Quick help to safe my new Tierra de Fuego

[ahl]

Hey guys,

Just bought a tierra de fuego frag in @Joe Knows Reefs live sale a couple of weeks ago. It arrived home in pretty good shape but it is going south quick.
Watching the tank closely yesterday I notices that the side that faced the back of it was completely white. I took pics of that and other SPS I bought with it and would like your input on possible causes, how to save the tierra de fuego. Also, how the others are looking.
I have them all places mid tank up and under high flow.

Water params are all in check

Thank you in advance!!

Pink lemonade

Shades of fall

Tierra de Fuego

 

[EmdeReef]

Can you post your parameters and any swings in parameters? Light/flow?

#reefsquad

 

[Jason mack]

You say your params are all in check .. are they stable ...can you list your params and lights and lighting schedule...for us the more info the more insight people will have too answer ...

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Looks like stn. I lost all my acros to that because I was carbon dosing and using gfo to achieve low nutrients. I unknowingly compounded the problem by tweaking my hydra 52’s settings thinking it was the lights that were causing the problems. As soon as I raised the lights to 16” above the water, left the settings alone, and got rid of the carbon dosing and gfo all my acros started thriving.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

After a 2nd inspection of your pics that looks like glue and epoxy. The corals look fine to me.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

After a 3rd inspection the Tierra does look like it has tissue necrosis on the back side. It’s really hard to tell from your pics.

 

[ahl]

Here are my current water params and how they were 2 weeks ago. I just changed water 2 days ago. A bit surprised about the swings.

Nov 11
NO3- 10ppm
PO4 - 0.1
Alk - 8.9 dkh
Ca - 390
Mg - 1360


Today
NO3- 10ppm
PO4 - 0.03
Alk - 11.5 dkh
Ca - ran out of test. Ordering now. My bad
Mg - 1200

Salinity is always 1.025

Lights 2x hidra 26. Pic attached. Also better pics of the corals...I hope. I circled in the pic where these corals are placed.

Lighting at max is at 18500K

 

[Oshengems]

How far is that acan? They have a nasty sting

 

[ahl]

How far is that acan? They have a nasty sting

Like 4 inches from the one circled. Not as close as it appears in the pic

 

[Oshengems]

Looks stunned maybe other corals close to it, at night few hours after the tank is dark take a look at other corals, I didn’t realize how long the tentacles of my chalice was and kept thinking something was eating my monti

Edit: that chalice was a good 5-6 inches away but the flow at night convinientley shoving the te tentacles straight to it and for some reason it was over extending them never seen such long tentacles

 

[DSC reef]

If your going to keep SPS then you have to test frequently IMO as swings in chemistry will be the demise of many frags, especially alkalinity. Always tried to keep swings at a minimum of 0.5, e.g. all stayed at 9.5-10dkh with testing morning and night.

 

[Jason mack]

You've had an alk spike from 8.9 to 11.5 that's quite a jump for sps and your mag is low at 1200 and if its come from s stable tank and then into yours its gonna stress ..mine went from 8to 10 and I'm still having problems because of it ...

 

[Oshengems]

Are you getting RTN on that one frag only? It has some PE and the others have great PE

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Why do you have a short full power photoperiod at 4:30 am and then a longer full power photoperiod at noon?

 

[ahl]

Why do you have a short full power photoperiod at 4:30 am and then a longer full power photoperiod at noon?

No, that was the incorrect screenshot. Below is the correct one. I usually have a period of light in the Am while I'm getting ready to do to work and then at evening.

 

[ahl]

I'll do another water change possibly today to try to get some of those off params back on track. I'll test again and post them here. In the meantime, anything I can do to my Tierra de Fuego to stop the bleeding?...or it looks like a goner from the pics?

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

First of all I would just have 1 photoperiod. The sun doesn’t rise and set twice in a 24 hour period. Why do you have your Red leds so high? I would drop that down in line with the green and white settings. What kind of fish do you have? The last pic looks like something is munching on the Tierra.

 

[Rcollick]

Try lowering your lighting in the am. If you just want to view the tank while getting ready for work. It doesn't take much light just to make it look nice for viewing.

 

[Oshengems]

I do mornings view as well lol, specially when it’s rainy and dark out it does help set the mood and my girlfriend loves it, but not higher than 5% all blues only

 

[ahl]

You think too much lighting is part of the problem?