HW tip getting black!

Thakki

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I have been noticing that one of the tips of my HW acro is starting to black. Other sps are fine. Not sure what's causing it. After close observation I already lost a tiny branch which completely blackened out. Worried if I will start loosing other branches as well. Have you guys seen this?

My params: 100 gal, 10 months old
Alk 7.8 to 8.3
Ca 450
Mg 1600
No3 4 ppm
Po4 .08 ppm
Using leds
Two mp40s with jebaos in the back for flow
Bare bottom

20191111_211418.jpg 20191111_211341.jpg
 
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Thakki

Thakki

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It does have some pe...but not a lot. i tried blowing the black part off of the branch before taking the pic...its possible that the polyps may have retracted.
 

Charlie’s Frags

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What leds? Have you checked your par? How much do you feed your fish? And what are your export methods?
 
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Thakki

Thakki

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Atlantik v4 and two ai primes to avoid shadowing on the sides. HW was under 350 to 400 par. Feeding is something I changed. I always fed frozen food once daily but had to dose sodium nitrate to keep up with nitrates and the colors. Aound 2 months ago I started feeding 3 times pellets thru auto feeder and continued frozen food once daily. I also feed reef roids twice a week...since i started feeding heavily, i didnt have to dose nitrates anymore...stopped it. Now my nitrates consistently read 4 ppm and po4 are around 0.06 to 0.08. Now recently I started switching to benereef instead of reefroids and also pellets to new spectrum. This is the only change that I can think off. Btw I stopped benereef and went back to reefroids since last few feedings.

I have a sump with some chaeto growing and I perform 10 to 15% water changes weekly. This routine has been keeping my params somewhat stable. I use CaRx which has been maintaining alk, ca and mg stable too. There is a slight rise in alk when i do water changes as I use reef crystals which mixes up alk at higher level than my tanks alk.

Yesterday I fragged my HW colony into 3 pieces. I cut the black tip off and dipped all three frags in Bayer and put them back. Hopefully they survive. Doesn't seem to me the way its looking.
 
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Thakki

Thakki

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Here is the last pic taken on Oct 18th of HW when there was no sign of black tips.

20191018_203931.jpg
 
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Thakki

Thakki

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That was my suspicion too...what can cause burned tips...I can think of strong lighting...but nothing changed there...the only change was food routine and I have been checked nitrates and phosphates regularly to make sure nothing goes crazy high...and it didn't. I was very happy about the colors that HW started to show...but now it looks like its going down.
 

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2 causes that I know of for burnt tips. First, LED light burn from too much LED - more in a bit... Second, too high of alk with below-NSW levels of N and P - not likely the case. In rare cases, too much direct flow or a destructive fish can do this too, but you usually see more widespread damage.

350 to 400 PAR of LED light is a LOT, so this seems reasonable. Most do not really want more than 300-350, or even less. There is a fine line that you have to walk here and you cannot take PAR readings from people with different lights since double that amount of PAR from MH or T5 seems to be no issue - this is a LED thing. I would lower them about 50-100 and see what happens. With SPS, the best way for the masses to add more PAR is to add T5 and not to turn their LEDs up.

SPS can look good for a few months whilst being unhappy the whole time, and then they can crash. You are not having a crash, but sometimes a few months of looking good can be a false positive if they are not growing quickly. If you have had a ton of new growth with appropriate colors, then that is a really good sign. The lack of growth from Oct to now is not great, but also not bad.. just seems to be stuck in neutral.

Eventually, you will need to snip that branch off and let it heal... the coral will heal from a cut faster than it will grow back over the old dead skeleton.

This has nothing to do with this, but if you get that thing a few hours of whiter light, the color will be even better. This suggestion is for WAY later after you figure this out. Daylight for color rendering and then blue-it-up for your viewing pleasure.
 
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Thakki

Thakki

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Thanks for the responses. I think the tip burned and the algae grew on it. Makes me wonder why all of the sudden this can happen. I want to rule out if changes in feeding from reefroids to benereef can cause it or adding bright wells aminos can cause this...as these are the only changes made recently. I used to dose fuel very small quantities and never had any issue.

Flow is something that I am suspecting...I have two mp40s in a 100 gal tank with 2 jebaos in the back to blow the detritus. Planning to move the mp40s little higher to see if that helps corals avoid some direct flow.
 
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