Fox Flame base turning white

[leepink23]

Alkalinity 7.6
Po4- 0.01
Nitrates-4
Ph 8.1
Salinity 35
Lighting- Giesemann Infiniti 250 watt metal halide x 6 hours per day
T5 x4 54 watt, 2 blue plus, 2 actinic x 8 hrs
Flow 2 mp40’s maxing out at 85%
Other acropora look good, but this has happened before.
Any advice? #reefsquad

 

[HotRocks]

Do you know what your par is at the coral?

Any recent lighting changes or adjusting the height?

How long have you had the frag?

 

[leepink23]

Do you know what your par is at the coral?

Any recent lighting changes or adjusting the height?

How long have you had the frag?

Around 300 par, no light changes for the last 3-4 months. Frag is about 2-3 months. Edited original post to add my t5 time which also hasn’t changed

 

[MnFish1]

How big is your tank?

 

[leepink23]

How big is your tank?

120 gallon reef tank, about 3 years

 

[markalot]

I can't tell what I'm looking at. I see what looks like an acro glued to a plug, and I see what looks like white glue. Did that used to be encrusted area?

If parameters have been rock solid stable, and lighting has been stable, then we need a better picture IMO. It appears to be a smoothed skin variety though I can't tell. I know my Lokani gets base recession whenever nutrients change, especially if I drop them too fast using NOPOX (carbon dosing). I also nearly lost it when calcium dropped too lwo due to my lack of testing and a doser slow doser error.

Do you know that KH has been stable?
Do you know that PO4 has been stable?
Have you tested Calcium?

Any recent changes to anything in the tank? GFO, Carbon Dosing, dosing in general, etc?

 

[leepink23]

I can't tell what I'm looking at. I see what looks like an acro glued to a plug, and I see what looks like white glue. Did that used to be encrusted area?

If parameters have been rock solid stable, and lighting has been stable, then we need a better picture IMO. It appears to be a smoothed skin variety though I can't tell. I know my Lokani gets base recession whenever nutrients change, especially if I drop them too fast using NOPOX (carbon dosing). I also nearly lost it when calcium dropped too lwo due to my lack of testing and a doser slow doser error.

Do you know that KH has been stable?
Do you know that PO4 has been stable?
Have you tested Calcium?

Any recent changes to anything in the tank? GFO, Carbon Dosing, dosing in general, etc?

The circled area was encrusted.
I check alk 3x week with a Hannah checker, same with phosphate, Nitrates weekly with Red Sea. I haven’t checked calcium so I will get a test kit for that. Nutrient export is skimmer and algae scrubber. I dose reef energy a & b but stopped when I got a patch of cyano. I also can get a better picture today. I feed reef frenzy 2-3 x day as well.

 

[markalot]

How do you add Alk and Calcium?

 

[leepink23]

How do you add Alk and Calcium?

Apex DOS, I add 5 ml total of calcium and alk, it’s the 2 part from BRS

 

[leepink23]

Salinity is 34.5 with Hannah checker, 35 with refractometer

 

[TaylorJames]

No carbon or gfo?

 

[leepink23]

No carbon or gfo?

Nope

 

[markalot]

5ml total in 120 gallons? I add well over 100ml total in a 150. All small corals?

 

[leepink23]

5ml total in 120 gallons? I add well over 100ml total in a 150. All small corals?

Yes they are all small, that’s why I am checking frequently to see when I need to bump up the alkalinity. I am getting encrusting from other acros, montipora growing fast, millipora is encrusting but all small, I do water exchanges every 2 weeks

 

[markalot]

Yes they are all small, that’s why I am checking frequently to see when I need to bump up the alkalinity. I am getting encrusting from other acros, montipora growing fast, millipora is encrusting but all small, I do water exchanges every 2 weeks

It might be something about this coral then and nothing you're doing. Unless a second acro acts up, and as long as everything tests out and is stable, best not to go changing stuff. Get the calcium tested just in case, maybe think about moving this acro back to a frag rack or to less light for a while? You say the other acros are healthy and encrusting, make sure they all have hard edges and are still healthy. Sometimes it can take an acro a couple of weeks to react to a bad event, and then the reaction can be a very slow decline until it finally becomes obvious.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I agree with @markalot. Some sps just don’t transition well from 1 tank to another. It doesn’t look like typical basal recession. It looks like it’s getting blasted by too much flow. I would frag it and move it to a lower flow area.

 

[leepink23]

It might be something about this coral then and nothing you're doing. Unless a second acro acts up, and as long as everything tests out and is stable, best not to go changing stuff. Get the calcium tested just in case, maybe think about moving this acro back to a frag rack or to less light for a while? You say the other acros are healthy and encrusting, make sure they all have hard edges and are still healthy. Sometimes it can take an acro a couple of weeks to react to a bad event, and then the reaction can be a very slow decline until it finally becomes obvious.

I will picture other coral tonight, I will move this back to the frag rack, any way this is aefw? Never saw those before but just covering all basis. Thanks for all the advice

 

[leepink23]

It might be something about this coral then and nothing you're doing. Unless a second acro acts up, and as long as everything tests out and is stable, best not to go changing stuff. Get the calcium tested just in case, maybe think about moving this acro back to a frag rack or to less light for a while? You say the other acros are healthy and encrusting, make sure they all have hard edges and are still healthy. Sometimes it can take an acro a couple of weeks to react to a bad event, and then the reaction can be a very slow decline until it finally becomes obvious.

Also my calcium was 477 a month ago on ati icp test, I check them yearly just to see all the elements

 

[rawrsean]

It’s worth noting my anecdotal experience: I’ve had several Fox Flame frags from my colony stn from base up just like you’re experiencing when moving them onto frag racks which have a higher PAR. When I slowly moved them, they did just fine. Also worth noting that in this instance, my frag tank is plumbed into the display so there is no change in parameters.

 

[leepink23]

Other Acro in my tank