SPS acros dying from tips.

tundraguy1106 · Feb 15, 2021

So over the past few months I’ve been trying to get into SPS corals. As of now, some do ok and others slowly die. Not really sure why. I only had one alkalinity spike a month or so ago but that is now under control and my alkalinity is stable around 8.0. The spike was up to 9.5 over a day or so. For the most part my acros very slowly encrust but no new branches. A couple of the acros, 1 in particular was growing like crazy with new branches all over which are now slowly going off starting at the tips.

my parameters are as follows

No3 - 5
Alk- 8.0
Phosphate - .04 (stable for months)
Cal - 470 (also stable for months)
Salinity - 1.025-26

no clue what I’m doing wrong. I recently adjust my lights (48” aquatic life hybrid with dual hydra 26’s). My LED’s ramp up from 10am to 2 pm and ramp down at 6pm to midnight. Longer night time for blues. T5’s are only on from 1230pm - 4pm. This is peak PAR hours which give the top half on my tank 300 and the sand-bed just under 200. Once the T5’s go out my PAR drops by half. I’ve attached a photo of my light schedule and some of the acros with issues. All LPS do well. I’ve lost a couple which I believe is from the high PAR in my tank. My space invader pectinia is also slowly dying which started right after the alkalinity spike.

My system is a 120 gallon 4x2x2 with a 36 gallon sump. I run a doser at night time for calcium and alkalinity and I add aminos and phyto manual every other night. Any tips are appreciated. Not sure what to do. I tried trimming the dying branches on the Acros but it just starts on another branch. Again it’s not all of my SPS only a few. Others are slowly coloring up and encrusting the rock work.

flyfisherman · Feb 15, 2021

an Alk swing or two can mess things up but hearty sps won't be effected. I would bet there is metal(rusty magnet) or something getting through your RO filters. you may need to change RO filters every few months. Check TDS. Also look in your mixing tubs for issues.

tundraguy1106 · Feb 15, 2021

flyfisherman said:
an Alk swing or two can mess things up but hearty sps won't be effected. I would bet there is metal(rusty magnet) or something getting through your RO filters. you may need to change RO filters every few months. Check TDS. Also look in your mixing tubs for issues.

I have a whole salt water mixing station. Zero TDS water goes into making my tank water. Rusty magnet is a possibility. I had an old frag rack with rust on the magnet. That was replaced a week ago. Didn’t think a tiny bit of rust would cause issues in a large tank. What would I look for in mixing tubs? Reef crystals left a residue but again nothing I thought would harm anything. It usually flakes off. I switched to tropic Marin pro a few weeks ago for more stable parameters.

dwest · Feb 15, 2021

Alkalinity spike could be the problem. I am wondering also if that sand contains amphidinium dinos. You don’t happen to have a microscope?

tundraguy1106 · Feb 15, 2021

dwest said:
Alkalinity spike could be the problem. I am wondering also if that sand contains amphidinium dinos. You don’t happen to have a microscope?

I do... last time I checked, it was cyano. I thought I’d have to bottom out phosphates and nitrate for dinos? Mine haven’t bottomed out in over a year. Cyano comes back every so often. At night my sand isn’t red anymore.

tundraguy1106 · Feb 15, 2021

dwest said:
Alkalinity spike could be the problem. I am wondering also if that sand contains amphidinium dinos. You don’t happen to have a microscope?

dang it! That’s Dinos right? This is from just now. How can that be?

dwest · Feb 15, 2021

tundraguy1106 said:
I do... last time I checked, it was cyano. I thought I’d have to bottom out phosphates and nitrate for dinos? Mine haven’t bottomed out in over a year. Cyano comes back every so often. At night my sand isn’t red anymore.

It looked brown in the pic. If it’s red, you are good.