Birdsnest Loosing Tissue - Suggestions?
 

Hello everyone,

I’ve been in the hobby for many years with freshwater setups and I was finally able to start a reef tank 7 months ago.

Thats my first post in the forum though I am sesrching topics for the last 7 months whenever I need an answer so thnks to everyone for their participation.

Well approx. 1 month ago I started adding sps corals to my current 7 months old setup with big hopes but things are not rolling as I expected.

One frag of green birdsnest coral is going downhill with rapid tissue loss, worse thing I don’t even know the reason as my figures are seems pretty fine with stable values.

Currently;
Sg 1026
Alk 7,5
Ca 400
Mg 1310
No3 2,5ppm
Po4 0,01 ppm
Temp 25,5

There has been no spikes as far as I am aware at any values.

I’m running the tank with 2 Kessil A80’s and the birdsnest is right under the light at 5 inches deep. I can define it as it’s getting enough light but I am concerning if it’s getting too much light? My intensity is %100 when it peaks for 5 hours.

I am adding the pictures and asking for your ideas.

It’s brown skeleton where tissues are lost.

Greatly appriciated.

drop the intensity and see if it improves

Hi
Thanks
Do you believe these symptons are because of too much light? Because it didn’t bleached or turned white, directly loosing polyps left with a brown skeleton.

I really appriciate all the input

Do you maintain PO4 levels constant or do you think there may have been some fluctuations due to perhaps using large amounts of GFO in a reactor?

Do you fluidise activated carbon? If so, what brand do you use?

Do you dose organic carbon?

I am checking po4 with hanna ulr weekly and using rowaphos in a reactor. It has been at 0.01-0.03 range for a long while.

I am not using activated carbon for months, I used at initial setup and it was Marineland activated carbon.

I don’t dose organic carbon as my no3 levels are very low.

I am also target feeding all corals wit NLS nutricell weekly before my wc.

Something in the tank must have swung.how old is the tank? Could have been anything though. Salanity, nutrients, one of the big three, ect. My birdsnest have always been invincible but any swing especially alk I always see kills off birdsnest like that. It's some people's canary coral for certain things although I could never notice it change at all. Although I think most of the zeo and ulns guys have these problems the most.

I've only seen alk swings or excessive GFO use to cause STN in birds nest corals. They are nearly indestructible aside from that.

The fact that they are not dying from the tips makes me think it is not a light issue.