I'm at a loss, could anyone identify what could be causing this?

[Skujio]

Alrighty, so lately over the course of a few weeks I've seen some of my acros that have been growing and healthy begin to what looks like liquify from the tips. Here are my parameters.

Temp- 79.3
Salinity- 1.026
Alk- 9.6
Cal- 400
Mag- 1350
Nitrate- 25
Phosphate- .03

Lighting is 6 bulb T5 and Reefbrite XHO about 5 inches above water. (Only way the shitty fixture can dish out even 200 par just under water level)

I would love to post photos/videos but am unable to from here. Does anyone have an idea what could have set this off?

[macdaddynick1]

You mean tip burning? Lower your alkalinity a little bit and get on a more consistent feeding schedule. .03 po4 @ 9.8 Alk caused a lot of issues for me. So either lowering your Alk or getting feeding slightly more should help.

[ClownNut]

do you dose any microelements? like red sea abcd, if you do you overdose.

[Skujio]

Just looked around and found that its definitely tip burn. Lowering my alk slowly to 8 and leaving it to stabilize. It's pretty difficult to keep nutrients in my tank without constant feeding. Also nope on the red sea, only dose the essentials and 2mls of Acropower a day.

[ClownNut]

Originally Posted by Skujio

Just looked around and found that its definitely tip burn. Lowering my alk slowly to 8 and leaving it to stabilize. It's pretty difficult to keep nutrients in my tank without constant feeding. Also nope on the red sea, only dose the essentials and 2mls of Acropower a day.

essential is about the same as abcd.different name, but you are dosing trace elements. try to stop that too, if lower the alk don't stop it or acro gets worst.

[Skujio]

Originally Posted by ClownNut

essential is about the same as abcd.different name, but you are dosing trace elements. try to stop that too, if lower the alk don't stop it or acro gets worst.

Sorry should a defined but by the essentials I mean cal, all, and mag.

[Bpb]

In this instance one thing jumps out at me. Test numbers don’t tell the WHOLE story but I wouldn’t run phosphates that low with an alkalinity that high. You may well have enough phosphate being used up in the system to where your testable surplus is low, but that looks like a phosphate to nitrate imbalance and a high alk to boot. Who knows. If it were my tank I would lower the alkalinity, feed heavier, introduce some form of nitrate lowering carbon dosing, and do some large water changes. Perhaps run a little polyfilter too.

This will reset your trace elements, lower the nitrate via carbon dosing, raise the phosphate via feeding, lower the alkalinity to make the acros less sensitive to it, and the polyfilter will remove any trace contamination of metals.

I’ve gone through this same problem a few times over the years and those steps have fixed it every time

Addendum: Yes, the carbon dosing will reduce phosphate, but at a minuscule level compared to its impact on nitrate, the increased feeding should provide enough of a phosphate surplus to counteract it. Or you could dose phosphate but I would never do that ever. You can add phosphate by simply feeding the fish more. Don’t rinse your frozen food if that’s what you’re feeding. I feed strictly pellets because it’s easier

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[ClownNut]

Originally Posted by Skujio

Sorry should a defined but by the essentials I mean cal, all, and mag.

cool, i thought you use "essential" the product.

i personally dont have any problem run ulns with high alk. my no3 and po4 are zero(hanna PPB and redsea NO3) and my alk is sitting around 9.5-10, trying to get to 10.5-11.
i only have issue with high alk if i use synthetic salt, like io/rc/af.

[Skujio]

Originally Posted by ClownNut

cool, i thought you use "essential" the product.

i personally dont have any problem run ulns with high alk. my no3 and po4 are zero(hanna PPB and redsea NO3) and my alk is sitting around 9.5-10, trying to get to 10.5-11.
i only have issue with high alk if i use synthetic salt, like io/rc/af.

I do use IO for my water changes. Acros are continuing to melt at an alarming rate dispite the slow lowering of alk. Down to 9.2 now but phosphates confirmed at 0.00 and Nitrate 25ppm.

[ClownNut]

i would check for any rusted magnet/crack magnet. run carbon and keep lowering alk to 7ish.
i lost all my acro late last year and early this year.
IMG_4335 by Li Cai, on Flickr
no burned tips, just all start to getting pale and rtn one by one, water change and carbon help but didnt solve the problem, i even run a polyfilter to check for copper/heavy metal. the pad was snowwhite after 3 days. i didnt find the magnet til the last one kicked the bucket. since it was my ato magnet hide in the corner of the sump behind skimmer. the only reason i found it was just luck. did some big water change and run some carbon. 2 weeks after i found the magnet i put some acros back. everything is growing again. now i change my equipment check from 1.5 years to yearly.
no lps or anemone or inverts were effected by the magnet. i cant proved the magnet was the cause but once i removed the magnet from the system, all new sps are growing again...
post pics or video help.
flickr is free and fairly easy to use.

[Piper27]

Could you post some pictures?

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[Piper27]

Have you have had your parameters the same way for months? I am having trouble believing tip burn is happening with 25 nitrate and readable phosphate. But each tanks different, some pics would help.

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[Skujio]

Originally Posted by Piper27

Have you have had your parameters the same way for months? I am having trouble believing tip burn is happening with 25 nitrate and readable phosphate. But each tanks different, some pics would help.

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Unfortunately my phone wont let me add pictures from here, I have kept those parameters the same over a few months. I did recently lower alk down to 8.3 and a new wave of problems have come to light. I posted a new thread but I feel this and the new problems could come from the same root.