Urgent! WD bleaching from bottom up! Acropora keeper members help plz!

[Gqch]

All others acropora looks good and healthy, theirs tentacles all the way out and happy, only this WD colony lost tentacles 2 weeks ago, then little by little whitening up from bottom, i frag the 40% on the upper of colony witch looks normal this past weekend, but just now, this frag bleaching again from the bottom. Don't know what exactly cause the problem. Any ideas? Reefers Help plz!

 

[Nick Steele]

Do you notice any bugs? I’ve recently have noticed my sps stning from the bottom up and I thought it was nutrients for a few weeks but then I noticed a small white bug on my pink caddy. I took it out and dipped in coralrx and the bugs where crawling around but didn’t seem affected by the dip. I now have interceptor on its way to nuke my tank and hopefully my sps will bounce back.

 

[Gqch]

hi thank you! no bugs, doubt about chemical warfare, toxin from polythoa, zoas or leather corals, i have a lot of them in there, normally i change carbon every 45 days without any sps problems, when WD start stning, carbon was about 25 days there only,(lot of reefers say that too much carbon or too often change it are visibly lowering some of the useful elements ),end up i change the carbon,the tiny frag of WD looks its going to survive, its only 10% of the dying mother colonyhope this little guy can eventually make it!

 

[Hydrored]

What all all of your parameters, flow, and lighting?

 

[Gqch]

What all all of your parameters, flow, and lighting?

no3 2ppm, po4 0, cal 500, kh 8.5, mag 1425, tem 79, ph 8.24, mp40 on pulse mode, IM hydra 52, weekly 10% wc with redsea pro salt. always follow the rule of "simple n stable", tank been stable for long time and everything else includs acros are growing and showing good colors, everthing else looks normal besides i noticed about 30% of the purple coraline algae getting white, same time the WC starting to stn. cal kh,mg testing kit getting bad? but they will be exp on 2022. may be no3 was too low, lower than 2ppm as my testing kit was wrong too? any way ,end up all the frags save from the stn WD colony all die(last frag looks good yesterday but die too this morning)

 

[qhduong]

NO3 and PO4 looks low, you are probably starving your corals.

 

[Gqch]

NO3 and PO4 looks low, you are probably starving your corals.

there are about 50 different acros in the same tank, only this WD colony got stn, and i cant bring up my po4 even feed heavier twice a day plus extra 3-4 times amino plus reef roids powder...i think i need to dip frags when i frag the infecting mother colony up, lesson learn

 

[Hydrored]

I vote low nutrients as well, nothing ever good came from 0 phosphates for any of my sps. Actually my phosphates are above optimal and color along with growth has been better than ever. @Lou Ekus provided some great details on phosphates and nitrates and have been more than happy with the results

Start around 6:15

 

[Tired]

If you can't get your phosphate up with feeding, you might need to directly dose it. You really don't want your phosphate below 0.03, ever. Photosynthetic organisms need it for basic chemical functions to stay alive, and you can't tell if the 0 is because phosphate is technically available but being used up as soon as it's produced (can be workable, not great though), or because there's none available at all.

0 phosphate is bad because of that, and also because low nutrients encourage dinoflagellates, since there's less competition for them. Dinos are the worst tank pest you can get.

Lack of nutrients doesn't necessarily affect everything at once. Sometimes something will be particularly vulnerable for whatever reason, and will start to die first.

 

[Gqch]

If you can't get your phosphate up with feeding, you might need to directly dose it. You really don't want your phosphate below 0.03, ever. Photosynthetic organisms need it for basic chemical functions to stay alive, and you can't tell if the 0 is because phosphate is technically available but being used up as soon as it's produced (can be workable, not great though), or because there's none available at all.

0 phosphate is bad because of that, and also because low nutrients encourage dinoflagellates, since there's less competition for them. Dinos are the worst tank pest you can get.

Lack of nutrients doesn't necessarily affect everything at once. Sometimes something will be particularly vulnerable for whatever reason, and will start to die first.

Agreed, i set up a timer as 8hrs running only per day for the skimmer yesterday, continues the heavy feeding as before, hope will get some po4 stay, if not, i will consider dosing po4. thank you all reefer‘s help!!!

 

[Tired]

You might want to completely shut off the skimmer. It removes materials that your corals can use. Skimmers are good for if you need extra nutrients or organic materials removed, but if you don't need that done, you shouldn't have one running.