SPS following alk spike, is it the right diagnosis ?

[david p.]

Hi
need your advice.
I have my 85g SPS only tank for a year now. From late January to late March, i made the mistake of doing TTM on 3 consecutive QT for new fishes using tank water, meaning more WC with new water with alk around 12dkh, i usually keep tank alk around 8.3. That translated in slowly increasing alk from 8.3 to almost 12 dkh over 2 months... took me a while understanding the reason my alk increased because i also removed a lots of my bigger colonies and was still dialing my dosing (i know... and i feel dumb for it!!!).

when i saw my mistake i stopped doing WC for a while until alk decrease to nomal level. It's been more than a month that my alk is back to around 8.

Parameter:
Salinity: 1.026
P: undetectable
N: undetectable
Alk : 8-8.3
Ca: 450
Mg: 1400

I feed 4 time/week reefroid or equivalent, dose daily fauna marin product( ultra amin, min S-D, organic, ultra bac), twice a week color element. i have had low nutrient since day1, always had good growth and coloration.

Around mid-late march, the first signs on my coral appeared, on the base i could see white tissue, not STN or RTN. i saw that on a couple of colonies, they are still growing, polyp extension and all... :
before:

after:

since then it has not really deteriorated, nor improve. still growing.
Is the Alk swing the only issu here ?
is it just about time and wait till it colors back up ?

 

[Ocelaris]

That's not a huge alk swing for that time frame, but running that high nutrients you may want to bump up your feeding or dose nitrates. Check out the video about running higher alkalinity. I was having better success with alk in the 10 range personally.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/video...light-water-motion-by-dana-riddle-macna-2016/

 

[david p.]

That's not a huge alk swing for that time frame, but running that high nutrients you may want to bump up your feeding or dose nitrates. Check out the video about running higher alkalinity. I was having better success with alk in the 10 range personally.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/video...light-water-motion-by-dana-riddle-macna-2016/

i know that video, thx.
im pretty much in the ultra low nutrient side not high nutrients, i compensate with more frequent feeding for coral.

Also, my diagnosis is alk spike on a long period with ULN.... i dont want to dose Nitrate. i have run all year long around 8.3 with low nutrient with great succes. just trying to confirm my diagnosis, or if other element could trigger that discoloration.

 

[Ocelaris]

Never had that issue, so would have to speculate, but I think a reasonable person could say that the change in conditions would trigger that. A lot of corals are white at the tips because the skeleton is growing faster than the zooxanthallae can populate the new tissue. Is it possible that it's just new growth or did the flesh recede?

 

[Ocelaris]

I won't try to convince you to change what works for you, but just a good read about nutrients by Mike paletta. He did a follow up as well.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/tank-parameters-of-some-masters.263/

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I did the same with my alk on a higher nutrint tank with no ill effects.

I will say that's the weirdest color change I've ever seen.

My gut would say just low nutrints.

 

[david p.]

I won't try to convince you to change what works for you, but just a good read about nutrients by Mike paletta. He did a follow up as well.

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/tank-parameters-of-some-masters.263/

thanks again, i already went throught all this a while back, there are many ways to succed in this hobby.
i'm just talking about 2-3 colonies on maybe 60+ acro i have.
i'm looking for other potential root cause that i could be missing, my routine is pretty constant for dosing, WC, nutrient.. the only fluctuation i had in the year was that alk spike.

that's a picture dating mid-march. at the 'worst' of the alk spike.

that's one is from last week.

 

[david p.]

Never had that issue, so would have to speculate, but I think a reasonable person could say that the change in conditions would trigger that. A lot of corals are white at the tips because the skeleton is growing faster than the zooxanthallae can populate the new tissue. Is it possible that it's just new growth or did the flesh recede?

i though about new growth, like the base getting thicker... but it's usually seen on tips not the base.
the flesh is still there, just white.

 

[Triggreef]

You don't like fish in your fish tank?

lol just saying. But beautiful tank. I'm sure they'll bounce right back.

 

[david p.]

for the nutrient, i have tried to reduce export, meaning reduce photo period on cheato, keeping less cheato in refugium, reduce skimming. i stopped the use of GFO back in January-Feb. i have always feed coral pretty intensivly. i know they are low, but with lower alk, and feeding coral (amino, phyto, reefroid,etC) i managed to keep steady growth and good coloration.

 

[david p.]

You don't like fish in your fish tank?

lol just saying. But beautiful tank. I'm sure they'll bounce right back.

i have 21 fishes in there and 2 in QT (new arrival). i just dont want large fish,
Kole tang
- 2x Midnight ocelaris + 2x ocelaris in LPS system hooked on main tank
- Firefish
- Watchman gobby and pistol shrimp
- Red dragonet
- Scooter Bleeny
- Tail spot Blenny
- 2x Flame back angel
- 1x Chalk bass (one jump on my anti-suicide cover.. i still don't understand how he did it)
- 6 line wrasse
- Labouti wrasse
- 6x Vanderbuilt chromis
- Cleaner shrimp and Fireshrimp
In QT:
- 2x Blue star leopard wrasse

 

[Triggreef]

i have 21 fishes in there and 2 in QT (new arrival). i just dont want large fish,
Kole tang
- 2x Midnight ocelaris + 2x ocelaris in LPS system hooked on main tank
- Firefish
- Watchman gobby and pistol shrimp
- Red dragonet
- Scooter Bleeny
- Tail spot Blenny
- 2x Flame back angel
- 1x Chalk bass (one jump on my anti-suicide cover.. i still don't understand how he did it)
- 6 line wrasse
- Labouti wrasse
- 6x Vanderbuilt chromis
- Cleaner shrimp and Fireshrimp
In QT:
- 2x Blue star leopard wrasse

Wow are they all in there when you took those pics? I only could see a couple... You'll love the leopards when you add them. My favorite fish.

 

[Bay]

Beautiful tank, your red dragon is huge.

 

[steallife904]

I did an alk spike back in October and am still trying to get tank in order. I also ran a low nutrient tank back when it was thriving but I think the combo of low nutrient plus ALK spike has stressed everything. I have since started turning skimmer off at night (only a few days now), I tried feeding a mix of foods for months heavy but phos and nitrate just wouldn't rise. I have now started very low doses of neophos and neonitrate to raise them up. Still a work in progress but will see how that goes.
My ALK use to run around 8 dkh, within a few weeks it went up to 12ish range and I lost 70 or so % of the coral in the tank , Today my alk is around 8.7 dkh and I am still trying to get it to drop! I have not been dosing anything since the overdose. just water changes.

 

[Ocelaris]

What's your calcium been through this? Has that dropped as well or stayed at 450?

 

[Kenfishy]

I don't know what's going on but this very topic seems to be popping up a lot lately. I was running into the exact same issue. Ulns / alk spikes/ and in my case led lighting seems to be the culprit. What are the benefits of dosing nitrates?

 

[Ocelaris]

It's kind of the new fad to dose nitrates. A lot of evidence has pointed to them being a beneficial supplemental food mechanism since we don't have their normal plankton foods. But it's far from established science and obviously people have had a lot of success without increasing inorganic nutrients. Adding coral or fish food accomplishs much of the same goal, but also adds phosphates. However adding inorganic nitrates doesn't add any higher complexes like vitamins etc... But it's not clear that these are strictly required.

If we were talking about land plants, I'd mention that inorganic nutrients are the only form of nutrition; but corals are not only plants and a significant amount of their nutritional needs are met by plankton in the wild. So the question is whether strictly inorganic nitrates and fish food is sufficient to grow great corals.

I've had good luck with dosing nitrates, but you have to be careful as it also can help algae flourish.

Obviously the OP has had great success without inorganic additions. This may be insignificant to normal reefers, but in an exquisite tank like this it may stick out. Sometimes it's impossible to know the root cause.

 

[david p.]

What's your calcium been through this? Has that dropped as well or stayed at 450?

Calcium was stable, i did not had to reduce dosing except to tweek it after i removed some of my big colonies.
I was adding 'alk' by WC. therefore i had to cut alk dosing,i even stopped at one point. Even if i though growth was on hold (or slowed), Ca consumption was stable... so probably growth also.

I might try to dose KN03, i have plenty from my fresh water tank. I though about removing my cheato completly, but i like the 'resilience' it provides for nutrient control. I started cuting the Ultra Bac (Fauna Marin) to further reduce export.

Just to be clear, i dont feel my tank is facing a big problem, i just could not find that kind of discoloration online or on R2R, all i could find was RTN/STN thread.

I was wondering what could trigger this other than the Alk spike with my low nutrient.I believe that with time it will come back.

i know that many succesfull reefs have a certain levels of N and P, it will be something i will adress enventually to see if a can gain in growth and coloration.

thanks for all of your inputs... it helps.

 

[steallife904]

in my cause my calcium and mag went up and have been up ever since and will not drop. calc currently 500, mag 1470-1500. been that way for months even with no dosing and doesn't seem to move.

 

[david p.]

ok... when i posted this i thought i was on the right track in getting back the control of my tank and i was just trying to confirm my diagnosis or to see if there could be other root cause. Though my Alk spike with my Low nutrient were a bad combinaison and time would heal my coral if i got my parameters back to where i kept them before my incident. Growth seemed to be back (new tips on most colonies), encrusting.

Since then...
- My red dragon RTN overnigh 3 days ago.
- Had to cut the tips of another SPS colony because it started to look worst.
- Today another colony RTN. That one was one that i was happy with becaue it showed a lot of new growth and brigth color...

Also,
- my pink lemonade lost a lot of color today, was fine this morning


For the pas 2.5 months now, Alk Ca and Mg were all stable. My Ca tend to be higher than usual, it still at 500-530, but usually it wont harm corals.. even with WC with AF reef salt (Ca at 430) it wont decrease. i stoped dosing Ca a week ago.
I dosed twice 1.5 mL of KNO3 in my 115gal of total water, i stopped after because i though it would be another change... that i wanted to avoid. it was maybe 1-2 week ago (around May19th). it was barely enough to get a reading on my test kit.

I have introduced the AF ReefSalt since my alk incident 2month ago, Alk is Stable at 8.3 since 2.5 month. I have increased feeding and got my first N and P reading (food and KNO3), lowest on my Red sea test kit. Its a premiere since a year...

I'm clueless on what going on in my tank....
i decided to change my Ro membrane and DI resine in case...
I have done many WC 10g at a time since a 5-10d .. in case it was a 'contaminant' in my system...
i re-inspected my MP40 and UV for rust or metal leaching... nothing...

I did not changed anything in my routine and maintenance in the past year.

something is happening and i don't have a clue... fear i might lose more...