Fading acros/STN

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

i postes this in my build thread, but wanted to get more eyes on it here:

Bad news in the office tank. I'd been having some really bad fading, and no PE on my acros for a few weeks. I chocked it up to my nutrients being too low, so I started dosing to bring them up a little. A week or so ago I found a screw and a bunch of rust in my ATO container... The strange part is minus the poor coloration, and the lack of PE they still seemed to be growing. I lost a small frag of pink lemonade last week and a lepto a week before, but i thought I was out of the woods. This morning I noticed some STN going on at the base of my chameleon, and my ASD rainbow looks terrible (as does the bonsai, but it's been through worse. I was planning on cutting a large piece of it for the new tank today anyway) I also have a little nub of fox flame that i dropped a rock on a while ago, but it is growing better than ever at the moment.

Question is do I pull everything, and pull it in my immature tank, or let it ride?

Lights are Reefbreeders photon v2 maxing at 60% blues 10% whites

Parameters

Work
Alk-8.1
Cal-400
Mag-1400
Nitrates-5
PO4-.02

Home
Alk-9.8 (bring it down slowly)
Cal-440
Mag-1450
Nitrate-.5
PO4-.04

ndrwater · Aug 22, 2018

In this case, I think I would add a poly filter to see if there was anything left over from the rusty screw.
I don't think that moving things into your other tank would be the best course of action at this point. Adding stressed corals to an immature tank with higher alk would probably do more harm than good at this point.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

ndrwater said:
In this case, I think I would add a poly filter to see if there was anything left over from the rusty screw.
I don't think that moving things into your other tank would be the best course of action at this point. Adding stressed corals to an immature tank with higher alk would probably do more harm than good at this point.

I agree, and I did already add a poly filter. I think the big water change, and the carbon took care of whatever was lingering because the polyfilter never changed color.

jda · Aug 22, 2018

Do not sweat the rust. If anything came off of it and got into the tank, it would have been skimmed out or bound to aragonite and rendered harmless. The rust is not your issue.

How old/new are these tanks? If the tanks are less than a year, then you might just have to wait it out.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

My office tank has been running for close to five years now, and has supported SPS for a while now no problem.

I agree that rust wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but my concern was the fact that there was so much of it meant that screw had been in there for a while.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

Another thought, Spectracide.

I had been dosing with it to raise nitrates. When I started using it there was a definite improvement in my colors.

I know some people have used it, and had acro issues. If you are going to have adverse effects from using it, would they happen right off the bat, or is it something that could take a turn for the worst after using it for a few months? For what it's worth, I have my nitrates where they need to be now, and won't be dosing it anymore.

jda · Aug 22, 2018

I would not use Spectracide for anything. ...or any nitrate dosing other than feeding fish more. It seems to me like is fools gold with some good early returns that usually fade or crash later on... not always nor for everybody, but enough times to not ignore. If your tank is mature and healthy, then the anoxic bacteria in rock and sand will quickly chew up the nitrates - if it does not, then that is a sign of perhaps something that needs addressed. Nitrate of .1 is fine as long as you feed a lot - throughput is more important than a number on a test kit.

In the five years, did your SPS ever thrive? It is not unreasonable to have cantaloupe sized SPS in a five year old tank and many can get there in three years.

You might get more help if you post photos... some people are really good at looking at a tank and figuring stuff out.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

Thank you very much for your input, and I am definitely done with the spectracide.

My SPS were thriving at about the two year mark of the tank. I broke down my tank at home, and moved all of my acros over to this tank. the did great for a few months until I had a major crash. While out of town my ATO reservoir was refilled with water from a water change that was sitting next to a jug of fresh water by the person caring for the tank (my fault). after this I let the tank cruise for a couple of years. About six months ago I started adding acros again, and all have grown really well for me up until a couple of weeks ago. below is a pic of the only acro that survived the crash. It is much bigger than a softball

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

Unfortunately I am out of the office for the day. I will try to get some pics tomorrow. Here's what i changed today:

1) added a filter sock
2)I tossed my old RODI container, and replaced it
3)Will open a new bucket of salt tomorrow
4)Threw away an old bag of LRS that may have been past its prime

I am going to stop by the LFS tomorrow to grab some Dr. Tims (couldn't hurt), and will be doing a large water change.

jda · Aug 22, 2018

The death in the shadows of the Bonsai is concerning... which is probably what you are concerned about. This can happen with LED only lit tanks and some T5s might help, but I would get everything else back in order before you do too much... maybe a nice water change and making sure that your dosers or CaRx are dialed in for some nice stability.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

jda said:
The death in the shadows of the Bonsai is concerning... which is probably what you are concerned about. This can happen with LED only lit tanks and some T5s might help, but I would get everything else back in order before you do too much... maybe a nice water change and making sure that your dosers or CaRx are dialed in for some nice stability.

The shadowing has been that way for a while. It sucks, but it is what it is. Adding more lights isn't really feasible, and I've had much better luck with LED than T5 on this tank. My other tank has both to keep this from happening in the future. This pic is actually from a month or so ago. I am getting no PE, and the color has faded to a dull gray. That pic was more for reference.

declanisadog · Aug 22, 2018

I forgot I took this one. This used to be an AA chameleon. It was blue/green with yellow tips, and blue polyps. Now it looks like this. It had doubled in size from when I bought it.

You can see the missing tissue at the base. If it's any worse tomorrow, I am going to cut the good stuff, but I don't suppose it will make it...

declanisadog · Aug 23, 2018

The coral pictured above has all but succumbed to tissue necrosis. at least it is easily replaceable i guess. All the stuff on the frag rack looks pretty happy, and I can see green dots on the bonsai when just the blue lights are on. Fortunately I only have a few mounted acros at the moment, and most of them seem like they are going to pull through.

Hans-Werner · Aug 24, 2018

Acropora are especially susceptible to STN at high alkalinity and low phosphate concentrations (<< 0.1 ppm). Your problems seem quite typical to me for this combination.

5 ppm nitrate is more on the high side which worsens the problem.

The green skeleton the frag shows says that this coral is grown under higher phosphate concentrations and is now suffering adaptation problems.

declanisadog · Aug 24, 2018

I’d agree, but my alk is 8. Is that really that high? My phosphates were undetectable for a while, and that was before I started having these issues.

Hans-Werner · Aug 24, 2018

Sorry, I mixed your "home" and "work" tank. I would say in the office tank it is mainly the very low phosphate concentration. 8 is only slightly high but considering that in the oceans it is just 6.5 it is still a bit high.

declanisadog · Aug 24, 2018

Yeah, I copied the original post from my build thread. Sorry for the confusion

Velcro · Aug 24, 2018

Hans-Werner said:
Acropora are especially susceptible to STN at high alkalinity and low phosphate concentrations (<< 0.1 ppm). Your problems seem quite typical to me for this combination.

5 ppm nitrate is more on the high side which worsens the problem.

The green skeleton the frag shows says that this coral is grown under higher phosphate concentrations and is now suffering adaptation problems.

5ppm nitrate is NOT high.

ReefFreak@ · Aug 24, 2018

stn is kind of tricky. The rust and or the low phosphates can be the cause and you may have fixed it but the stn can still linger for a while. If i was you i would fix the rust problem get your phosphates at a stable level, I shoot for ~0.04. Nitrates at 5 are fine. Just keep everything stable and the tank will start to fix itself.

declanisadog · Aug 25, 2018

ReefFreak@ said:
stn is kind of tricky. The rust and or the low phosphates can be the cause and you may have fixed it but the stn can still linger for a while. If i was you i would fix the rust problem get your phosphates at a stable level, I shoot for ~0.04. Nitrates at 5 are fine. Just keep everything stable and the tank will start to fix itself.

That’s the plan. Nothing more I can really do except wait...