My GSP is disintegrating

[Tkstarr]

Hello everyone!

I am new to reef keeping and could use a lil help please. Currently experiencing an problem with my GSP I got this nice size mat from a reputable fish store and it looked amazing in their tank it was an electric bright green very healthy lots of polyps when I purchased it.

Its only been about two weeks and the polyps have never open since I added them to my tank. Now I do understand it take time for GSP to open but I can tell something is wrong with this coral. I dip the GSP in ReVine coral dip before adding it to the tank. Now the purple mat appears to be disintegrating right before my eyes exposing the inner green body of the polyps on some of the mat. There are other parts of the mat the look normal but are still closed up tightly.

I have 2 pieces of this GSP 1 attached to a rock & the other attached to a flat piece of glass tile lying on the sand bed. Both pieces are getting great flow & lighting.

I also keep pristine water conditions as I run my system very clean maybe a lil to clean. I’ve been told I could possibly not have enough nutrients in my tank for this coral to thrive.

This system had fish at the very beginning however, I had to remove them from the main display into quarantine because they were ill. The main display has been without fish for several weeks almost a month now so I’m not sure if this could be my problem. I have done water changes as normal and all my parameters seem to be in range.

I recently added 1 new snowflake clown fish to my system yesterday hoping this would help add nutrients to my system since the other fish are still ill and I don’t want to add them back to my maindisplay yet. I do target feed my corals with Reef Roids at least once a week.

I have also tried to do a really good job at making sure I don’t have any bad hitchhikers in my tank. I dip all my corals and fish before they go into my main display and I have checked the tank with a flashlight after lights out to see if there’s anything going on and I see nothing.

What else could I do to save this beautiful piece of GSP I paid a lot of money for it and don’t want it to continue dying.

Please help!!!

Water parameters:
SG 1.025
PH 8.0
Amo 0
Alk 9.4
Mag 1290 usual at 1350
NO2 0
NO3 0
Cal 460
Phos 0

Tank Specs:
3 months old
30 Gallon long
12 total corals all doing well but the GSP
1 snowflake clown fish
2 PP4 wave makers very strong
Great lighting set on a auto timer to ramp up and down throughout the day.
Auto top off system
Filtration rated for 150 gallon tank (Canister filter) no sump
Refugium with chaeto growing inside of it

 

[UCF Alum]

You tanks too clean. GSP like dirtier water and lots of flow. They can be in a lower flow area though if that’s where you have them.

Start adding potassium nitrate and some po4 to get your levels up.

 

[LilElroyJetson]

Welcome to R2R!! Sorry about the issues your'e having but the good news is, GSP is an undefeatable coral and it'll likely bounce back when we get to the source of the problem. Your tank may be too clean but that shouldn't have prevented them from ever opening and I doubt they'd be disintegrating this quickly. GSP can survive some pretty suboptimal water quality. Also, they shouldn't take long to open up once brought home (they should open within a few hours to a day under proper lighting). I'm wondering if the dip stressed them, did you use the correct concentration of dip to water? I suspect it may be a lighting issue but your palys/zoas are open so that's doubtful as well. #reefsquad can we help this new reefer out please? :)

 

[Tkstarr]

Welcome to R2R!! Sorry about the issues your'e having but the good news is, GSP is an undefeatable coral and it'll likely bounce back when we get to the source of the problem. Your tank may be too clean but that shouldn't have prevented them from ever opening and I doubt they'd be disintegrating this quickly. GSP can survive some pretty suboptimal water quality. Also, they shouldn't take long to open up once brought home (they should open within a few hours to a day under proper lighting). I'm wondering if the dip stressed them, did you use the correct concentration of dip to water? I suspect it may be a lighting issue but your palys/zoas are open so that's doubtful as well. #reefsquad can we help this new reefer out please? :)

Hello thank you for welcoming me here. I only use 1 cap full of the coral dip in a cup of tank water. I only dip for 5 minutes or less to minimize the stress of the coral. It say on the bottle I can dip for up to 15 minutes but I never dip them that long. I’ve done the same thing with all my other corals in the past and have not seen a problem before. I’m just so confused as to what could be the problem with this GSP it was so full and beautiful looking in the store.

 

[dwest]

The quick apparent demise is odd for sure. It may have been the dip. We’ll likely never know. But, as mentioned above, gsp are very resilient. I bet if you change 10% of your water weekly they will come back in time. Good luck and welcome.

 

[Tkstarr]

The quick apparent demise is odd for sure. It may have been the dip. We’ll likely never know. But, as mentioned above, gsp are very resilient. I bet if you change 10% of your water weekly they will come back in time. Good luck and welcome.

Thank you for the help I will definitely keep my water changes done I really hope this works. Everyday they seem to be more of the purple mat disintegrating exposing the green body of the polys only.

 

[Hermie]

Sorry about the issues your'e having but the good news is, GSP is an undefeatable coral

I've defeated some before ;Hilarious

 

[motortrendz]

Try blowing it off with a turkey baster when they get a film on them they wont open.

 

[JCOLE]

Agree with Turkey baster, gently though. Do some water changes and add some nutrients. Your tank is still young and you need some levels of nitrate and phosphate. My GSP was doing well until I switched from my 55 to my 150. The move stressed it out for 2 weeks. The polyps never came out. After two weeks they came back out and it is doing better than ever. I wouldn't worry. It will come back.

 

[Lenett]

My gsp and zoas were glorious and have recently dissapeared. I did water changes and lots of testing and couldnt get them to revive. All inquiries said it must be water quality. My water has always stayed pretty consistent with. no additives needed
it's 175 g and always enough calcium and ph. My only water issues were keeping nitrate and phosphate down. Because of responses from inquiries I have been trying to raise the ca. Which was a little low and it then caused an imbalance. When the snow cleared I found my blue devil was missing. He was about 3 and super healthy. I wanted him out of my tank but didn't want him to due. I found his snow white body in the rocks. I have other fish that were OK, but urchins were looking strange and fish hiding in the rock. When dipping water for testing I felt an electrical current. When I used the meter my whole tank lit up. I have now removed my extra pumps that were causing it and my urchins and fish are acting normal. Why did 1 healthy fish die and not the others? Of course it didn't kill the aphasia, just the peppermint shrimp ( or maybe that was the blue devil)!
Round about way to say, "Check for electrical current!"

 

[MossyFroggyLove]

Increase your nitrates. That is a problem i had pretty recently. My nitrates were 0 and when i increased it to 5, they openned back up. But, one thing's for sure, i have never heard of a gsp disintegrating that fast.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

How is the gsp doing?