SPS tips bleaching

[68 Stang]

Looking for advice from sps gurus! My tank is a Redsea reefer 850. I monitor and test frequently as it’s a fairly newly established tank (June 1st) Everything is locked in with the exception of phosphates that I am currently dosing two capfuls daily to keep it around .05 to .1 I recently purchased a ORA red planet and a POTO ultimate shortcake (Oct 4th). I placed them on a frag rack at about 200 par for a week. Moved the frag rack up after a week to about 300 par In which they sat for another week. The following week I placed the frag on top of the rock at about 350 par. The shortcake looks good with some polyp extension and the tips look good. However the ORA red planets tips do not look good. The coral has polyp extensions but I’m concerned with its tips bleaching. I did lower my lights max percentage down 5%

what do the experts say. Leave it, move it lower, cut the tips off and dip it again and place it back in the same spot? What do you guys do to try and save them?

 

[Waters]

Maybe I am not looking at the right thing but I don't see any issues on any of the frags. I would leave them be and just watch them.

 

[Troylee]

Can’t see anything in your pictures.. if the tips are white it’s one of 2 things.. growth or alk burn..

 

[68 Stang]

Maybe I am not looking at the right thing but I don't see any issues on any of the frags. I would leave them be and just watch them.

Maybe these pictures will help a little more, you can see the tips of the corral in the center are looking bad but it does have good polyp extension

 

[Troylee]

Still really hard to see… what’s your alk at? Has it been steady?

 

[68 Stang]

It’s been at 7.5 for weeks and weeks. I perform a 20 gallon continuous water change through a 2.8 gallons a day spread out with a Neptune dose. Haven’t had a need to dose two part yet as the water change has been keeping Alk stable.

 

[68 Stang]

It’s been at 7.5 for weeks and weeks. I perform a 20 gallon continuous water change through a 2.8 gallons a day spread out with a Neptune dose. Haven’t had a need to dose two part yet as the water change has been keeping Alk stable.

Here is a couple of better pics with my iPhone instead of iPad

 

[Troylee]

The top branch looks like growth which is great! The lower one does look like it’s missing flesh from what I can tell… that’s normally alk burn or high light and very low nutrients.

 

[68 Stang]

Thanks Troy, I appreciate your time, I have been battling phosphates and have been dosing them. I will continue to monitor and dose phosphates and or nitrates if needed. PAR at its location is around 300/350. should I,

lower light intensity a bit?
trim the tips?
move the coral lower?
leave everything alone and be sure I have some phosphates .05 to .1

 

[Troylee]

I’d leave it alone and start using reef roids to raise your po4 if you have a bunch of corals. It’s great at feeding and raising po4