Why cant i keep birdsnest!

[FishOkay]

I'm keeping acropora, clams and all sorts in my tank that are healthy my parameters have been stable for the past few months other than a bit of copper and birdsnest corals just bleach and die on me! Had a smaller colony die and now my larger one is starting to! Could it be lighting? I had 2 kessil a500x on a 3ft cube always 100% up untill the other day. But lps are under like 250 - 300 par and doing great

 

[Hairyteeth]

Think most agree that they are very sensitive to swings of minuscule amounts and can be very finicky….same boat over here lol

 

[Lavey29]

Are you starting out with frags or buying colonies?

 

[ckalupa]

I have done frags and colonies and end up with the same mess when it comes to bird nests. I just don’t do them anymore

 

[FishOkay]

Atleast I'm not the only one! I bought quite a large colony and it's lasted a couple months but the last few days is when it's started bleaching! And a couple frags which lasted a bit longer but just had to chuck them :(. It'd be good to know what could have caused it though although I have read that it can be a delayed reaction so maybe it's not even from my params now

 

[FishOkay]

What gets me is that they are supposed to be one of the easiest sps

 

[Lavey29]

Atleast I'm not the only one! I bought quite a large colony and it's lasted a couple months but the last few days is when it's started bleaching! And a couple frags which lasted a bit longer but just had to chuck them :(. It'd be good to know what could have caused it though although I have read that it can be a delayed reaction so maybe it's not even from my params now

Colonies are much more difficult to adapt to a new system environment. My coral vendors always recommend starting with small frags.

 

[ScottB]

Other than a bit of copper? Can you expound on that a tad?

ALK?
NO3?
PO4?

 

[FishOkay]

Other than a bit of copper? Can you expound on that a tad?

ALK?
NO3?
PO4?

Yes sure
Alk is 8.5
No3 is 4
Po4 is usually 0.06 - 0.08 but when it reaches 0.1 I change gfo

Calcium is 437
Mg is 1430

 

[Alexraptor]

I'm in the same boat. I've kept monti's, acro's, wall hammers, all in all a number of variety of SPS and LPS, but success with birds nest corals has always eluded me, frag or full colony. Best success i had was 16 weeks, then suddenly it, like those that came before, just started disintegrating. =/

Week 1


Week 16

 

[Becks17]

I have the same issue too. Always a slow recession that eventually catches up to the rest of the colony. My best guess for my system is lower phosphates (0.02-0.05ppm), but my LPS (euphyllia, goniopora, chalices) all seem fine with the low PO4. Alk at 8.4dkh. Just feeding a ton more now, so hoping to give them another shot. Luckily they’re usually cheap frags!