Understanding Burnt Tips in my Reef

[erk]

As the title says, I'm trying to understand the cause for burnt tips in my reef tank. I've read all the common reasons I've seen online and don't see how my situation fits within these common issues. I have great PE and growth is picking up.

First, parameters:
I test alkalinity and PO4 every 3-4 days. I record everything in the following Google Doc. You can click the link to view my most recent parameters. I keep my alkalinity around natural saltwater values because my NO3 and PO4 are very low. I haven't had any spikes at all. Just steady decrease due to increase in CaCO3 uptake.

Lighting:
My lighting is a custom built T5/LED fixture. Two Lumia 5.2 pucks and six 2ft T5 bulbs. It produces ~300 PAR at the top rock surface of the tank and drops down to about 150 at the bottom of the tank. Where my SPS are sitting on the frag rack, they are getting around 200ish. But I get burnt tips in all PAR levels.

The only recent change that occurred are the lenses fell off the Lumias. Wish this didn't happen, but oh well.

Flow:
I have a gyre XF150 in pulse mode at half power. It pulses every 10 seconds. I also have a MP10 on the other side of the tank in reef crest at about 75% power. There is also the return from the sump.

Feeding:
I feed hikari-S and A pellets, quarter nori sheets, LRS fish frenzy, and reef roids everyday. I sometimes add AF Fish V to the frozen. I feed this much because I have undetectable to near undetectable excess nutrient levels.

Dosing:
I dose ESV B-Ionic two part, Mg, and Transition elements. I started the transition elements as a trial and it has helped. The coral flesh looks healthier, aka thicker. Coloring looks better as well. I dose vodka as my nutrient control method.

So what do you think is causing my occasional burnt tips? What would you change? I have a bottle of NO3 solution I have thought about dosing. My build thread has more details and I posted my ICP results there as well.

Thanks!

 

[Fishfinder]

any pics?

 

[crazyreef]

The Vodka, Carbon dosing has been known to cause burnt tips. Especially in a ulns

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Carbon dosing for sure. I haven’t had a burnt tip in 6 months. I also haven’t carbon dosed in 6 months. Coincidence?

 

[crazyreef]

It’s time for your reef to get a 12 step program.
One day at a time....

 

[marlinmon]

Carbon dosing for sure. I haven’t had a burnt tip in 6 months. I also haven’t carbon dosed in 6 months. Coincidence?

What's the root cause of burnt tips from carbon dosing? Water getting too clear and the coral then seeing an increased PAR?

 

[markalot]

>> Started running GFO

It's been about a month since you added GFO and PO4 fell from .09 to .04 over one day. If the acros were healthy, which i suspect they were not, you might have just seen some stress but you have been all over the place trying to control PO4 AND you're running KH between 7.2 and 8.3. You started GFO at a unknown KH and you can see it rise over the next few tests as growth halts due to the rapid PO4 drop. Stop doing drugs.

Do not test PO4 after feeding reef roids, and limit reef roids to once or twice a week, and if you must test PO4 test prior to feeding. You have to find a way to smooth everything out or you won't solve the burnt tip problem.

I personally prefer KH at 7.0 to 7.5 max. My tank does best at 6.5.

Is this the 40 gallon? If so then yoru road is more difficult than mine, I don't even try acros in my 40 breeder.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

What's the root cause of burnt tips from carbon dosing? Water getting too clear and the coral then seeing an increased PAR?

Not sure. I’m not a bio chemist but it only affected my sps. I would get this brown/greenish cyano looking slime on the tips. I’m assuming it was some kind of bacteria, not algae. Maybe it flourished from the organic carbon, but I have no idea if this is the case. Anyway, I stopped carbon dosing and threw away all of my gfo and my acros and sps have been thriving ever since. The weird thing is that my nutrients are lower now doing nothing than they were when I was trying to bring them down. Weird.

 

[marlinmon]

Not sure. I’m not a bio chemist but it only affected my sps. I would get this brown/greenish cyano looking slime on the tips. I’m assuming it was some kind of bacteria, not algae. Maybe it flourished from the organic carbon, but I have no idea if this is the case. Anyway, I stopped carbon dosing and threw away all of my gfo and my acros and sps have been thriving ever since. The weird thing is that my nutrients are lower now doing nothing than they were when I was trying to bring them down. Weird.

Yeah I hear you. Mine did the same and I trashed all that carbon/gfo junk after that. Everything is great now. Maybe the carbon and gfo were useful when my tank was brand new but I can’t see any reason to ever run it again.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Yeah I hear you. Mine did the same and I trashed all that carbon/gfo junk after that. Everything is great now. Maybe the carbon and gfo were useful when my tank was brand new but I can’t see any reason to ever run it again.

I can’t see any reason to use them on an sps dominant tank. I know there are a lot of sps keepers that use them but I slowly killed all my acros when using that stuff and nutrients would never come down, so I’d do more, and more would burn, stn, rtn. I finally realized that everything was healthy before I started chasing numbers. They were happy with 0.15 phosphates and then dead at 0.03. So never again for me.

 

[marlinmon]

I can’t see any reason to use them on an sps dominant tank. I know there are a lot of sps keepers that use them but I slowly killed all my acros when using that stuff and nutrients would never come down, so I’d do more, and more would burn, stn, rtn. I finally realized that everything was healthy before I started chasing numbers. They were happy with 0.15 phosphates and then dead at 0.03. So never again for me.

Don't forget the color! Byebye brightly colored acros

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Comepletly browned out right??

 

[marlinmon]

Comepletly browned out right??

Mine looked worse. I'll have to find some before and after photos.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Mine looked worse. I'll have to find some before and after photos.

These are what they look like now that I’m not carbon dosing. I don’t even have pics of the corals when I was carbon dosing because they all died. All but one actually. But I thought she was a goner too for awhile.

 

[Mouse84]

As the title says, I'm trying to understand the cause for burnt tips in my reef tank. I've read all the common reasons I've seen online and don't see how my situation fits within these common issues. I have great PE and growth is picking up.

First, parameters:
I test alkalinity and PO4 every 3-4 days. I record everything in the following Google Doc. You can click the link to view my most recent parameters. I keep my alkalinity around natural saltwater values because my NO3 and PO4 are very low. I haven't had any spikes at all. Just steady decrease due to increase in CaCO3 uptake.

Lighting:
My lighting is a custom built T5/LED fixture. Two Lumia 5.2 pucks and six 2ft T5 bulbs. It produces ~300 PAR at the top rock surface of the tank and drops down to about 150 at the bottom of the tank. Where my SPS are sitting on the frag rack, they are getting around 200ish. But I get burnt tips in all PAR levels.

The only recent change that occurred are the lenses fell off the Lumias. Wish this didn't happen, but oh well.

Flow:
I have a gyre XF150 in pulse mode at half power. It pulses every 10 seconds. I also have a MP10 on the other side of the tank in reef crest at about 75% power. There is also the return from the sump.

Feeding:
I feed hikari-S and A pellets, quarter nori sheets, LRS fish frenzy, and reef roids everyday. I sometimes add AF Fish V to the frozen. I feed this much because I have undetectable to near undetectable excess nutrient levels.

Dosing:
I dose ESV B-Ionic two part, Mg, and Transition elements. I started the transition elements as a trial and it has helped. The coral flesh looks healthier, aka thicker. Coloring looks better as well. I dose vodka as my nutrient control method.

So what do you think is causing my occasional burnt tips? What would you change? I have a bottle of NO3 solution I have thought about dosing. My build thread has more details and I posted my ICP results there as well.

Thanks!

ughhhh still trying to avoid this -_-

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

ughhhh still trying to avoid this -_-

It definitely sucks losing thousands of dollars of acros, testing my water everyday and finding perfect “numbers” only to find out that I had been unknowingly murdering my Acros because I was deliberately adding flammable substances into my reef tank.

 

[erk]

Thanks for the responses.

From everyone's input, it seems there is a desire to remove carbon dosing completely and reduce my alkalinity. I don't feel comfortable removing carbon dosing completely as this is my only method of nutrient control and I like it as it helps to keep a plentiful bacteria population. I have been carbon dosing since the beginning and the tank is near 2 yrs old. Prior to my crash, I had great luck with carbon dosing and keeping SPS.

As for the comment about running GFO. This is an unfortunate side effect of excess PO4 leaching from the rocks. I had a crash about 8 months ago. The PO4 leaching from the rocks is the last remaining after effect from that event. My build thread contains a full log of how that all unfolded.

All the SPS I have in the tank have been added in the last 2.5 weeks. On the 4th, I missed a feeding due to the birth of my daughter. After that the couple SPS I had experienced heavy STN. The STN slowed down or halted about a week ago. I added 8 new acros from Boomcorals a week ago and they have grown well and shown good PE. In the last day a stag experienced a burnt tip and some of the other recovering acros showed some burnt tips.

Based on everyone's responses I think the best course of action is reduce my alkalinity and my vodka dosage. I'm currently aiming for 8 dKH, so I will revise this to 7.5 and try to keep it below 7.8. I currently dose 6 mL of 80 proof vodka a day, so will reduce this to 4 mL per day.

I'll keep this thread updated with my findings as best I can.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I keep my alk 6.5-7.

 

[erk]

I keep my alk 6.5-7.

Hmm, that's two people now that keep 7 or lower. I'll drop it below 7.5 dKH. I'd like a buffer zone above 7 just in case I get a random drop or something.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

My acros grew crazy fast at 6.5-7 compared to when they were dying at 8.5-9.
Tgc OG OP on 11/02

Last night

My tiny cherry bomb in the back on Oct 5th

Now completely encrusted right of my WD