All of my acros on the right side of my tank are slowly loosing tissue from the bottom up, what could be causing it? Acros on the left side look fine and look like they are growing. I noticed one on the upper left slowly loosing tissue a few weeks ago. It finally completely died yesterday. This morning I noticed two more on the rock below that one are starting to do the same thing. Could this be a flow issue? Or a parasite issue? Haven’t added any new livestock in months. They only thing I’ve done is switch from Reef crystals to Red Sea Coral Pro about a month ago, and I ran out of GFO so it went like 4 weeks without being changed. Just changed GFO yesterday and switching back to reef crystals. I also noticed the Cheato in my fuge has shrunk to like 1/2 the size it was before I switched salt. Any thoughts?
Slowly Loosing My Acros
- Thread starter Jack22
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What is making you want to switch back and forth with salts? What are your other parameters testing out to? Making changes while things are working fine can cause issues. Not to mention the Alk difference between RC and RS Coral Pro is significant even though slowly changing should be fine.
Reefer40b
Valuable Member
Most likly the GFO, if i even put a small amount of it I usually kill something... 1/4cup in 200 gal system. I now never test phosphate and my corals couldnt be happier. I have tried 3 times and happens everytime without changing anything else. My P is usually around .1 to .2 and i still get awesome growth and color
There are many reefers on this forum that have very successful tanks and run GFO.
Slightly confused... your P is usually around .1 to .2, but you never test. How do you know without testing? Maybe I missed something.
Slightly confused... your P is usually around .1 to .2, but you never test. How do you know without testing? Maybe I missed something.
Reefer40b
Valuable Member
That is a true story, many reefers do use it and many also hate it. I have seen more people kill stuff from using GFO then higher phosphate has... Your tank looks clean without algae that i can see and you mention shrinking cheato, which if your doing water changes you should have all the building blocks to grow it, just from those observations I would think you have low or measuring zero P.
Thats when I did test and was trying to use gfo, not sure where they are at currently...
Agreed, but in most cases higher phosphate won't kill anything, it just feeds unwanted algae.
How old is the tank? The rock looks relatively new(but plenty of coralline on the walls, maybe it's just the pic . Seems you have enough flow, but what are the parameters at when you test? Alk, Cal, Mag, N3, Phos... running any other media? Light Schedule?
My opinion... if you switched things and your corals started to change, then i'd go back to what I was doing when everything looked healthy. Salts, GFO changes, WC...
I’m still kind of new to this, my tank is about a year old. I started using RC because it was the cheapest. As I started adding coral I did some research and thought maybe I should switch to a “better salt.” I see now that was a mistake.
Just thought it was odd that it was only the coral on the one side of the tank.
All of my other parameters were in line as of three weeks ago. That’s when my test kit ran out. I ordered more during the cyber week sale. They will be here today.
Just thought it was odd that it was only the coral on the one side of the tank.
All of my other parameters were in line as of three weeks ago. That’s when my test kit ran out. I ordered more during the cyber week sale. They will be here today.
Reef Crystals is a great salt and very inexpensive. Using it isn't an issue, but making sudden changes can sometimes throw off SPS. Changing salts should be gradual especially when the mix values of each is different and in this case significantly different if I remember correctly.
I'd get some tests done and compare them to where they were prior to running out of your test kit. What were your parameters three weeks ago for reference? There's a chance the corals on the left side of your tank are less acceptable to parameter swings.
I'd get some tests done and compare them to where they were prior to running out of your test kit. What were your parameters three weeks ago for reference? There's a chance the corals on the left side of your tank are less acceptable to parameter swings.
You can't keep acros with haphazard testing and lack of stability, that's the simple answer. If Alk is up above 9 then a quick rise from 9 to 9.5 or 10 can cause a LOT of damage. The simple solution I used to get over the constant cycle of killing acros was to run KH way down near 7 (6.5 actually) and keep it there, favoring going too low rather than too high. Too low slows growth and will eventually kill, too high kills quickly. I always have a backup Alk kit available, it's critical if you really want to keep sensitive SPS.
Do not run GFO unless you know exactly what you are doing. Dropping PO4 fast will kill acros, running PO4 too low will kill acros unless they are adapted to it.
I think the 'one side of the tank' issue is probably a coincidence as different acros respond to stress differently. It may be there is more light on one side, which speeds up the problems.
There's a lot of threads here with a common theme of dying acros, it's generally always the same thing. Too much light, instability, water too clean, too many changes, KH too high compared to the nutrients in the tank.
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