Need help, keep having issues.

[Ernie C]

Hi all, so I’m at one of those points where I’m just not sure what I may be missing as some corals are behaving poorly and not improving after an issue. I’ll try to keep it short. Current issue is corals letting out those mesenterial filaments through out the day. Pics below.

About two months ago, nutrients went to zero, Alk crept up, noticed burned tips, by the time got things back in order damage was done. Small frags didn’t have a chance bigger colonies did better. A month ago had to transfer to a new tank. Same set up, size and equipment. Removed some base rock is the most that changed. Many of the sps colonies have regrown over their burned tips and getting their color back but some are still behaving as if there’s still an issue.

Parameters are stable, I’ve kept Alk at 6.8-7.1, mag 1350, cal 450, po4 .1, no3 10ppm. Sent out ICP but nothing came back as flagged. RO was also tested with no findings. Added some fish to help with adding nutrients. Is this just one of those patience moments although it has been about a month? Could it be the corals that aren’t recovering we’re just too badly damaged? I’ll be sending another icp out this week. Just get the feeling I’m missing something. On a positive note, many other corals seem to be headed back to normal. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[fishguy242]

hi,no expert here but alk seems little low to me,
what was previous issue? @Eagle_Steve any thoughts here?

 

[Ernie C]

hi,no expert here but alk seems little low to me,
what was previous issue? @Eagle_Steve any thoughts here?

Keeping Alk closer to 7dkh since I tend to have low nutrients, which I think is what caused my sps to get burned tips. I believe initial issue was sps ended up with burned tips and just went down hill after nutrients zeroed out and Alk crept up due to not growing/stressed sps.

 

[fishguy242]

sounds like on the right track, but i have never seen filaments expelled to this point ,hang tight lets call a couple more for thoughts.. @F i s h y @MERKEY

 

[vetteguy53081]

alk should be 8-10dkh
Salinity 1.025
temp 77-79
ph 8.1-8.3

Stable is more important than targets. What test kits are you using and are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet?
Light too bright will also be a contributor to this issue as will high Phos . . . recommended < .04

 

[F i s h y]

sounds like on the right track, but i have never seen filaments expelled to this point ,hang tight lets call a couple more for thoughts.. @F i s h y @MERKEY

Keep pulling parameters into range and give then some more time. They definitely appear to continue to be stressed. Stability is going to be the key. And any change you make, make it very slowly. But I think you are on the right path.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Sorry for your troubles. I concur that Alk is too low. Keeping it at 7 is giving you no margin for error so 8-10 as @vetteguy53081 says would be my recommendation as well. Obviously, this may not be the only problem---and you definitely have a system-wide one given the number of corals affected. How about temp, pH, salinity? It's good that you're getting another ICP done. @F i s h y 's comment about lights bears investigation. You can rent a PAR meter from BRS for pretty cheap to do a light survey of your tank---I highly recommend that everyone does that once a year anyway. Other than standard water parameters and lights, you're looking at pests (including nipping fish or non-reef safe inverts), water "quality" (do you run carbon? what's your water change schedule like? Did you change salt mix? do you have DOCs from someone spraying air freshener? Let's see the new ICP results, etc.), and coral nutrition (what are you feeding/supplementing?).

 

[Ernie C]

Sorry for your troubles. I concur that Alk is too low. Keeping it at 7 is giving you no margin for error so 8-10 as @vetteguy53081 says would be my recommendation as well. Obviously, this may not be the only problem---and you definitely have a system-wide one given the number of corals affected. How about temp, pH, salinity? It's good that you're getting another ICP done. @F i s h y 's comment about lights bears investigation. You can rent a PAR meter from BRS for pretty cheap to do a light survey of your tank---I highly recommend that everyone does that once a year anyway. Other than standard water parameters and lights, you're looking at pests (including nipping fish or non-reef safe inverts), water "quality" (do you run carbon? what's your water change schedule like? Did you change salt mix? do you have DOCs from someone spraying air freshener? Let's see the new ICP results, etc.), and coral nutrition (what are you feeding/supplementing?).

As far ask Alk being too low, I thought that lower nutrient tanks should be kept closer to NSW which is 7? My burnt tips happened at an Alk of 8-8.5

ph is 7.9-8.2 through out the day. I have a trident and use Hanna and salifert to make sure results are accurate. Everything checks out. I have a PAR meter. My lighting schedule hasn’t changed from when the tank was doing well. Corals are a bit lower in the new tank but I’d have to measure again. Would you think too much light or too little could cause the filaments?

No major water changes, it’s a 180 system and have done about four 20-30 gallon changes over the last 3 month and parameters stay stable after change. Have RO water with zero TDS. ICP returned no findings for my RO. Same salt , Red Sea.

I don’t run carbon and don’t do air freshener or have any plugins etc. I’ve recently been adding some Brightwell Coral Aminos, but issue was occurring before. Have reef roids but not using since Po4 is high at the moment. Mainly been over feeding fish. Fish don’t seem to be bothering coral. I use kalk as top off and brs 2 part via neptune DOS to supplement the kalk

for the most part tank is doing ok and many of the sps seem to be recovering but some sps keep discharging the mesenterial filaments which leads me to think something is irritating them. Now wondering if my lightinging is too intense if they are recovering?

I should add that the filaments seem to come out more after feedings, but some are out through out the day while lights are on.

 

[BostonReefer300]

Thanks for the additional info. I'm definitely no coral expert and perhaps your question might get more professional help in the coral forums (I'd even call out some of the SPS vendors on the site for help---they'll definitely know). Anyway, please take whatever advice I give with a huge grain of salt. Extension of mesenterial filaments isn't a bad thing as many corals do that for feeding, but it can also be a sign of stress I believe. In any case, it doesn't appear that you've got an emergency on your hands so you have time to figure things out. Right now, I'm now leaning toward three possibilities or a combo of them: lighting (high or low---check with your PAR meter at peak of your lighting cycle), not enough coral food/supplements (start using reef roids again, but manage your phosphates down to 0.05ppm using water changes and/or one of the other several removal methods), and low Alk. Keeping your Alk so low is flirting with trouble IMO. It can easily dip down to unhealthy levels from 7 pretty fast and lead to coral stress. Again, I'm no expert, but I haven't seen any issues with burnt tips keeping Alk higher (certainly not at 8-8.5) as long as your nutrients (NO3, PO4, coral foods/supplements) are adequate. Although too much light can cause burnt tips obviously.
(BTW, I'm assuming you definitely had burnt tips before and weren't confusing them with growth tips, right?).

 

[Ernie C]

Thanks for the additional info. I'm definitely no coral expert and perhaps your question might get more professional help in the coral forums (I'd even call out some of the SPS vendors on the site for help---they'll definitely know). Anyway, please take whatever advice I give with a huge grain of salt. Extension of mesenterial filaments isn't a bad thing as many corals do that for feeding, but it can also be a sign of stress I believe. In any case, it doesn't appear that you've got an emergency on your hands so you have time to figure things out. Right now, I'm now leaning toward three possibilities or a combo of them: lighting (high or low---check with your PAR meter at peak of your lighting cycle), not enough coral food/supplements (start using reef roids again, but manage your phosphates down to 0.05ppm using water changes and/or one of the other several removal methods), and low Alk. Keeping your Alk so low is flirting with trouble IMO. It can easily dip down to unhealthy levels from 7 pretty fast and lead to coral stress. Again, I'm no expert, but I haven't seen any issues with burnt tips keeping Alk higher (certainly not at 8-8.5) as long as your nutrients (NO3, PO4, coral foods/supplements) are adequate. Although too much light can cause burnt tips obviously.
(BTW, I'm assuming you definitely had burnt tips before and weren't confusing them with growth tips, right?).

Definitely burnt tips as it was on all sps. Lps were un phased so issue seemed sps specific at the time. Followed by algae growth in the tips and color loss in general.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It is not sensible, IMO, to claim the alk is "too low" at 6.9 dKH since it is higher than the ocean where these corals thrive.