SPS white tip help

[Cari]

I’ve had this frag for quite awhile. Battled tank neglect cause life got in the way, used NoPox in June (great stuff, worked for me). Everyone did well except this guy. See first pic. After several months, much to my surprise, he came back with flying colors! I don’t know what this coral is, but the colors are blue/purple and green.

Now, getting white tips. See pic #2 Sometimes look brown, but I think that to be diatoms. The only change I’ve made in the last month is cutting back t5’s from 4 hrs to 2 hours cause I was getting baked on algae film on glass. I’ve bumped the t5’s back to the 4 hours.

Anyone have this issue with tips and turn out to be lighting?
Here’s my tank parameters:
90 gallon
Salinity - 1.026
Calc - 425
Alk - 8.7
Nitrate - 0
Phos - 1.45
Mag - 1480

Lighting - 2 Kessil AP700 - 7:30 am - 8:30pm, ramp up to 45% 10am -1pm; ATI bulbs on at 10am off at 2pm.

This is the only sps I have, never had good luck, even with “easy” birds nest. If not lighting, any other ideas?? Tank is LPS dominate, which all look happy.

thanks!

 

[TexasTodd]

Need closer pics. Is it dead at tips?
There's a zillion things, but the most basic is : tip issues from alk, base up issues from nutrients.

 

[Redfoxtang]

Hard to tell from pictures like above. Usually for me white tips can go 2 ways. New growth or DKH burn. With DKH burn algae will be present on the tips in the matter of a day or 2.

 

[Cari]

Thanks. I’ll try to get better pics. It definitely isn’t base up, which I would think is a good thing. My Alk is at 8.7 as of yesterday morning. I dose 2 part in sump. How does coral get dkh burn? How can I prevent it?

 

[Skynyrd Fish]

Hey Cari. A couple things are jumping out at me. Zero no3, and your alk at 8.7. Sps don’t do well at zero no3. Also in a low nutrient (zero no3) system an alk above 7.7 can cause burnt tips. Also what are you using to test for po4? 1.45 seems screaming high to me. I’m not an sps master so I’m hoping someone will chime in. A few more questions, do you have PE on the coral, or noticed any growth lately?

If you have high po4 and you slowly add some no3, po4 will come down. This can be achieved by increasing your feeding slowly.

 

[Redfoxtang]

DKH burn is having to high of DKH and really low nutrients. I see your P04 is high but N03 is reading 0. If you can bring your N03 up and leave your P04 alone everything should fall into place. Take it slow though don’t make sudden changes.

 

[jda]

The burnt tips from high alk requires N and P below that of natural seawater and you usually need to be using organic carbon, GFO or Lan Chloride to get this low (which you could have done using organic carbon with NoPOX). Zero N in your case is likely just a product of the bad test kits that we have and you are nowhere near zero. Even with N around .1, alk at 12-13 was never an issue when people ran deep sand beds (which crushed N down to about .1) and salts with alk higher than 10. This is not your issue.

Dead tips can come from running LEDs too high, but that does not seem like a problem with your schedule. My guess is that the bumping and bouncing around with the NoPOX caused this, which can sometimes take months for corals to finally show signs of suffering, just like it can take months for them to show signs of being healthy again after a stressful event.

If the white tips are new growth, then this is normal since the coral will calficy first, then get tissue (which is white) and then the zoox moves in later to provide color. Lots of corals have whiter/lighter tips when they grow.

 

[homer1475]

A better close up pic would be better, but typically all SPS grow with white tips. Thats not saying your's isn't an issue, but without a better pic, it's hard to say. From what I can see it's not all the tips, but random tips which would be a problem, and not white from growth.

 

[Cari]

Thanks for all the help. I‘m hoping It’s not a residual affect of the NoPox, since I used it 5 months ago, had water changes in between and all the color came back. The coral had complete color, including tips and could even see polyps swaying, as late as last month.

I used Red Sea Pro test kits for Alk, Calcium, Mag And Nitrate. I Use Hanna for Phosphate. Hopefully these are good test kits.

Once the coral recovered from the NoPox dose in June, It took a good month to month and half, but started seeing growth (not length wise, but fill in). Bright color and polyps.

 

[Cari]

Thanks for all the input, once again I've learned something new in this hobby. I had no idea about Alk burn. I've increased feeding..I have a pair of tomato clowns, Potter's angel, Yellow tang and Hippo Tang. They are loving it!

Something as a side note: When I'm on vacation, I setup the auto feeder and I'm always amazed when I return how much larger, full (everybody is open) and livelier the tank is. I swear I can see coral growth in a week's time! Maybe I'm not feeding enough when I'm home.

Thanks again for the help. Hopefully I can save this SPS!!