Help with my Acropora

[Moonfruit777]

As the title suggests I need you guys to help me with your experience in keeping Acropora.

I stopped posting pictures on my tank thread over christmas and sort of forgot to update it. To my biggest regret - Acros did not do good and i feel sort of ashamed of posting pictures now

Basicly what happened is that my bigger, imported acro colonies started to RTN within 1-2 days. When I saw it happen i fragged off some pieces but they also turned white...

Followed up by more and more acros losing tissue very fast... and they still do.


The Tank is still running as it is listed in my Tank thread with the addition of a LED Light and chaeto in the sump as well as a carbon filter...

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/500l-from-germany.275801/

Livestock changed, but nothing that bothers Corals (fairy wrasse and a gold blenny were added)

And running RedSea reef foundation for KH/CA/MG, Some (depending on triton) Fauna Marin colors and Lugol's iodine
10% WC every or every second week with TM pro reef, RODI water, 0 TDS

What I don't understand is: they all had good PE and good color until the end, even while RTN/STN

some Acros died from top to bottom and some from the bottom up... one acro broke in two pieces when i bought it (red dragon) and i glued them 10cm apart with same flow and light - one piece is perfect and one is dead - how come ???

There are NO signs of any sort of pest e.g. AEFW... I checked thoroughly on healthy, dead and dying acros
i also use coral RX on all new corals

All other corals: montis, stylos, seriatos, LPS, SPS... everything is nice and mostly looks and grows as it should (exception may be one or two LPS with washed out colors)

Of course i did let TRITON analyse the water...
When the results came in i called the lab right away and asked if anything looks like it causes any trouble...
The only thing they could tell me was: "the high iron may be due to low PH, but nothing could cause the RTN/STN"

Link to the results: https://www.triton-lab.de/aquariumverwaltung/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/34868/

Nitrates are around 1-2 and KH is stable at 8.6
Speaking of KH, i test for it every week and every 2 days recently to be sure there are not drops/swings
It is being dosed 8x/day via dosing pump.
That is why low PH is not really an option imo.


I also bought new Test kits from redsea and a reference solution to check their accuracy.


I still have no clue to why my acros, and only my acros don't like my tank, i could literally cry about the losses.


Maybe you people can tell me where to look for problems - or just tell me what the problem is - at this point i just want to find the cause because i am getting really paranoid about possible causes and that i effed something up :C

Sorry for the long Post and thanks a lot in advance

greetings
Felix

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

what is the no3 and PO4. How much light do you have. How large a PH swing do you have. Do you have crazy high flow on the acros?

 

[Scorpius]

Coral Rx is very harsh on Acropora. I've never had any good luck using that stuff. I use Bayer.

You need to know what your Ph is. If it's low it doesn't help keeping Acropora alive.

You might want to look at spreading your dosing out even more. I dose 20x/1 per hr. a day to minimize parameter swings.

Keeping Acropora is a hard thing to do. I've killed a ton of them myself, but when I see them grow and have good polyp extension it's the greatest feeling.

 

[N4sty T4te]

If it's only effecting the acropora I'd have to lean towards some type of bacterial infection, had you added any new pieces in the last month or two? Especially any wild colonies?

 

[Moonfruit777]

Thanks for all your replies - I apreciate it a lot, believe me !

I want to answer every one so let's start:

@saltyfilmfolks No3 is around 1-2, po4 according to my red sea test is .02 and according to triton it is 0.02617524
Light is good, 280W of LED by Maxspect which has shown great results in growth earlier as all Acros encrusted onto the rocks and formed new branches/growth tips
Before anyone wants to say that 280W is too little w/L - please note that the Aquascape is centered in the tank and the lights are also centered so the corals get plenty of light
For PH i will get a new instrument to measure as my Test is too inaccurate to show any swings - i will update on this as soon as my PH meter arrives
Well define crazy high flow... I have two pumps that each deliver 15.000 L/hr of flow in a 500L tank which has the rocks all in the middle so flow goes everywhere and i have them regulated so they don't not rip the tissue of my LPS ;D but flow is strong and reaches everything...

@Scorpius Yes I used it on my Acros and yes I agree with you to some extent - I killed A. Echinatas with coral RX before, the Echinatas i dipped in it died and the ones i did not dip in it survived wihout problems - My other Acros took it pretty well though and settled very fast after treatment and looked perfect for weeks and months before any signs of RTN/STN
Spreading out the dosing can't hurt - I'll totally look into it ! Thanks
Sad to hear you also had trouble with them - I'v been pretty successful with them until now it is very demotivating to have this kind of thing happen to my tank :C

@N4sty T4te Good idea, the guy at Triton mentioned something similar on the phone about infections and viruses... The last and only time i ever added imported Acros was early December, they also were the first ones to go... all other acros are frags from private people with successful big colonies
Still not much you can do in case of an infection/virus... The Acros don't even show any sign of distress when they go - i add a picture to show what i mean
I tried dipping the STNing acros without them showing any improvement

Thanks again and please keep the ideas coming!

 

[Moonfruit777]

Update:
I took a longer break with the Acropora since I ended up losing all but two pieces that are for whatever reason still doing good since I got them.

Around four weeks ago I got some Acro frags from a friend and the LFS.
But here I am again to report that some of them start to die.

They slowly turn white from the bottom up. I really think this is a bad joke. :mad:

Since i got my new frags I tested KH every 1-2 days to be 100% sure there are no swings.
I also spread out the dosing of KH to 8 doses per day.
I do my 10% water change every Weekend.

I am for sure not getting sloppy - and I still am in the Hobby with all my passion.
I just don't get why i can't keep Acros like in my old 55G where I had them for 2 years growing large enough to justify upgrading my system.

My parameters as of today:

Temp: 26 °C / 79 °F
PH: 8am 8.3 (Hanna) (calibrated just before testing)
PH: 8pm 7.9 (Hanna)
Salt: 35ppm (calibrated with distilled water and referenced)
TDS of RO/DI: 2

KH: 8.3 (RedSea)
CA: 425 (RedSea)
MG: 1330 (RedSea)
Nitrate: 0.75 (RedSea)
Phosphate: 0.046 (Hanna)

Honestly the only swings are in KH and are about 0.2 up or down which might as well be due to the testkit or human error...
I checked the KH Testkit with a reference from ReefAnalytics which is supposed to have a KH of 6.48 - testresult was 6.4 KH.

Dosing:
- FM Balling Light
- Acropower at recommended dose - split in 2 manual doses per week
- some FM color elements red, green and blue - every 2nd water change - lower dose than recommended (just to be safe)

 

[Moonfruit777]

A. Hyacinthus / Red Planet - good 2" frag, healthy and well grown on the rock when I got it

Different Stags - They were all lose and glued by myself - slowly started to form a base - now STNing from bottom upwards

 

[2una]

I had similar back in december with mostly bottom up stn/rtn & also ruled out elements etc.
I believe what i had was Vibrio in the tank
I used this & it seemed to back it off - https://www.seawayaqua.co.uk/_p/prd1/3914267651/arem-v---disease-preventative
I have since seen that Tunze have a bacteria product out now that could also be worth using as it also specifically mentions anti Vibrio

The second bacteria strain is used against pathogenic bacteria of the genus Vibrio,

https://www.tunze.com/DE/en/catalogue/katalog-ii.html?user_tunzeprod_pi1[predid]=-infoxunter020

Worth a shot if you got no other clues as to what it is

 

[Salty1962]

You may want to try bumping up your No3 to 4-5ppm and get your Po4 up a bit. Acros could be starving for nutrients.

 

[reeferfoxx]

Maybe test your RO/DI for ammonia? TDS should be 0.

 

[Moonfruit777]

Thank you @2una - very interesting, I don't know anything about it and if it is common or not, but that might just be what it is. I will for sure look more into the Topic of Vibrio and the Products you mentioned.

Thank you @Salty1962 - usually the Nitrates are a bit higher at ~2ppm, but I don't think they are starving; they all have their usual color. I know that for sure because when I upgraded my system from a 55G to a 125G I initially had quite some trouble with lack of nutrients and all my SPS lost their color and looked very washed out. So I can say that nutrients should not be too low and I would be able to notice that kind of issue. But a little extra feeding for sure won't hurt

Thank you @reeferfoxx - yes you are totally right, TDS should be 0 and the DI change is probably due Unfortunately I do not own a test for ammonia - but should small traces of ammonia not be taken care of by the biology of the reef/bacteria etc anyways?



One Acro (the one with the fastest tissue loss) almost died complely withing 4-5 days - I broke off two small pieces and glued them on a frag plug to watch it on the frag rack... I took the rest of the coral out of the system - the other affected Acros have very slow but as it seems continuing STN.

Polyp extension on the Acros is OK, especially at night they all got a pretty big PE.
I am pretty sure I can rule out pests. I took some macro pictures of the corals and did not see any bugs or bite marks from AEFW.


Few more things on my mind:

Chemical warfare - I have a bigger 6" Leather/Toadstool coral which is not doing particularly well, but I don't know how it could/does affect other corals. I do use Vertex carbon for a few days, every two weeks.

Lighting - I have two Maxspect R420R 16k fixtures with 120° lenses 10" above the tank, running at 85% tops. Several people told me that it is sh** for SPS. I have them since they got released - and I (used to) be pretty successful with them.
I like the coloration of the light - it might not color my corals up as good as more expensive LED fixtures but new and more expensive Lights are not on the budget.
BUT I want to add two 54w T5 in addition to the R420Rs in the near future. Should be good to fill possible lack in spectrum and coverage.

Growth - My milka Stylo (for a while now) only has growth tips on only two out of 30 branches. My Zoas, ~20 different color morphs each on it's own frag rock, do not form any new polyps. I have the Zoas and the milka for 2-3+ years and they also used to grow. As it seems not anymore.

Just some observations I could make out. Might not even be connected to the Acros but I don't want to leave anything out.

 

[Moonfruit777]

Some more Pictures of affected Acros

 

[Moonfruit777]

Some Pictures of some other Acros that are AFAIK not or not yet affected.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Any chance you have a limpet snails?

 

[Moonfruit777]

Any chance you have a limpet snails?

Yes I do. Quite a few of them actually.

 

[Moonfruit777]

A quick google search later - I guess i am f****d if they munch on Acros.
I never saw any of them feeding on them though. One might assume they would be on and around the corals in big numbers?
I have mostly seen them in the sump and on the back glass. Until now I assumed they were 100% algae eaters. O.O
I'll grab my red lamp and take a look if I see any rogue snails. lol

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Limpets (keyholes especially) do graze on acros when they are hungry. They don't usually feast on acros, but I witnessed myself a good sized limpet grazing at the acro base (just like your pictures) at night. These limpet has been in the tank for years. Into the sump it went and that acro has fully recovered.

 

[Moonfruit777]

I have the small kind ~4-5mm - with the "keyhole" in the back.
Totally reminds me of the small Asterina starfish I once HAD, opinions on them also seemed to be 50/50 but I saw them eat Zoas and polyps of my Galaxea coral.
Over a couple of weeks/months I picked them out of the tank one by one until none were left. Probably the same case here, some are good and some are bad.
Those little guys are so inconspicuous that I never even had them on my radar. :mad:I will look a bit more into it and probably start collecting

Although this might not be the end for sure.
I could not see any of them close enough to an Acro to confirm that they are the cause of my "STN"ing Acros.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Haha. Yes, the grazing doesn't seem to affect too much on the acros, it's mostly on the surface with all polyp still intact. Mine recovers within a week.

 

[Moonfruit777]

Update:

STN continues noticeably and has spread to even more Acros.
Still checking KH daily and no swings.

I check very late at night to see if the limpet snails are up to anything but I could not see any single limpet going for any coral.

Even my favorite Acro that lived through the first event of RTN earlier this year without any problems now shows STN.
Still all Acros have great PE and color.

As a college student I literally just go to work to finance my tank and spend every single cent on it.
I honestly can't afford restocking the corals anymore.
Even though some of them were a gift - I just don't want to take free frags just to tell the people they all died...

In the end I don't want to spend money on something that makes me feel helpless, sad and frustrated.

Really don't know what to do anymore. Right now I am just waiting for the the lab analysis.
If it turns out all green again like last time - I'm really thinking about quitting the hobby.