Thriving LPS next to Dying LPS… what’s going on.

ekandler

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I have an older tank that’s never fully behaved. At the moment I have some really healthy hammer and frogspawn colonies and my torches are dying. I also have thriving blue and purple candy cane with green candy cane with flesh melting off the skeleton. I don’t know what’s going on.

I have Radion Gen 5 blues at 35%, nothing too intense. Parameters are: 8.6 dKh alk, 430ppm calc, 1320ppm mag, 8ppm nitrate, 0.08ppm phosphate, 77-78 deg, and 8.2-8.4 pH. I just don’t know what the issue could be and I’m tired of stuff dying on me.

BFF069B3-D81D-4259-B09E-4E368D082DF0.jpeg D0A7B3C7-BABE-479F-8619-96AF524AA410.jpeg 75AC3107-1D5C-4FAD-B5FD-6891CCDF9B13.jpeg
 

ggNoRe

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I have an older tank that’s never fully behaved. At the moment I have some really healthy hammer and frogspawn colonies and my torches are dying. I also have thriving blue and purple candy cane with green candy cane with flesh melting off the skeleton. I don’t know what’s going on.

I have Radion Gen 5 blues at 35%, nothing too intense. Parameters are: 8.6 dKh alk, 430ppm calc, 1320ppm mag, 8ppm nitrate, 0.08ppm phosphate, 77-78 deg, and 8.2-8.4 pH. I just don’t know what the issue could be and I’m tired of stuff dying on me.

BFF069B3-D81D-4259-B09E-4E368D082DF0.jpeg D0A7B3C7-BABE-479F-8619-96AF524AA410.jpeg 75AC3107-1D5C-4FAD-B5FD-6891CCDF9B13.jpeg
In for replies. Dealing with similar issues.
 

LivingroomDiver

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I'm pretty new so take whit a grain of salt. But it you follow Fragbox on youtube he recommends to raise the magnesium for LPS. He is running about 1500ppm in his store, I bought some LPS from him and they look great.
 

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal

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I have an older tank that’s never fully behaved. At the moment I have some really healthy hammer and frogspawn colonies and my torches are dying. I also have thriving blue and purple candy cane with green candy cane with flesh melting off the skeleton. I don’t know what’s going on.

I have Radion Gen 5 blues at 35%, nothing too intense. Parameters are: 8.6 dKh alk, 430ppm calc, 1320ppm mag, 8ppm nitrate, 0.08ppm phosphate, 77-78 deg, and 8.2-8.4 pH. I just don’t know what the issue could be and I’m tired of stuff dying on me.

BFF069B3-D81D-4259-B09E-4E368D082DF0.jpeg D0A7B3C7-BABE-479F-8619-96AF524AA410.jpeg 75AC3107-1D5C-4FAD-B5FD-6891CCDF9B13.jpeg
Check for nearby corals that could be stinging the LPS.
Mushrooms can cause damage to your LPS as well... Discosomas are surprisingly aggressive.
 
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ekandler

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I'm pretty new so take whit a grain of salt. But it you follow Fragbox on youtube he recommends to raise the magnesium for LPS. He is running about 1500ppm in his store, I bought some LPS from him and they look great.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll look into effects of mag at my levels and possibly raising it. I Appreciate the insight. Everyone has bits of knowledge, some more than others, but all we can do is share what we know.
 

EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal

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Lots of mushrooms of various types. No leathers or other soft corals, unless you consider zoas a soft coral.
Sorry, I edited my post while you were replying. I would move any shrooms as far from the LPS as possible.
 

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Mixed reef is more difficult. Barring any outbreaks of dread BJD or some other coral killing pathogen and when parameters are in range and stable over time then it comes down to primarily light, nutrients, water flow. For example, my torches like much more flow than my frogspawn and hammers, and more food also. Finding the location in your tank to make a particular coral or type of coral happy is the biggest challenge. Even something like two different candy canes colors might want different light and if they are in different areas of the tank then flow and amount of food they receive will be different also. Little things like this can make big impacts over a long period of time. I think with something like a branching candy cane, if possible split it into a few pieces and try in different locations.
 

Shirak

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I think it's overlooked how important regular feeding is. We seem to focus a lot on water parameters but nutrients are so important for the corals and I don't just mean NO3 and PO4 testing once a week..

I know many have amazing tanks and don't specifically feed their corals but they may have a large fish population that is feed a lot at least once a day or sometimes multiple times a day. Others such as myself feed heavily specifically for the corals every day as my fish population is low. Even though my NO3 and PO4 are 'within range' I believe that the corals do better with catching some particulate food at least 2 or 3 times a week. I have primarily LPS and they always look better after eating.
 

Cantusaurus

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Not sure if they're getting too much flow? But I respectfully disagree with the Magnesium comment. 1320 is definitely fine. I feel it's purely anecdotal since 1500 is way above natural sea water. If you wanna raise it up slowly that's not a big deal, and it can't hurt, but I really doubt that's the reason.
Are the corals not doing well newer than the other ones? Added at the same time? And do you know if they were tank grown? (You might not know the answer to the last one).
I bought 2 acans and they were not aquacultured, and this was a huge mistake. While my other acans thrived my 2 wild (and most expensive ones) receded rapidly despite looking fine, and my beginner SPS looking great.
 

Rmckoy

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I'm pretty new so take whit a grain of salt. But it you follow Fragbox on youtube he recommends to raise the magnesium for LPS. He is running about 1500ppm in his store, I bought some LPS from him and they look great.
That’s surprisingly odd .
the same place also keeps nsw levels in terms of alkalinity .
how does elevated mag but nsw alk balance without precipitate ?
 
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ekandler

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I think it's overlooked how important regular feeding is. We seem to focus a lot on water parameters but nutrients are so important for the corals and I don't just mean NO3 and PO4 testing once a week..

I know many have amazing tanks and don't specifically feed their corals but they may have a large fish population that is feed a lot at least once a day or sometimes multiple times a day. Others such as myself feed heavily specifically for the corals every day as my fish population is low. Even though my NO3 and PO4 are 'within range' I believe that the corals do better with catching some particulate food at least 2 or 3 times a week. I have primarily LPS and they always look better after eating.
I don’t do anything like reef roids but I feed frozen LRS reef frenzy every other day which usually puts some stuff out into the water that the corals will pull in on occasion. But still, I’m not actually target feeding anything.
 
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ekandler

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Not sure if they're getting too much flow? But I respectfully disagree with the Magnesium comment. 1320 is definitely fine. I feel it's purely anecdotal since 1500 is way above natural sea water. If you wanna raise it up slowly that's not a big deal, and it can't hurt, but I really doubt that's the reason.
Are the corals not doing well newer than the other ones? Added at the same time? And do you know if they were tank grown? (You might not know the answer to the last one).
I bought 2 acans and they were not aquacultured, and this was a huge mistake. While my other acans thrived my 2 wild (and most expensive ones) receded rapidly despite looking fine, and my beginner SPS looking great.
The torches were added recently (maybe 2 months) and don’t believe they were tank grown. My other stuff (like the candy cane and the raja chalice) is aquacultured. I can probably chalk the torches away to being wild and not tolerating the tank but i don’t know for sure.
 

Cantusaurus

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The torches were added recently (maybe 2 months) and don’t believe they were tank grown. My other stuff (like the candy cane and the raja chalice) is aquacultured. I can probably chalk the torches away to being wild and not tolerating the tank but i don’t know for sure.
Yeah, it’s insane a different wild and aquacultured pieces can make. It depends though since sometimes wild corals do fine (such as scolys). I would try dipping them, and try to remove parts that are dead or basically too far gone.
Maybe run carbon too just in case the corals release stuff from being stressed (in order to help things not get worse).
My LPS underwent something similar. I think if things fluctuate slightly (or some sort of coral stressor factor occurs) then the corals react and some just react much more noticeably and negatively. My pink hammer started going downhill, and luckily is managed to ensure that the spreading of the recession stopped, and now it’s doing really well :) try and maybe move the corals to a low flow spot and maybe feed some aminos and or phytoplankton (don’t have to overdo it, a little goes a long way) and hopefully things will turn around.
 
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ekandler

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Yeah, it’s insane a different wild and aquacultured pieces can make. It depends though since sometimes wild corals do fine (such as scolys). I would try dipping them, and try to remove parts that are dead or basically too far gone.
Maybe run carbon too just in case the corals release stuff from being stressed (in order to help things not get worse).
My LPS underwent something similar. I think if things fluctuate slightly (or some sort of coral stressor factor occurs) then the corals react and some just react much more noticeably and negatively. My pink hammer started going downhill, and luckily is managed to ensure that the spreading of the recession stopped, and now it’s doing really well :) try and maybe move the corals to a low flow spot and maybe feed some aminos and or phytoplankton (don’t have to overdo it, a little goes a long way) and hopefully things will turn around.
Sounds good. Thanks for the help. I already run carbon 24/7. I’ll pull them off the rocks, dip them and sit them in the sand. I’m already dosing phyto (but just started this week) as a result of a Dino removal plan. But also as a part of that Dino removal plan I was told to stop dosing aminos for a month, which I normally do daily on a doser. I’ll try feeding them reefroids too.
 

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Did you change any of the setting on your Radion G5 blues? They are very powerful lights. I was having a hell of time with my LPS and softy corals dying. All my water parameters were in specked. I was only running the light at 45% on the AB+ program. I did some research and i turned off the cyan light, the green, and the red to zero. The white at 60% at the 45% schedule.

My LPS have never looked better. Now I don't lose coral anymore.
 
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ekandler

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Did you change any of the setting on your Radion G5 blues? They are very powerful lights. I was having a hell of time with my LPS and softy corals dying. All my water parameters were in specked. I was only running the light at 45% on the AB+ program. I did some research and i turned off the cyan light, the green, and the red to zero. The white at 60% at the 45% schedule.

My LPS have never looked better. Now I don't lose coral anymore.
Yeah I’ve played with it some, found a spectrum I prefer visually but no idea what the PAR is or if it’s right. Here is what I run at 35% intensity. This is what I’ve found I like best, but i don’t know if that’s enough green, red, or white for the corals. The schedule is 3 hours of ramp up and down and max 11-7. I have two XR30s on a 4ft tank, so it’s a lot of light but I’m only running 35%.

EEA8BDFA-8CDF-4754-A881-2317F7A29C12.png
 

reefslugs

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Yeah I’ve played with it some, found a spectrum I prefer visually but no idea what the PAR is or if it’s right. Here is what I run at 35% intensity. This is what I’ve found I like best, but i don’t know if that’s enough green, red, or white for the corals. The schedule is 3 hours of ramp up and down and max 11-7. I have two XR30s on a 4ft tank, so it’s a lot of light but I’m only running 35%.

EEA8BDFA-8CDF-4754-A881-2317F7A29C12.png
I also am running two Radium XR30 blues on a 48'' 120 gallon tank. Please at least try turning off the green and red lights. If you do some research on lighting spectrum. The red and greens do nothing for corals, but promote algae. Reds are harmful to corals. Just turn on my light settings for one minute and see what you think. The color of the tank looks awesome.
 
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ekandler

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I also am running two Radium XR30 blues on a 48'' 120 gallon tank. Please at least try turning off the green and red lights. If you do some research on lighting spectrum. The red and greens do nothing for corals, but promote algae. Reds are harmful to corals. Just turn on my light settings for one minute and see what you think. The color of the tank looks awesome.
Okay will do. Thanks!
 
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