Some Growth issues with acros

[Bogdan21]

I forgot to mention, I don’t use All For Reef products. I was normally dosing red sea alk, ca, mg by dosing machine. Weekly basis Red sea Trace colors, AB+ Energy daily and AF build drops at night.

I stopped the AF BUILD also a long time ago before all this. But my case is not as severe as yours. I just have some bumps on some of my acros. Was told is from amino acids, but idk. I stopped those too over a month ago. I now just put a few drops of acro power in my frozen premix fish food

 

[anthonymckay]

I had these same kinds of growth anomalies in my tank for the last year. Corals just encrusting and getting really thick with no upward growth. Deformed looking polyps. Hyperplasia on the tissue.

Seemed to affect some corals quite severely. Others seemed completely resistant to it (all my Tenius, though they still didn't grow much). I read all the different threads I could find on various message boards about this, but the consensus seems to be that no really one knows the cause or the cure.

That said... in the last month my tank seems to be starting to recover from this issue. The main thing I changed was that I realized my Alk levels were significantly lower than what my Alkatronic was reporting. It said it was in the low 8's, but in reality it was in the low 7's. I corrected the levels, and have monitored all my major params and kept them as stable as I can. Within a few weeks of doing this, 4 different sps frags that hadn't done anything but encrust for the last year suddenly started sprouting new growth tips! A few of the frags that had severe hyperplasia (ie: the "bounce" bubbles on the tissue) started to "heal" and the bubbles have slowly been going away. Along with that, I started seeing polyps coming out on corals that had zero polyp extension the past year. Some of the deformed "tulip" looking polyps have started to regain the normal shape/color.

No idea if it's ACTUALLY related to Alk levels? But that was the last thing I changed on my tank that seemed to make a difference.

 

[hsnydn]

My Alkalinitt level is very less actually, it is about 6-6.5. Mutiple times i tried to increase to 8 slowly, i couldnt adjust succesfully, so i leave it as it is. This may be another reason.

 

[hsnydn]

I had these same kinds of growth anomalies in my tank for the last year. Corals just encrusting and getting really thick with no upward growth. Deformed looking polyps. Hyperplasia on the tissue.

Seemed to affect some corals quite severely. Others seemed completely resistant to it (all my Tenius, though they still didn't grow much). I read all the different threads I could find on various message boards about this, but the consensus seems to be that no really one knows the cause or the cure.

That said... in the last month my tank seems to be starting to recover from this issue. The main thing I changed was that I realized my Alk levels were significantly lower than what my Alkatronic was reporting. It said it was in the low 8's, but in reality it was in the low 7's. I corrected the levels, and have monitored all my major params and kept them as stable as I can. Within a few weeks of doing this, 4 different sps frags that hadn't done anything but encrust for the last year suddenly started sprouting new growth tips! A few of the frags that had severe hyperplasia (ie: the "bounce" bubbles on the tissue) started to "heal" and the bubbles have slowly been going away. Along with that, I started seeing polyps coming out on corals that had zero polyp extension the past year. Some of the deformed "tulip" looking polyps have started to regain the normal shape/color.

No idea if it's ACTUALLY related to Alk levels? But that was the last thing I changed on my tank that seemed to make a difference.

Is there any other thing that you changed before Alkalinity level?

 

[anthonymckay]

Is there any other thing that you changed before Alkalinity level?

The only thing I had done prior to that was an interceptor treatment to the tank because I thought maybe it was being caused by pests after finding a white bug on one of my acros. This had no effect though and turned out to not be the case.

When you say you "couldn't adjust successfully" what do you mean? It shouldn't be too difficult to raise it up to 8.0+ and keep it there?

 

[hsnydn]

It is all about my attention. I was weekly testing, and all of a sudden i see level 10 . So after a week i saw 7 again. So i keep it as it is. I will carefully increase to 8.

 

[anthonymckay]

It is all about my attention. I was weekly testing, and all of a sudden i see level 10 . So after a week i saw 7 again. So i keep it as it is. I will carefully increase to 8.

How often were you dosing your alk? Were you using a doser to maintain the stability of Alk or just by hand? If I were you, I would test daily for a week. Maybe even twice daily (at lights on, and at lights off). Get an idea of your average alk usage and go from there.

 

[hsnydn]

How often were you dosing your alk? Were you using a doser to maintain the stability of Alk or just by hand? If I were you, I would test daily for a week. Maybe even twice daily (at lights on, and at lights off). Get an idea of your average alk usage and go from there.

Using dosing machine, it was 7 times during the lights on. 1-2ml each time and total 12ml daily
Now i set for 9 times total 15ml. And i will follow.

 

[hsnydn]

I am sharing photos of the suspicious frags. I will update in case any improvements

 

[Sdoutreefer]

What about the 1st coral i mentioned? It is really strange to me that it has developped a thick fatty appearence and completely lost its original shape.

I have 1 acro like this, and I believe it's due to not enough flow. It is just getting super fat, zero vertical growth. I was looking at my flow last night, and that specific acro is definetly in a area of lighter flow. I'm going to try and move it to see if I get better action.