What would cause corals to "drip"?

[tbrown]

Alright, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but I want to hear from the experts in case I'm missing something.

My Hollywood Stunner and one of my Monti caps recently started showing some flesh "dripping" off the edge of the coral. The rest of the coral looks healthy and even the little dripping pieces are healthy, just seem to be lacking much skeletal structure.

My theory which I'm fairly certain is the reason is that my magnesium and calcium being low and my alkalinity being in range but higher side of the range is a strong contender for the culprit.

Alk - 10.6
Mag - 950
Cal - 340

I'm working on being Magnesium and Calcium up.

Nitrates - 4
Phosphates - 0.28

I'm working on bringing Nitrates up and ordered Ammonium Chloride to help lower Alk some while bringing up the nitrates.

Is there anything else I should be looking at or am I on the right track?

 

[Matt L]

Alright, I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this but I want to hear from the experts in case I'm missing something.

My Hollywood Stunner and one of my Monti caps recently started showing some flesh "dripping" off the edge of the coral. The rest of the coral looks healthy and even the little dripping pieces are healthy, just seem to be lacking much skeletal structure.

My theory which I'm fairly certain is the reason is that my magnesium and calcium being low and my alkalinity being in range but higher side of the range is a strong contender for the culprit.

Alk - 10.6
Mag - 950
Cal - 340

I'm working on being Magnesium and Calcium up.

Nitrates - 4
Phosphates - 0.28

I'm working on bringing Nitrates up and ordered Ammonium Chloride to help lower Alk some while bringing up the nitrates.

Is there anything else I should be looking at or am I on the right track?

I’m not an expert, but based on the water parameters, I would do some good water changes then dose nitrate. If you have any pics, that may help too.

 

[Pod_01]

Mag - 950
Cal - 340

Maybe check salinity!!!
Those main ions being low may suggests that salinity is off.

Picture of “dripping “ corals may be interesting…

Nitrate of 4 is ideal value, adding more may not improve things.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Second that. I'd like to see photos of dripping corals.

 

[tbrown]

Maybe check salinity!!!
Those main ions being low may suggests that salinity is off.

Picture of “dripping “ corals may be interesting…

Nitrate of 4 is ideal value, adding more may not improve things.

This system typically runs around 35 nitrates so the fact that it got down to 4 makes me concerned that my nutrient uptake is on the rise. I fear bottoming out so I'd prefer 10-20.

Salinity is 1.025 currently. Interesting point because I hadn't even considered that! About 3 weeks ago my Plank autofeeder got plugged and overflowed some while I was out of town which caused the salinity to slowly drop to 1.022. over the course of 3 days I brought it back to 1.025.

I totally forgot to grab a picture when I got home and just dosed some calcium about 20 minutes ago (Purple Up) so the tank is currently a little cloudy so these are the best pictures I could get currently.

Instead of plating out, the new growth is hanging loosely and kinda flapping in the current like it's just flesh with no skeleton under it.

If you've ever had chickens and found one of the eggs without a shell, it's kinda like that?

 

[tbrown]

Here's another one doing it... My Birdsnest. It's weird because the polyps are out but it's basically like there's no skeleton...

I've brought the calcium and magnesium up some but they're still lower than where they probably need to be. I'll just keep bringing those up, just waiting on some Calcium Chloride to mix my own instead of the store bought bottles.

 

[exnisstech]

I wonder if it's possible for the flesh to grow faster than the skeleton if calcium is low :thinking-face:

 

[tbrown]

I wonder if it's possible for the flesh to grow faster than the skeleton if calcium is low :thinking-face:

That's my thoughts. High enough nutrients to allow for flesh growth, magnesium and calcium low makes for soft or poor skeleton.

 

[tbrown]

I've heard that high alkalinity and low nutrients can cause the skeleton to outgrow the flesh so I was almost wondering if the opposite were possible as well.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I lost track of this thread. I would set my sights on flow and light intensity.

I don't really see an issue for any concern except that they're not growing in the normal traditional way.

I've had corals grow in unique ways based on where the are in the take. The ones close to power heads have thicker branches, ones closer to the light grow outwards or sometimes down.

I wonder what lights you are using and also would consider that you're also getting good light coverage from multiple directions (other than top down) thanks to reflective surfaces.

From the looks of the pictures, these corals are still frags, it would be nice to see these in 6-12 months to see if they settle in and grow right.

 

[tbrown]

I lost track of this thread. I would set my sights on flow and light intensity.

I don't really see an issue for any concern except that they're not growing in the normal traditional way.

I've had corals grow in unique ways based on where the are in the take. The ones close to power heads have thicker branches, ones closer to the light grow outwards or sometimes down.

I wonder what lights you are using and also would consider that you're also getting good light coverage from multiple directions (other than top down) thanks to reflective surfaces.

From the looks of the pictures, these corals are still frags, it would be nice to see these in 6-12 months to see if they settle in and grow right.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Just based on that picture alone I don't see the traditional shadowing beneath the corals. Could be explained simply by good lighting.

 

[tbrown]

Just based on that picture alone I don't see the traditional shadowing beneath the corals. Could be explained simply by good lighting.

I've got 2 Noopsyche K7 V3 over a 3' x 18" 70 gallon tank.