Help with birds nest

[stickman87]

So I just started getting into sps so far I have a mystic sunset montipora and 2 different birds nest and noticed some brown spots on one if my birds nest and not sure what it is.. Didn't know if they were some kind of pest or not.. It's hard to see in the pic nut it's all I can see even with a magnifying glass

 

[Justfebreezeit]

If they don't move I would just guess the polyp is retracted in those spots.

Keep an eye on and see if it subsides.

 

[markalot]

Looks fine and healthy, good polyp extension and it's alive at the base. Birds can get spots on them, sometimes it's just a closed up polyp. I have yet to see any real pest on a birdsnest.

 

[stickman87]

Ok thank you.. It's fully open every day along with everything else just never noticed it before I guess. Also wanting to try an acro but have heard they are hard to keep. And nitrates of 5ppm would not be acceptable for it. Is this true?

 

[Justfebreezeit]

5ppm nitrates are fine for acros. They are a little tougher and require more stability than birdsnest.

 

[stickman87]

Oh ok good.. My birds nest is growing like crazy so my water must be ok then. Thanks for the info

 

[MTBake]

I say closed polyps as well. Mine does this too. Looks nice and healthy.

 

[markalot]

Oh ok good.. My birds nest is growing like crazy so my water must be ok then. Thanks for the info

Acros can be tough, but sometimes can be tougher than birds. Just don't screw up your tank trying to keep acros healthy. As long as you keep parameters stable (KH, and PO4 in my experience) they should be fine. They will need some food bits in the water to stay healthy, which is why, in my opinion, a lot of newer tanks have issues with acros. They will color better in lower PO4 but swinging PO4 (dropping too fast) will kill them. KH needs to be stable. Dropping too low will cause minor issues increasing with time but spiking too high will kill them, so try and stay conservative with dosing and avoid KH spikes at all costs. The really pesky part with acros is that they show delayed responses to mistakes. When I spiked KH my birds suffered right away, all the acros looked fine for a week and then started to suffer.

I've accidentally dropped as low as 5.5 KH in my 150 gallon (over a month) and the only damage was some base recession that stopped once I had slowly brought KH back up near 7. I guess the short version is ... if you see acros start to do bad don't start making changes, consider the fact they may be reacting to something that happened weeks ago. The more I ignored my tank the better the acros have done. I tend to fiddle too much.