What could cause my Orange passion to pale very badly

[LARedstickreefer]

My alk used to swing all over the place. 0.75 -1.5 everyday before I added my dosers and I never had any problems. I’ve only had 1 acro death in 12 months since I stopped worrying about po4 and no3. Acros do not like dramatic artificial drops in po4. I don’t know why, but scroll through these sps death threads and the majority did something because they freaked out about no3 or Po4 or they can’t keep sps but their parameters are perfect. 1-5 no3 and 0.00-0.05 po4 and dying sps. There are few, if any, that are experiencing stn/rtn, burnt tips etc because their po4 is high. And 0.16 isn’t high. My acros look the happiest at 0.15-0.30, maybe even higher but that hasn’t happened yet.

I believe the jury is still out on what is too high/low as far as nutrients go. While one person is running 1ppm phosphate and 50ppm nitrates with massive acro colonies, another loses his entire stock.

Same for alk swings. Your tank may be fine with those swings, but others probably aren’t. Again, I don’t think we understand all of the factors here. It’s best to start at NSW levels and adjust, one at a time, from there, while maintaining stability.

I don’t understand how phosphate dropping can affect anything if they don’t go to zero unless the coral, somehow, has adjusted to much higher than NSW and needs it there.

I believe that once you deviate from NSW levels, you are really on your own. What works for one may not work for another.

Above my pay grade!

One day I hope we know how all parameters affect each other and can model this. So many variables.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Well I had nothing but death using artificial methods (nopox, gfo, phosphate rx, bio pellets etc). And I kept my alk around 6.8-7.0 at that time. As soon as I stopped worrying about no3/po4 and brought my alk to around 8 all acros started surviving and thriving. None of the big name vendors keep or aim for ultra low nutrients. Like I said, I have yet to see a sps death thread with elevated nutrients but I’ve read way too many with ultra low.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Phosphate Ramblings

Below is a short write up that I have sent to countless friends and customers of mine who are experiencing some kind of issue and feel that it’s related in some way to phosphate levels. I have decided not to have my faithful grammar pro “fix” it, as it's more of a raw outpouring than any sort...

battlecorals.com

 

[CoralNerd]

Stop latching on to my magnesium comment. Forget about it lol.
Lanthanum Chloride can be pretty rough on corals when dosing.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Are we sure the chemicals, themselves, aren’t the cause of deaths?

 

[madweazl]

Couldn't agree more but my issue was that it was over .5 which for my taste is a little higher than I like. I think.03 is way to low IMO to get the color and growth for sps. I like at least .1 .

The alkalinity change didnt harm your coral; the changes between a number of things (phosphates, lighting, and placement) are what caused the issue. Just about anything will make it through one big change (.5 dKh change isn't big at all) but when you compound it, the stress is too much.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Are we sure the chemicals, themselves, aren’t the cause of deaths?

I’m not sure. All I know is I’ve had almost zero deaths since I vowed to never use them again.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I’m not sure. All I know is I’ve had almost zero deaths since I vowed to never use them again.

I don’t use them either. I just feed with reckless abandon and rely on skimmer (nasty nasty thing) and water changes.

 

[Makers Marc]

The drop in alkalinity wouldnt do any harm on it's own but the other changes (i.e. moving the coral, huge swing in phosphates, and the adjustment to the lighting) certainly could have contributed to the issue. When it comes to acroporas, I drop them where I want them day one and let them go; moving acroporas rarely leads to anything good. As for your lighting, leave it where you have it (spectrum), the biggest issue with LEDs is people messing with the settings; the corals will adjust to what you provide 99% of the time.

This advice can get ppl with different LEDs in trouble.

If your LEDs are mounted close to the water level (
Especially if coming from t5s or other dissimilar lighting.

 

[Dilan Patel]

Hey guys just a quick little update. The pink floyd seems to be recovering nicely. It is slowly growing over the dead skeleton. Yes i know if I were to clip the dead parts off it would heal faster but I just don't want to touch the coral lol. The light are tuned way down as I placed a new coral and am acclimating it slowly. I am also reducing my phosphated from .6+ to .25ish which is whee I would prefer nit to be. I have been slowly reducing it testing phosphates everyday. I will get a pic of it up here soon. Color is still garbage but I have read with sup[er high phosphates the color of this coral just goes to the muddy brown look.

 

[Dp916]

very low nutrients, too much light can cause it. coral doesn't have enough sources can't digest sugar ( amino acids ). cause them to bleach.