SC Orange Passion Question

[Johnson556]

After going acro-less for 60 days due to AEFW I have started to restock my tank.

Plan was to just grab a bonsai frag from the same mother colony I had before. Let that be a tester then stock up. Well, the frag rack was too tempting and I ended up leaving with a bubblegum milli and SC orange passion as well, whoops.

When I snagged the piece it had some great PE as seen in the photo, now only the bottom has the same level of PE and the top is contracted.

Any idea why this could be or does it just need more time to settle in?

Standard 180G
Flow - 4x MP40QD all on Reefcrest 100%
Salinity - 35ppt
Nitrate - 5ppm
Po4 - undetectable on Hannah but there
Alk - 7.8
Calc - Balanced out at 460 when dosing in equal parts (ESV). Strange, especially with my coralline growth.

 

[Reefpuck]

New tank...might just take time to adapt to it's new settings.

 

[bhuyett]

Which Hanna Phosphorus checker are you using when you say undetectable (High or Low)?

Some times the polyp extension will contract if you have to much or not enough flow from what it was used to. The person you bought it off of, did they provide to you the parameters the frag came out of? And did they say it was under HIGH or LOW light and flow?

 

[Johnson556]

Hannah Low PO4 Checker.

It’s close to a pink lemonade frag that has full polyp extension, a green tenius on the opposite side but same level also had great PE. My tank flow is essentially “the same” if not more than his. I tried to mimic his in a 1/2 scale. He has a 360G with 4 MP60’s and I have a 180g with 4 MP40’s. His lighting is 6 radions and 4 T5’s, mine, 6 T5’s and 3 Kessils.

 

[Velcro]

I’d be concerned about undetectable phos.

 

[Johnson556]

Bad news, checked the frag today and it appears the part directly under the kessil is dying off. Color is fading from that area and the polyps are MIA. I’m assuming it’s from LED burn/some what direct flow. Think so?

I moved the frag to an area similar to my other tenius that is thriving. Hope this works.

 

[michael giordano]

dang!

 

[Jdeleon]

Bad news, checked the frag today and it appears the part directly under the kessil is dying off. Color is fading from that area and the polyps are MIA. I’m assuming it’s from LED burn/some what direct flow. Think so?

I moved the frag to an area similar to my other tenius that is thriving. Hope this works.

looks like maybe some tissue loss already, Odd. this acro thrives under intense lighting for me so I wouldn't think a kessil would be the cause,

 

[Johnson556]

That area is about 400-420 par and close to direct flow from an mp40 on reef crest mode 100%. Hoping it was a flow issue at this point. All parameters have been rock solid

 

[TheHarold]

Yeah 400 par under LEDs is probably what did it .

For the future, when in doubt it is almost always better to give acros less lighting than they came from. Insufficient par will result in browning out, which is fine and recoverable. Too much par, bleaching, which often leads to death.

 

[Johnson556]

Yeah 400 par under LEDs is probably what did it .

For the future, when in doubt it is almost always better to give acros less lighting than they came from. Insufficient par will result in browning out, which is fine and recoverable. Too much par, bleaching, which often leads to death.

It’s 3 kessil a360’s and 6 80w T5’s. But certainly noted going forward, I don’t like killing acros aka losing money....

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I doubt 400 par would do that. I have several OP’s thriving under 400-500 par from Hydra’s only. How high are the kessil’s above the water? How many hours of 400 par are they receiving? Are you stripping phosphates with gfo or carbon dosing?

 

[Johnson556]

I doubt 400 par would do that. I have several OP’s thriving under 400-500 par from Hydra’s only. How high are the kessil’s above the water? How many hours of 400 par are they receiving? Are you stripping phosphates with gfo or carbon dosing?

Dropped kessils down 5% today for their peak hours. Believe they’re 9-10” off the water along with all the T5’s. They get about 6 hours at that level of par. The kessils ramp up from 20-60% two hours outside of either end of that peak.

Removed what little gfo I was running Sunday. Hannah low still reading zero. I certainly need to get my phosphates up because I think I just noticed a very small patch of diatoms on my sand

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Dropped kessils down 5% today for their peak hours. Believe they’re 9-10” off the water along with all the T5’s. They get about 6 hours at that level of par. The kessils ramp up from 20-60% two hours outside of either end of that peak.

Removed what little gfo I was running Sunday. Hannah low still reading zero. I certainly need to get my phosphates up because I think I just noticed a very small patch of diatoms on my sand

I killed thousands of dollars of sps because I was chasing low phosphates with carbon dosing and gfo. As soon as got rid of all the media reactors and raised my lights up to 16” above the water all my acros did a 180 in the right direction. Phosphates went up to around 0.15 for awhile but the acros seemed to love it. I had a little GHA but that’s better than stn/rtn. Now they’re encrusting and branching, and the phosphates have dropped to 0.015 naturally because the acros have a chance to consume them.

 

[markalot]

It seems to be the same story with newer SPS keepers over and over. AEFW, fixed, Hanna low range checker, NO PO4, lots of light, dead acros. Sorry, this sounds scoldy, it's based on the same crap I went through killing acros over and over.

Over 300 - 350 PAR is asking for trouble, 250 is the sweet spot. Once you have experience and a mature (1.5 to 2 years old) tank then by all means crank up the lighting and start tweaking for better growth and color, but not now. If you insist on using LED only then it better look blue to your eyes, otherwise you are killing the corals with too much white light. Acros do not up and die with too little light. Acros do not up and die with too much po4.

At this stage you must keep KH rock solid stable at all times and it should be closer to 7. Of course acros can survive in higher KH and your's isn't bad, but make things as easy as possible on yourself. I would stop testing PO4 except for monthly maybe. It's too tempting to try and adjust and that's a killer. This is my problem, might not be yours.

Learn to listen to people that have success based on where your tank is now. Those of us with older tanks can get away with a lot more than you can. I think it's due to the amount of food bits in the water (how scientific, right ), but I don't think anyone knows for sure. In older tanks there's a lot of crap in the water column that acros can feed on which seems to increase their health and increased health means they can tolerate more light, lower PO4, etc.

I don't know the actual age of your tank so some of this might not apply, you have to gauge advice based on what stage your tank is at. There's a lot of common misconceptions about Acropora out there that just aren't true. Most do not need low nutrients and many thrive in higher nutrients. PO4 does not kill acros and many times doesn't even hurt coloration. Notable exceptions would be wild or maricultured acros, but even then some of these adapt to higher nutrients quite quickly. I have an example of both, ome with great color and health, and one which is a very healthy brown brown brown. Reefmut over on RC has a big colony of Orange Passion growing in over .1 PO4. With a big tank we have it easy, use the fish to control the algae.

It's not a crime to dose small amounts of Seachem Phosphorus, I've done it to fix starvation issues after seeing it done over on Nano-Reef to save a colony that was STN'ing in a newer clean tank. It's not something you ever want to do, but can be a tool to help correct ongoing issues.

Good luck, hopefully you can get things back on track.

 

[Johnson556]

It seems to be the same story with newer SPS keepers over and over. AEFW, fixed, Hanna low range checker, NO PO4, lots of light, dead acros. Sorry, this sounds scoldy, it's based on the same crap I went through killing acros over and over.

Over 300 - 350 PAR is asking for trouble, 250 is the sweet spot. Once you have experience and a mature (1.5 to 2 years old) tank then by all means crank up the lighting and start tweaking for better growth and color, but not now. If you insist on using LED only then it better look blue to your eyes, otherwise you are killing the corals with too much white light. Acros do not up and die with too little light. Acros do not up and die with too much po4.

At this stage you must keep KH rock solid stable at all times and it should be closer to 7. Of course acros can survive in higher KH and your's isn't bad, but make things as easy as possible on yourself. I would stop testing PO4 except for monthly maybe. It's too tempting to try and adjust and that's a killer. This is my problem, might not be yours.

Learn to listen to people that have success based on where your tank is now. Those of us with older tanks can get away with a lot more than you can. I think it's due to the amount of food bits in the water (how scientific, right ), but I don't think anyone knows for sure. In older tanks there's a lot of crap in the water column that acros can feed on which seems to increase their health and increased health means they can tolerate more light, lower PO4, etc.

I don't know the actual age of your tank so some of this might not apply, you have to gauge advice based on what stage your tank is at. There's a lot of common misconceptions about Acropora out there that just aren't true. Most do not need low nutrients and many thrive in higher nutrients. PO4 does not kill acros and many times doesn't even hurt coloration. Notable exceptions would be wild or maricultured acros, but even then some of these adapt to higher nutrients quite quickly. I have an example of both, ome with great color and health, and one which is a very healthy brown brown brown. Reefmut over on RC has a big colony of Orange Passion growing in over .1 PO4. With a big tank we have it easy, use the fish to control the algae.

It's not a crime to dose small amounts of Seachem Phosphorus, I've done it to fix starvation issues after seeing it done over on Nano-Reef to save a colony that was STN'ing in a newer clean tank. It's not something you ever want to do, but can be a tool to help correct ongoing issues.

Good luck, hopefully you can get things back on track.

I'm still trying to pin-point how I got AEFW because they where noticed after a 5-month period where NOTHING was added to the tank (other than fish). That sucked. As for the low rang checker I do not rely on it and rarely test with it, when I do I take the reading with a grain of salt. Have never really cared about how high my phosphates got as long as the tank stayed clean(no hair algae etc). The reason I have recently been running GFO is because of this strange growth I'm having on my rocks, so far no one on this forum or a local forum or even Northeastern Marine Biology Lab can accurately identify it. Also, 80% of the rock when this tank was set up in May was 1.5 Years old so while the tank may be "new" all of the rock and its inhabitants are coming up on 2.5 years old. Rock is well established and cryptic zones are LOADED with sponges and life.

LED's are the secondary source of light for my tank, the primary is six 80W T5's. The three kessils go on at 12PM, ramp up from 20-60% for two hours then at 2PM they sit at 60% and the T5's turn on. The reverse happens at 8PM, lights out at 10:30, Kessils finish at 20%. Lights have been turned down significantly since I initially tested par 6 months ago, If I where to guess everything is is probably between 300-350 at this point (Kessils down 25%)

KH has been rock stable at 7.8 as discussed but ideally I'd like that at 7.5 considering everything else. I have added an additional cube of food a day to get things a little "dirtier", and stopped running GFO(although it was a small amount anyways). All else will stay the same for a month and we will see where we are at end of December. As for advice, by no means am I set in my ways as I'm constantly asking for help/searching for advice. If I was a blockhead that was set on my ways I wouldn't be hear talking about my tank problems or texting buddies with established SPS tanks freaking out.

 

[markalot]

Didn't mean to imply you were a blockhead. My frustration is more of how we all get railroaded into the same techniques when trying to grow acros and end up losing money and killing corals. That mystery algae is probably sucking up all the PO4 and for all we know may be adding toxins to the water, which would be horrible. Where can I find a picture of it?

 

[Johnson556]

Here's my most recent thread, maybe you could be the lucky winner of $20 if identified correctly!

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/20-to-whoever-correctly-ids-this-last-try.513864/

 

[Johnson556]

Moved the frag to a little DIY rack to the back of the tank, getting much less light now and good flow. Hopefully this gives it time to heal and regrow lost tissue.

Going back to dosing Acropower. Might even broadcast feed reef roids once or twice a week as well.