RIP GSP?

[RC88]

Hello fellow reefers,

I have recently posted on this forum about my very irritated GSP. It has been closed for 3 weeks now. Earlier I decided to get it out to give it a clean, used a small tooth brush to brush some brown slime of it. But now it seems to be disintegrating. Video below. Will it survive?

 

[RC88]

Video

 

[sfin52]

Can't view. Best if you upload to YouTube and post link here

 

[sfin52]

#MODS Just sound

 

[MnFish1]

I had a similar issue - unfortunately I cant see the video - but - my GSP didn't open for 3 months - now you can see it again in my build thread. The question is - to me - what caused it to have problems in the first place? ( I assume you meant the cleaning) - but what were /are your parameters? Any other changes?

 

[RC88]

Ah that’s a shame. Essentially it looks like it’s disintegrating. Loose bits of coral skin now waving around. I just uploaded a pic. Won’t do it justice. I think it’s been closed due to the addition of a clear fx pro media bag. Probably stripped and lowered a lot of my ph etc. But I have a neon green cabbage that’s been thriving recently. My test kit (red sea) also tested positive for ammonia, I took it to my LFS and their test

 

[sfin52]

Let's start at the basic
Can you list water parameters include nitrates and phosphates.

 

[RC88]

Sure -
Ph - 8.2
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0.8
Phosphate - 0.4
Alkalinity - 11dKH
Salinity - 34
Magnesium - 1400
Calcium - 450

 

[RC88]

Let's start at the basic
Can you list water parameters include nitrates and phosphates.

Sure -
Ph - 8.2
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0.8
Phosphate - 0.4
Alkalinity - 11dKH
Salinity - 34
Magnesium - 1400
Calcium - 450

 

[sfin52]

Sure -
Ph - 8.2
Nitrate - 20
Nitrite - 0
Ammonia - 0.8
Phosphate - 0.4
Alkalinity - 11dKH
Salinity - 34
Magnesium - 1400
Calcium - 450

All that's good except for the ammonia. How long has the tank been set up?

 

[RC88]

All that's good except for the ammonia. How long has the tank been set up?

It’s been up for about 7 months now. Like I mentioned - my Red Sea ammonia kit says I have it but my LFS tested it and nothing. Which in itself is odd. So we decided to use AmGuard to bind the ammonia for a week to see if the coral behaved positively. If they do - I have ammonia in my tank and that was the cause. If they don’t, I have no ammonia. I’m in the process now but decided to also try to clean the coral as it had a lot of gunk on it. My urchins sometimes walk over my GSP so wondered if that has an effected too.

 

[sfin52]

It’s been up for about 7 months now. Like I mentioned - my Red Sea ammonia kit says I have it but my LFS tested it and nothing. Which in itself is odd. So we decided to use AmGuard to bind the ammonia for a week to see if the coral behaved positively. If they do - I have ammonia in my tank and that was the cause. If they don’t, I have no ammonia. I’m in the process now but decided to also try to clean the coral as it had a lot of gunk on it. My urchins sometimes walk over my GSP so wondered if that has an effected too.

If the gsp is in a low flow funk could build up and cause it to stay closed. They can take a good amount of flow medium to a medium heavy.
To clean them off just hold them in front of a power head and let it blow all the funk off and place in a higher level flow.
Lfs says zero ammonia we’ll go with that.

 

[MnFish1]

Suggestion - if you can - easily - pick up the rock on which the GSP is - and smell it - if it 'smells rotten' - it might be a goner. If not - just leave it in an area of high flow - as @sfin52 suggested - As I posted - my GSP was closed and covered with Algae (its on a rock about 10 inches long) - I took it out brushed it off - (with a soft brush) - and dipped in fresh bucket of ASW - to get the gunk off. And put it back - It had not opened for a month - I was sure it was dead - about 3 months later - 2-3 heads opened up - over the next couple weeks - the whole thing was 'open ' - but the 'tentacles' were not long - you could only see the bright green buttons - after another week - it was fine. I would run carbon - incise there is some toxin (BTW - I mean granulated carbon - as compared to 'carbon dosing' - Also - why do you think your ammonia is as high as it is - either something just died (maybe teh GSP) - or its an error - since your nitrite should also be elevated. Can you get that test verified?

 

[RC88]

Suggestion - if you can - easily - pick up the rock on which the GSP is - and smell it - if it 'smells rotten' - it might be a goner. If not - just leave it in an area of high flow - as @sfin52 suggested - As I posted - my GSP was closed and covered with Algae (its on a rock about 10 inches long) - I took it out brushed it off - (with a soft brush) - and dipped in fresh bucket of ASW - to get the gunk off. And put it back - It had not opened for a month - I was sure it was dead - about 3 months later - 2-3 heads opened up - over the next couple weeks - the whole thing was 'open ' - but the 'tentacles' were not long - you could only see the bright green buttons - after another week - it was fine. I would run carbon - incise there is some toxin (BTW - I mean granulated carbon - as compared to 'carbon dosing' - Also - why do you think your ammonia is as high as it is - either something just died (maybe teh GSP) - or its an error - since your nitrite should also be elevated. Can you get that test verified?

Hey, thanks for the response.
I took the GSP out last week and similarly to your advice I gently brushed it and gave it a general clean. On doing so, I noticed that it smelt really bad. I put it back in the tank and over the next few days it started to disintegrate and peel off the rock it was on. My urchin even started to peel bits off it. I’m convinced that the ammonia trace was caused by the dying GSP. So I decided to remove the GSP out of the tank. I want to see if my ammonia goes down because of it. My neon green cabbage is doing better than ever, opens up really wide however my Finger coral white Polyp is still reluctant to fully stretch out. Will continue to monitor and see if there are any improvements. Below is a list of my parameters. Bear in mind that these were taken whilst the GSP was still in the tank. Ammonia did lower.

Ammonia - 0.2
Phosphate - 0.4
Alkalinity - 9dKH
Nitrite - 0.2
Nitrate - 20+
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1300
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79

 

[RC88]

Hey, thanks for the response.
I took the GSP out last week and similarly to your advice I gently brushed it and gave it a general clean. On doing so, I noticed that it smelt really bad. I put it back in the tank and over the next few days it started to disintegrate and peel off the rock it was on. My urchin even started to peel bits off it. I’m convinced that the ammonia trace was caused by the dying GSP. So I decided to remove the GSP out of the tank. I want to see if my ammonia goes down because of it. My neon green cabbage is doing better than ever, opens up really wide however my Finger coral white Polyp is still reluctant to fully stretch out. Will continue to monitor and see if there are any improvements. Below is a list of my parameters. Bear in mind that these were taken whilst the GSP was still in the tank. Ammonia did lower.

Ammonia - 0.2
Phosphate - 0.4
Alkalinity - 9dKH
Nitrite - 0.2
Nitrate - 20+
Calcium - 420
Magnesium - 1300
Salinity - 1.025
Temp - 79

I will also add that the GSP started to build a white base between the purple layer and the rock it was on. Almost like icing you get on a cake but was rock solid. Was it bleaching?

 

[MnFish1]

I will also add that the GSP started to build a white base between the purple layer and the rock it was on. Almost like icing you get on a cake but was rock solid. Was it bleaching?

I have not seen that - any idea what might havre killed it? It is almost impossible to kill.... - without killing everything else also. When the purple part turns white - that is a bad sign.

 

[ssster2020]

I've had some setbacks with my GSP as well. I thought I was the only one who couldn't get it to grow at all never mind take over the tank! It's a new tank, water in on June 15. I ended up with 2 frags of it. The larger of the frags had bubble algae on it so I cut the algae off. The GSP didn't come out for a couple of weeks, I thought I'd killed it. The other frag intermittently doesn't extend for days on end. One thing I did observe is that when I was target feeding other corals and gave the GSP some it seems to aggravate them. Since I stopped that practice they seem much better. I also moved them to an area where the flow was a little stronger and that seems to help as well.
While I won't say it is flourishing it does at least seem content now.