Woke up this morning to a couple SPS frags losing tissue at the base. A couple others look like they're starting lose color at the base as well. A few things I suspect might be related, but unsure which.
(Pardon the poor cell phone quality photos)
Parameters as of today (pH is always lower in the mornings, peaks around 8.28 or so before lights out). Nothing seems insane to me? Not really sure if there's much I can do other than just monitor and try and keep everything stable and hope it can recover...
- I had been procrastinating the scheduled hose replacement/recalibration of my Alkatronic (It had been reminding me to do this for the past month). Finally got around to doing this, and my test results went from 8.45 dKH right before the maintenance, to 7.89 right after. Turns out the Alkatronic had been off and was reading high. I had sent off an ICP test a week or so prior, and got them back around the same time. They confirmed this and reported ~7.5, and my Hanna checker reported 7.8. I increased my alkalinity back to ~8.5 where I had been targeting. I'm suspecting that if it was measuring 7.8 shortly after lights on when it's at it's highest, then it was probably measuring in the low 7's towards the end of the day. No idea how long this calibration was off, but this is what I'm leaning towards as the likely culprit.
- My kessil app started failing to detect my lights, so I had to go through setup all over again and lost my previous light settings/schedule. I set them up to what I thought was the prior settings, but not 100% sure. I don't think this issue is as likely of a culprit, but still something of note that happened a two days prior to the SPS issues. Measured the PAR up top this afternoon, between 300-500 during peak hours.
- I had missed a water change 2 weeks in a row due a particularly busy schedule the past few weeks. I did a water change last night, but my Nitrates were reporting ~20ppm on my Mastertronic before the water change. Confirmed with my Hanna nitrate test which reported 20.7ppm. Usually I'm in the 8-10ppm range. 20 isn't insane and I don't think would cause issues, but again, another thing that I noticed outside the norm for my tank shortly before the SPS issue.
(Pardon the poor cell phone quality photos)
Monday 10/17:
New encrusting growth on this Jelly Shot (left) and Mille (right) is white/bright green at the edges. Jelly shot had been beginning to encrust onto the plug since it was fragged. Mille has been slowly and steadily encrusting over it's disc for many months.10/23 - 6 days later
Mille (right) encrusted edges have faded and started bleaching at the top. Jello Shot (middle) is missing a patch of tissue in the middle of the base. My Red Planet (left) that wasn't visible in the first photo is also fading at the base. It was previously bright green all over the base along the new encrusting growth.Parameters as of today (pH is always lower in the mornings, peaks around 8.28 or so before lights out). Nothing seems insane to me? Not really sure if there's much I can do other than just monitor and try and keep everything stable and hope it can recover...
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