that tell them if somethings wrong with there water parameters, do any of you have a "canary in the coal mine"?
What have you noticed showing signs of something wrong?

The only thing ive ever noticed was when I neglected my tank before the move, my sps looked very unhappy.

share your experiences

 

[Viva'sReef]

I use my encrusting Monti's as the Canary during the summer months when I'm slacking on water changes and whatnot. When the polyps arent opening as much or not at all....its time for a water change

 

[Leishman]

Purple monster fades with low alk

 

[ReeferGoalie]

Xenia usually tends to be a good indicator of something going awry.

 

[MrSquid]

I've read the same about GSP.

 

[condiman]

I have herd that about yellow tangs as well

 

[drew.michael]

poccilipora is my indicator

 

[jlinzmaier]

Xenia usually tends to be a good indicator of something going awry.

Keep in mind xenia doesn't thrive in low nutrient environments either. My xenia would grow like crazy until I started zeo. Now it's all withered away and everything else looks quite good. Dying xenia isn't always a bad sign (unless your trying to keep/grow xenia).


I have a specific montipora mollis colony that will show signs of necrosis when the nutrients are being stripped too fast by my zeolite reactor. Once the correction is made it responds positively almost immediately. I accidently ran my reactor too fast once and all of my mollis colonies and the frags showed signs of stress before anything else.

In regards to excess nutrients, my GSP will darken and won't extend polyps when water quality declines.

My SPS were awesome indicators that my AA dosing was too high. My zeo regimen was stripping nutrients to fast to allow typical AA overdose signs to become evident (increased algae growth, increased zoox growth, and overall signs of excess nutrients). In a bit of an experiment, one day I significantly increased AA dosing simply to see the effects on growth and coloration of the corals. After about 10 days I noticed some STN and decreased polyp extension - not the reaction I was hoping for. Not all SPS reacted so negatively but my blue tort, green stylo, millies, and others had significantly limited polyp ext during the time of increased AA dosing. In fact, immediately after dosing the daily AA dose, the green stylo colonies would immediately retract their polyps for about an hour. I have since stopped AA dosing all together and polyp ext has increased in all corals. Normally AA dosing will incite polyp ext and a feeding reaction but I was dosing so much the corals were ultimately starbing themselves due to the high concentrations of AA's. There's a lot more detail to the explanation and exact chemistry of it, but it was an interesting observation to say the least.

If I see any tissue loss at all on any of my SPS it's usually becuase of a fluctuation in alk. Any one of the SPS will react very negatively to fast alk fluctuations or if it slowly creeps above 8.0 dkh or below 6.5 dkh (especially since I hit such a low nutrient level). If the alk fluctuates more than 0.5dkh in more than a day or so then the SPS will likely be upset. An unfortunate disadvantage to running zeo and creating a very low nutrient level. I have yet to have a chemist explain the correlation between very low nutrient levels and why SPS are touchy with alk levels at that point, but it is a very common finding.

Jeremy

 

[siropa]

i'm not sure i'd trust Xenia either. at various times i've had that stuff thrive to one day just melt away with no apparent reason. if there was some environmental trigger, it sure isn't something i've ever identified.

 

[kesslerkid01]

well when my fish are all upside down i know i did something WRONG