Purple Stylo Turning White... Suggestions? *PIC*

[Doostur]

Just looking for input. I know a bunch of things can turn your SPS white. This is a 36 wide, 12 deep, 24 high - 45 gallon. Had all SPS in the tank for about 2 weeks. Everything looked normal yesterday, then 24 hours later looks like this. Feed reef roids every 2-3 days.

Running 2 MP10s scheduled on reeflink. Max flow is 35% with one power head in anti sync. I really don't think its getting too much flow. Sitting at least 12 inches from the left power head and about 3 inches further back from center of power head. No other SPS looks to be having issues.

I have a Reefbreeders Photon V2 32 inch. I am using a Seneye meter to check PAR. All the SPS along the very top have a recommended PAR of 300-400 (As per the seller who I have purchased tons from, but he has T5). I originally had everything in the 340-400 for nearly 2 weeks. I suspected the PAR may be too high so Tuesday we turned down all channels by 5%. Wednesday night turned everything down by another 5%. It brought everything down to about 240-280 PAR. These are max par values at 3PM. I am running on a schedule starting at 10 AM, peaking out at 3PM with max par, then down to moon mode by 8PM. Moon mode from 9PM till 1 AM, then OFF till 8 AM.

Everything is dosed twice a day for minimal drop.

Salinity: 1.024/25
Temp: 78 average (77-79)
Alk 9.0
Mag 1420
Calcium 450
Phosphates 0 (It was .02 a week ago).

Any ideas here? As you can see we have a wide variety of stuff, all doing very well.

 

[tdileo]

I would just suspect it is too much light if your alk has stayed consistent. I recommend you just let it be and it will adjust and heal on its own. For future purchases, make sure you start them off lower in the tank and slowly move them up to where you want to avoid light shock and bleaching.
Unrelated to the style but with 0 PO4 I assume your NO3 is extremely low too (near 0). If that is the case you may want to drop your alk down over a few weeks to the 7.6-8.0 area. [emoji4]

 

[Doostur]

I would just suspect it is too much light if your alk has stayed consistent. I recommend you just let it be and it will adjust and heal on its own. For future purchases, make sure you start them off lower in the tank and slowly move them up to where you want to avoid light shock and bleaching.
Unrelated to the style but with 0 PO4 I assume your NO3 is extremely low too (near 0). If that is the case you may want to drop your alk down over a few weeks to the 7.6-8.0 area. [emoji4]

Alk has been pretty rock solid. 8.8-9.1... I'm thinking too much light as well. Not sure why it took two weeks for it to finally get pis-sed off. You don't think its not getting enough light by chance?

 

[tdileo]

Not enough light would cause it to brown out rather than bleach, at least initially. Stylos are one of the more low-light friendly SPS, I would keep them in similar conditions to most euphyllia. Medium flow and medium light.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Alk has been pretty rock solid. 8.8-9.1... I'm thinking too much light as well. Not sure why it took two weeks for it to finally get pis-sed off. You don't think its not getting enough light by chance?

Since I started reefing my stylo have always been fantastic at telling me when my alk was off because they would look like that...

If your alk is stable I would also agree it's the light; the good news is they are very good at bouncing back.

 

[Salty1962]

I'd say nutrients from the look of it.

 

[Tahoe61]

One thing I have learned the hard way about Stylophora, they do not require the same lighting and flow as most other sps.
Lower flow and lighting seems to be more appropriate ime.
Trust me I have killed enough to know that they do better lower under less intense light and flow. JM2c.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Not enough light would cause it to brown out rather than bleach, at least initially. Stylos are one of the more low-light friendly SPS, I would keep them in similar conditions to most euphyllia. Medium flow and medium light.

Stylos may tolerate lowish lighting, but on the contrary to them being a 'low light coral' they are actually one of them most high light friendly sps. The purple stylophora pistillata as in the original post has a photoinhibition point of around 1000 PAR compared to the 250-450 range that most higher light requirement acroporas exhibit.

To the OP I don't think that is bleaching in any way. That is tissue loss caused by predation, nutrient imbalance, or chemical contaminant. Keep an eye on those shrimps you have in the tank. You just might notice they like to take nibbles of the stylophora polyps. Don't know why they do but I've had cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp, and peppermint shrimp all pluck purple stylo polyps from time to time. If they are hungry it's very likely. In your case I can't say for sure what the cause might be, but just keep an eye out for the shrimps if the other potential sources of the issue are dead ends.

 

[Kris.C]

Purple Stylos for me were practically indestructible .. til I started raising my Alk from 6.5 to 9.5 over the course of a few weeks. No signs of irritation til about 3 weeks in, everything else was growing like a weed but the stylo went downhill practically overnight. I found out at least for my piece that once acclimated to a particular Alk level they needed more time then my other Sps to adjust accordingly. Never an issue with low Alk but get too high 10+ and mine would start to rtn. On the positive note they always grew back so if it’s similar to my case as long as you don’t see anymore recession you should be ok. What was the Alk level from the sellers tank by chance?

 

[Doostur]

Checked alk Wednesday night. 9.0. Checked Alk this morning. 8.8

Mag still 1420. Calcium 450.

Seller keeps alk at 9.0 to 9.5.

Salty1962 What do you mean by nutrients?

 

[Doostur]

I believe I found the problem. Emerald crab is picking at it. Saw him there the other night when I woke up. Again today around 5 am. Took a video for anyone who says Emerald crab don't eat SPS.

 

[tdileo]

Well that sucks! Did you actually see him ripping the polyps off or just picking at it? It’s possible he could have been just eating algae off of it but if you saw the polyps it’s time to sump him, rehome him, or cook him. Lol

 

[Doostur]

Here is video:



I have two emerald crabs. Very territorial. One hangs on left side of tank the other on the right. May pull both out to be safe.

 

[HB AL]

I would grab both of those crabs, smash them up and feed them to my fish if they were eating corals. It's a win win, the corals are happy, the fish are happy for the meal and you will be happy the dang crabs aren't in there eating your corals.

 

[Doostur]

Man I don't have the heart to kill any animal. Not even ants. I'll turn them into my local reef shop, and maybe get some store credit. I need some fish food anyways. May try some Rogger's Fish food.

 

[markalot]

Emerald crabs will pick at a dying coral, don't worry about it.

The Stylo has lost tissue, this may be from moving it or lack of nutrients in the tank, even though you are feeding reef roids. Are you using GFO? PO4 swings can do this to a stylo but if you stabilize and let the tank get a little dirty it should recover quickly. Everyone hates algae but if you have none odds are your corals, especially SPS, will be unhealthy and subject to disease that can wipe them out.

Ironically, in a new clean tank, LPS does better because they have bigger mouths to catch food you feed. SPS prefer very tiny food and a constant source, which IMO is why SPS can struggle in a newer tank.

You can try feeding less reef roids more often, like a pinch once a day, to see if you can get some constant source of food in the water. As a tank matures sponges and all kinds of goodies will grow on the rocks and the water becomes full of detritus from these creatures that help feed the SPS.

 

[Doostur]

markalot. Our PO4 is ranges from .00-.06 depending on when we test. Normally .02. This morning it was .04. but I cleaned all the glass yesterday, fed reef roids with aquavitro reef fuel and fed the fish a frozen square.

We run a BRS mini reactor with their high capacity GFO.

Numerous people told me it may be coincidental that he’s picking at dead flesh of a coral.

However here is a picture of the stylo now. As you can see it looks well extended. If it were dieing I would think it could be seen gradually throughout. It's too abrupt almost as if the crab picked at it. I turned down my lighting and redid my ratio. I also went 5% lower than the suggested starting point which puts most the SPS at 225 PAR at peak 1PM.

If you Google emerald crabs eating sps, you'll see tons of posts. Who knows.....

 

[jda]

It looks like the white diodes are up to high. This is not a quantity thing, but quality - the diodes have too much bad/harmful spectrum, so you have to keep them low. They can handle as much high-quality light as you can give them - I have seen pocis an inch or two under the water directly under a 10K 1000W MH and growing like crazy. I would cut the white channel in half... maybe greens, reds and yellows as well.

Feed the emeralds and they will leave your coral alone - they are not coral eaters, but they aren't going to starve either. They cannot live on nothing and your tank looks pretty devoid of algae.

 

[markalot]

We run a BRS mini reactor with their high capacity GFO.

There it is, you are swinging PO4 in a newer clean tank, it will do it every time I'm afraid. Been there, done that too many times.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I believe I found the problem. Emerald crab is picking at it. Saw him there the other night when I woke up. Again today around 5 am. Took a video for anyone who says Emerald crab don't eat SPS.

Bingo! I called it as soon as I saw the bite marks on the stylo. Thought it was your shrimps, but had no idea you had an emerald crab in there. They will definitely kill certain corals and Tridacna clams. I had a large emerald destroy a black and white zebra maxima and a large squamosa over the span of 3 days before I could capture it out of the tank. Needless to say I never add emerald crabs to coral tanks any longer. There are too many better invertebrate herbivores to control algae to risk an emerald IMO.