Purple Stylo Turning White... Suggestions? *PIC*
 

Just looking for input. I know a bunch of things can turn your SPS white. This is a 36 wide, 12 deep, 24 high - 45 gallon. Had all SPS in the tank for about 2 weeks. Everything looked normal yesterday, then 24 hours later looks like this. Feed reef roids every 2-3 days.

Running 2 MP10s scheduled on reeflink. Max flow is 35% with one power head in anti sync. I really don't think its getting too much flow. Sitting at least 12 inches from the left power head and about 3 inches further back from center of power head. No other SPS looks to be having issues.

I have a Reefbreeders Photon V2 32 inch. I am using a Seneye meter to check PAR. All the SPS along the very top have a recommended PAR of 300-400 (As per the seller who I have purchased tons from, but he has T5). I originally had everything in the 340-400 for nearly 2 weeks. I suspected the PAR may be too high so Tuesday we turned down all channels by 5%. Wednesday night turned everything down by another 5%. It brought everything down to about 240-280 PAR. These are max par values at 3PM. I am running on a schedule starting at 10 AM, peaking out at 3PM with max par, then down to mood mode by 8PM. Moon mode from 9PM till 1 AM, then OFF till 8 AM.

Everything is dosed twice a day for minimal drop.

Salinity: 1.024/25
Temp: 78 average (77-79)
Alk 9.0
Mag 1420
Calcium 450
Phosphates 0 (It was .02 a week ago).

Any ideas here? As you can see we have a wide variety of stuff, all doing very well.

https://image.ibb.co/cdtEdG/12819.jpg
https://image.ibb.co/njkXXb/20171031_134856.png
https://image.ibb.co/gwvAJG/20171031_134924.png
https://image.ibb.co/eB3VJG/Reeflink_Schedule.jpg

Did something just brush by it and the polyps receded into the skeleton or did it loose flesh,etc.. in those spots?

more flow the better with the purple stylo, at least mine seems to like more than less. good luck. and BTW that xenia is nice but in time you will find it popping up everywhere.

I believe I found the problem. Emerald crab is picking at it. Saw him there the other night when I woke up. Again today around 5 am. Took a video for anyone who says Emerald crab don't eat SPS.

https://image.ibb.co/kXUf5w/Screensh...112_063227.jpg

Here is video:

https://youtu.be/UJpPUC2Ztag

I have two emerald crabs. Very territorial. One hangs on left side of tank the other on the right. May pull both out to be safe.

I can’t say that the crab did this. May be coincidental that he’s picking at dead flesh afterwards


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You may be right. Multiple people have said the same thing to me this morning.

What are your nitrates? How old is the tank? Did you start with live or dry rock? If dry, how long was it cured and did you add any live rock to help cure it?

0 phosphate is a bad place to be in a newer tank as well.

The Emerald crab I had picked at my perfectly healthy SPS, If you read around there is the odd case where they do indeed munch on corals.

Tank is 10 months old. Began with dry rock and cycled over a month. Haven't checked nitrates lately. Everyting else is spot on.

For the 3rd night in a row I caught the the emerald crab munching at 3 am. I removed him and turned him over to my LFS.

I will begin feeding a bit more.

You need to make sure your nitrates and phosphates stay elevated.

How is your coraline growth? I don't see much in the pics but that can be deceiving.

Your tank is still super young since the rock was only cured a month. I find dry rock needs almost 6 months worth of curing before the tank is technically started. Then another 9-12 months before mature and this assumes you are adding diversity in some way.

Stylos dont like very low phosphate levels. Whenever my phosphates drop, they turn paler, and that is actually a way I use to monitor the phosphate levels. I would try to keep it atleast higher than 0.02ppm.

Crab is probably just eating the algae that started to grow on the dead skeleton.

I had 2 different (very well fed) emerald crabs in two different tanks go bad. 1 Tore up a frogspawn and the other a mushroom and a Scolymia.

I hear a lot of people have decent luck, but for me, never again.

I have run LED and T5, In my experience a par of 300-400 from LED will roast your SPS. As compared to the same PAR in T5. I run mine between 100-200 and all is happy, I can't go much higher than that. I would say the crab is just picking at the dead flesh after the fact but it may have died from too much light.

Try turning your lights down

Well it's been 5 days since the eviction of Mr emerald crab. Stylo is recovering nicely.

I do have another emerald crab who doesn't appear to bother anything... for now.

https://image.ibb.co/fKkav6/20171117_094317.jpg