STN/Tip Burn?

[Zerobytes]

Thanks for the feedback.

I bumped my Nopox dose down and plan to move it to a very minimal level after a couple months. I did bump the lighting down just a hair for the time being given that stressed receding corals typically don’t love high light. I will look into increasing lighting back up slowly after I get things back under control and get more food in the tank and with the steady lower KH in place for a week or two.

It could very well be how I use it but was dosing NoPox (minimal amount). Even though NO3 looked good and I was able to keep between 2-5 like I was shooting for, I always ended up having issues of some sort. Seems like maybe it takes other important stuff out along with NO3. Just a guess as I don't know what/how to track other things besides the standard items. Each tank behaves differently for sure but I've gotten rid of that stuff and if I need to dose sporadically I'll just try vinegar and see how that does.

 

[JaaxReef]

Bit the bullet and I’m renting a PAR meter from BRS... just tired of guessing based on everyone else’s PAR with my lights and tanks... I want to remove that element from the equation.

Then I can be sure it is water parameters or nutrients.

 

[Makers Marc]

Bit the bullet and I’m renting a PAR meter from BRS... just tired of guessing based on everyone else’s PAR with my lights and tanks... I want to remove that element from the equation.

Then I can be sure it is water parameters or nutrients.

I did the same. Even after you get par readings, just know you can't assume that bc a spot only has 150 par that There's no way your kessils can fry them...

Because they can if not acclimated extremely slowly... at least in my tank.

 

[JaaxReef]

I have Hydra 26HDs, so I know for certain they can fry corals. I definitely don’t run them anywhere near as high as some users who have posted settings for their successful tanks, but I do have 2 fixtures 12” over a small tank for spread.

Either way, I’m very anxious to see numbers with my current settings. I’ll have to post something once I take readings. Especially since I’m using the 3DReefing Diffusors.

 

[JaaxReef]

I think I’ve had my lights set too low for a long time... I was only getting bout 100 par at the top of my highest point, and about 60-70 at the sand bed at peak. So distribution wasn’t bad, but intensity was low.

I’ve raised the lights up another 2” to be 14” off the water and have used the following setting for peak based on BRS spectrum for AB+ but more white using the Hydras:

UV - 100
Violet - 92
Royal Blue - 82
Blue - 65
Green - 10
Red - 18
White - 30

With those settings and my lights 14” off the water line, I’m getting about 230 at the top of the rocks and 150 on the sand bed. I set it for a 45 day acclimation to slowly move up in intensity. It took 40% reduction to go down to my previous par (I tested the acclimation setting so I was close to the numbers I was getting before).

Corals have stopped receding, but I don’t think it had anything to do with lighting... probably low PO4, (which is now at .15 and everything is looking better) and running higher alk...

 

[Reefahholic]

Recently had a bout of burnt tips. Tank was thriving just before this happened. I couldn’t find any solid information on the internet as to why this can happen. Pretty much all speculation. It ranged from lighting, high dKH, low nutrients, etc.

I had just started Triton a week prior. dKH never got above 8.9 during that period. Not to mention the dKH never jumped more than 0.8. So wasn’t like something drastic occurred.

From 5/8 to 5/31 the corals were burning on the tips, but would recover slightly when I did 50% water changes. After much debate and headaches I finally realized it was a trace element overdose. After pulling Triton off the system and starting ESV B-Ionic with more water changes to dilute the system...the tank recovered about 2 weeks later. Haven’t had an issue since.

It’s sad because Triton produced one of my best growing tanks before. Not really sure why this happened (could have been a bad batch), but it was enough that I’ll likely never run It again.

So for me...it was 100% a trace element issue.

 

[JaaxReef]

Recently had a bout of burnt tips. Tank was thriving just before this happened. I couldn’t find any solid information on the internet as to why this can happen. Pretty much all speculation. It ranged from lighting, high dKH, low nutrients, etc.

I had just started Triton a week prior. dKH never got above 8.9 during that period. Not to mention the dKH never jumped more than 0.8. So wasn’t like something drastic occurred.

From 5/8 to 5/31 the corals were burning on the tips, but would recover slightly when I did 50% water changes. After much debate and headaches I finally realized it was a trace element overdose. After pulling Triton off the system and starting ESV B-Ionic with more water changes to dilute the system...the tank recovered about 2 weeks later. Haven’t had an issue since.

It’s sad because Triton produced one of my best growing tanks before. Not really sure why this happened (could have been a bad batch), but it was enough that I’ll likely never run It again.

So for me...it was 100% a trace element issue.

Did you run an ICP test to confirm?

 

[Reefahholic]

Did you run an ICP test to confirm?

I did not because I recently had a baby and was short on money at the time. My notes were very good during that time and everything was documented almost daily during the entire event. As soon as Triton was added my Alk consumption started to decline to basically nothing. As soon as it was removed the burning stopped and the Alk consumption started increasing. Corals started looking much better and everything recovered. Nothing else was changed other than the Triton being pulled off the system and the water changes to dilute the overdose.

 

[JaaxReef]

I’ve done several large water changes and the Polyfilter showed no signs of any heavy metals or anything. Have stayed steady at 8.1 DKH and some corals seem to be responding positively, but others are still showing some signs of thinning skin or STN...

I’ve lost one frag and one larger mini colony... [emoji17]

I know patience is the key here after making a change (like months) but how long until you think things will start to recover?

Current parameters:

Calcium: 440
DKH: 8.1
Magnesium: 1390
Nitrate: 8ppm
Phosphate: .1

 

[JaaxReef]

Another update, mostly for those that read this thread later dealing with something similar. I backed off Nopox slowly to be 1ml/day from 2.5ml/day. I also started feeding more.

Something else I observed was less brown algae on the glass and copepod population has been much less noticeable. They are starting to slowly come back up in numbers now where I notice them again. Maybe the microfauna population was starving and dying and it was impacting coral health?

In the last week I’ve slowly started seeing an increase in alkalinity consumption again. It was barely noticeable where I almost had to stop dosing entirely. Probably a good sign too!

Overall nothing is looking too much better... so I have moved a few things to the frag tank to try to recover them. Things are not getting a whole lot worse, so I wait, keep things stable, and see.

...Just glad my Strawberry Shortcake colony is still doing well. Ha.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Another update, mostly for those that read this thread later dealing with something similar. I backed off Nopox slowly to be 1ml/day from 2.5ml/day. I also started feeding more.

Something else I observed was less brown algae on the glass and copepod population has been much less noticeable. They are starting to slowly come back up in numbers now where I notice them again. Maybe the microfauna population was starving and dying and it was impacting coral health?

In the last week I’ve slowly started seeing an increase in alkalinity consumption again. It was barely noticeable where I almost had to stop dosing entirely. Probably a good sign too!

Overall nothing is looking too much better... so I have moved a few things to the frag tank to try to recover them. Things are not getting a whole lot worse, so I wait, keep things stable, and see.

...Just glad my Strawberry Shortcake colony is still doing well. Ha.

I have a Reefer 170 and was running a single Hydra 26Hd. Had a lot of trouble with SPS. I was also using NoPoX. After a slight disaster in December, and after adding a T5 hybrid fixture to use with my 26HD, I added pods and weened my tank off NoPoX. By the end of February, I had stopped the NoPoX completely. SPS that I thought were goners are now looking better and are larger than when I got them. I also have to feed a lot to keep NO3 around 1 ppm. I think the hybrid light is really helping with the SPS, but I think getting my tank not to be reliant on NoPoX has really helped in the stability. Are you in the north FL area @JaaxReef?

 

[JaaxReef]

I have a Reefer 170 and was running a single Hydra 26Hd. Had a lot of trouble with SPS. I was also using NoPoX. After a slight disaster in December, and after adding a T5 hybrid fixture to use with my 26HD, I added pods and weened my tank off NoPoX. By the end of February, I had stopped the NoPoX completely. SPS that I thought were goners are now looking better and are larger than when I got them. I also have to feed a lot to keep NO3 around 1 ppm. I think the hybrid light is really helping with the SPS, but I think getting my tank not to be reliant on NoPoX has really helped in the stability. Are you in the north FL area @JaaxReef?

I’m not, I’m actually in MN! Ha. I agree on the NoPox. I’m going to bump it down to .5ml next week if nutrients aren’t completely out of control. I’m currently at 8ppm NO3 and .1 PO4. I think despite those numbers, the tank was low on food...

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I think I’ve had my lights set too low for a long time... I was only getting bout 100 par at the top of my highest point, and about 60-70 at the sand bed at peak. So distribution wasn’t bad, but intensity was low.

I’ve raised the lights up another 2” to be 14” off the water and have used the following setting for peak based on BRS spectrum for AB+ but more white using the Hydras:

UV - 100
Violet - 92
Royal Blue - 82
Blue - 65
Green - 10
Red - 18
White - 30

With those settings and my lights 14” off the water line, I’m getting about 230 at the top of the rocks and 150 on the sand bed. I set it for a 45 day acclimation to slowly move up in intensity. It took 40% reduction to go down to my previous par (I tested the acclimation setting so I was close to the numbers I was getting before).

Corals have stopped receding, but I don’t think it had anything to do with lighting... probably low PO4, (which is now at .15 and everything is looking better) and running higher alk...

It’s not your lighting unless the par is too low. It’s the nopox. Nopox is great for fish only, lps or zoa tanks but it irritates sps. Look on the bottle. It says algae management, not coral enhancement. I lost every sps I’ve ever owned with that stuff and gfo. My hydra 52hds no diffusers are at 105 watts each/210 total for 9 hours, 550 to 350 par and I have not had a burnt tip or stn/rtn in nearly a year.

No carbon dosing
No gfo
Zero led burns etc

I do have some unwanted hair algae but I don’t care, because the corals are happy.

 

[JaaxReef]

This definitely jives with my current approach.

Slowly increase lighting to around 150-250 PAR in the tank (currently 80-140) over about 2 months. Slowly ween the system off Nopox and use my algae turf Scrubber on a controlled timer to help keep nutrients under control with water changes. [emoji4] Back to simple! Hopefully I’ll see things improve.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

This definitely jives with my current approach.

Slowly increase lighting to around 150-250 PAR in the tank (currently 80-140) over about 2 months. Slowly ween the system off Nopox and use my algae turf Scrubber on a controlled timer to help keep nutrients under control with water changes. [emoji4] Back to simple! Hopefully I’ll see things improve.

80-140 isn’t much light. That can shut down their metabolic process and kill them too. It won’t kill them as fast as too much light but it can definitely starve/stress acros. 250-350 is the standard.

 

[JaaxReef]

Well. All the acros were getting 140-150 at the top. The rest of the tank below is LPS. But I am increasing the lighting for sure. Just don’t want to do it too quickly and shock them even more.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Well. All the acros were getting 140-150 at the top. The rest of the tank below is LPS. But I am increasing the lighting for sure. Just don’t want to do it too quickly and shock them even more.

Okie dokie.

 

[JaaxReef]

I’m basically qualifying this as a tank crash at this point... some SPS are still receding (larger colonies now). I’ve also lost my torch for some reason, it just stripped clean with no sign of brown jelly. Which is a bummer because it was a sweet Indo torch with pink tips and neon green tentacles...

I’m feeling pretty down about it since my tank has been running great with great growth and color for 2.5 years. Some stuff is completely unaffected and still growing. I guess I’ll continue weekly water changes and keep things stable and hope for the best that things can turn around.

The only positive is the fun of possibly rebuilding sps on the top of the mixer reef once things stabilize. I’ve saved a few pieces just moving them to the frag tank to rebuild later.

 

[Dugless]

Just a curiosity, what salt are you using?

 

[JaaxReef]

Tropic Marin Pro