HELP! Acros have me stumped!

[Jrodinnola]

So.. My Garf purple bonsai and blue cali tort look like something was biting on the tips of them.. not much color or PE on the tort... no PE on the bonsai.. no PE on the red planet, pale "flame on" acro from CR with very little PE, and my purple rim monti has white blotches in the middle..

All of this came on pretty quick after everything had full PE and was encrusting well. I have checked all the sps in the tank for AEFW and Red Bugs (about 6 times total), and can't find anything.

Someone suggested to lower my dKH because it could be alk burn. So I purchased a new nitrate test kit and cross checked my Ca & dKH kits. None of these kits are expired or have any recalls. I also reduced my Alk dosing pump to lower my dKH from 9.8 to 7.6 over the period of a week or so.

-Current Levels-

NO3- 0.20ppm (Salifert)
Ca- 425ppm (Red Sea Pro)
dKH- 7.6 (Red Sea Pro)
PO4- 0.04ppm (Hanna Checker)

In the past, I've read about the reducing alk when carbon dosing to avoid burnt tips, but I'm not carbon dosing.. However, I didn't realize that my nitrates were that low.. I thought they were around 5ppm or so (old test kit I suppose).

So, some things I'm unsure about: What is actually considered ULN? Reading 0.00 on nitrate and 0.00 on phosphate? ..or reading something like; less than 0.5ppm NO3 and less than 0.02ppm PO4? Would my current levels cause alk burn? What else could be causing my acros to just close up and lose all their color? The only fish I have in the tank are a midas blenny, blue/green chromis, and two ocellaris clowns, so I know its not them.


Take a look and give me ya'lls expertise.. I just dont want $300 worth of sps frags going down the drain.. I'm getting really nervous since this is almost week three theyve been closed up..



Blue cali tort with white "bitten" tips and about 50% PE




Bonsai with "bitten" tips and no PE.




Red Planet with no PE.. but no white tips




Purple rim green monti.. the blue blotches in the middle are actually very very pale spots, the camera sucks... but there are still polyps in those areas that are fully open as you can see.




Pale CR "Flame on"acro with about 50% PE.

[d3hree]

I had a similar issue, all tips would burn and pe would reduce over time. After spending months thinking it was a light issue it turned out to be a low iodine problem. To be on the safe side I would check your K as well...and sg with calibrated refractometer...but for me it was iodine and dosing that to keep 0.06mg/l levels has seen a huge improvement.

[Albert184445]

I'm actually have very similar issues with my sps right now. Just got back from a week vacation to find my sps with tissue coming off the tips and my monts having pale blotches and poor poly extension. It's funny because my montipora are actually worst then acros. Im thinking a swing in peramiters but I've tested and all look good. I did have a power outages while I was gone though because all my clocks were blinking when I got back. You might have lower your alk to fast

[ThorEffex]

How's your flow and lighting?

[Jrodinnola]

Originally Posted by d3hree

I had a similar issue, all tips would burn and pe would reduce over time. After spending months thinking it was a light issue it turned out to be a low iodine problem. To be on the safe side I would check your K as well...and sg with calibrated refractometer...but for me it was iodine and dosing that to keep 0.06mg/l levels has seen a huge improvement.

Just checked my levels.
I2- 0.03
K- 460
Fe- 0.00
dKH- 7.6
Ca- 450
Sg- 1.025

I'm bumping the I2 & Fe up as we speak, would 0.03 be low enough to cause that?

Originally Posted by Albert184445

I'm actually have very similar issues with my sps right now. Just got back from a week vacation to find my sps with tissue coming off the tips and my monts having pale blotches and poor poly extension. It's funny because my montipora are actually worst then acros. Im thinking a swing in peramiters but I've tested and all look good. I did have a power outages while I was gone though because all my clocks were blinking when I got back. You might have lower your alk to fast

Yea, I lowered the alk after the polyps started retracting to see if that caused the bitten/burned tips.. didn't help.

Originally Posted by ThorEffex

How's your flow and lighting?

Flow is very good, lighting is a Radion G3. All the frags in the tank at one point were fully open and encrusting.. like doing well for 2-3 months.. then boom within 2-3 days this happened.

[Piper27]

460 k??? Are you dosing potassium suppliments? I have experienced tip burn from raising k above 430. Could be the problem.

[trueblackpercula]

Do you have fish and if so what? Also what about crabs? I had a problem like this and it was a gorilla crab. Also burnt tips In My experiancess has been cause by Alk swings. How or what are you adding to the tank to maintain ALk? Please don't panic as that's the worst thing you can do. In addition to that are you running leds over the tank from what I read? If yes lower the intensity by 20% to 25% for a couple weeks. High intensity on a ULNs with ALk saings is a perfect combination to fry your Sps.

[animalkingdom]

Also 425 to 450 calcium in a day is a big jump unless this is just testing error.

[jgalen0025]

IMO that does not look like burnt tips. I had a problem fish trying to eat sps polyps and thats exactly what mine looked like. My guess is something is trying to eat the polyps

[Jrodinnola]

Originally Posted by Piper27

460 k??? Are you dosing potassium suppliments? I have experienced tip burn from raising k above 430. Could be the problem.

Not dosing any K supplements.. However, Since I swapped to coral pro salt mix awhile back, the K levels have been a steady 450ish.. Don't know how to get it down, and its been testing like that for the past 5 months.. it could very well be that I'm doing the K test wrong, because the Red Sea Pro test for potassium is like 20 steps. lol.. but its only been the last 3 weeks that things have started acting strange.

Originally Posted by trueblackpercula

Do you have fish and if so what? Also what about crabs? I had a problem like this and it was a gorilla crab. Also burnt tips In My experiancess has been cause by Alk swings. How or what are you adding to the tank to maintain ALk? Please don't panic as that's the worst thing you can do. In addition to that are you running leds over the tank from what I read? If yes lower the intensity by 20% to 25% for a couple weeks. High intensity on a ULNs with ALk saings is a perfect combination to fry your Sps.

A midas blenny, blue/green chromis, two ocellaris clowns and two emerald crabs. I'm running a radion g3 on 35% that I reduced back to 30 when things started going south.. I may bump it back some more.

Originally Posted by animalkingdom

Also 425 to 450 calcium in a day is a big jump unless this is just testing error.

The original measurement of 425ppm was what the levels were when my alk was kept at 9.8.. 450 is what the Ca adjusted itself to after 8 days of lowering the alk to 7.6.

Originally Posted by jgalen0025

IMO that does not look like burnt tips. I had a problem fish trying to eat sps polyps and thats exactly what mine looked like. My guess is something is trying to eat the polyps

Yea, that's what I'm thinking.... but I've never caught any fish nipping at anything.. and the only thing that could be bothering the coral is the midas blenny (if he perched on the sps, which he doesn't), but he's been in there for almost 2 years and never has bothered anything.

[Jrodinnola]

Also, from what I've seen in pictures, alk burn looks like the tips were dipped in acid.. Atleast from what I can tell from the pics. My sps don't look like that.. it looks like damaged tissue.. like when you bump a monti cap and accidently chip the edges while scrubbing the glass.

[jimrawr]

emerald crabs likely eating them. check at night with flash light. i had same problem and witnessed it

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2125053

[Jrodinnola]

I can only hope its something as simple as checking for emerald crabs tonight, I just coral Rx'ed all my acros to see if that would give some temporary relief.. If they are all more open in the next 24hrs than they have been, I'll have to assume its a pest of some kind and get a QT tank going asap. I'm also checking the dip containers in the next few minutes to see if I can find anything strange in there....

[Jim Z.]

Hungry emerald crabs can and will feed on corals. I had one remove and consume a patch of hydroids. Sometimes you get lucky.....................Jim

[jimrawr]

It was definitely my issue as I witnessed them literally taking chunks out of acros and montis. The marks looked exactly like yours, and if you check my thread you will see I thought it was alk issues at first. Pay attention see if any emeralds are hanging around, and specifically look at night to see if they are eating them.

[discocarp]

Hungry emerald crabs can and will feed on corals. I had one remove and consume a patch of hydroids. Sometimes you get lucky..

I had one remove and consume a patch of acropora. Sometimes you don't. Most of my damage was done at the base not the tips from the crab though.

[Jrodinnola]

Originally Posted by jimrawr

It was definitely my issue as I witnessed them literally taking chunks out of acros and montis. The marks looked exactly like yours, and if you check my thread you will see I thought it was alk issues at first. Pay attention see if any emeralds are hanging around, and specifically look at night to see if they are eating them.

Will do. I didn't witness any emerald crab shenanigans last night, so I'll continue to check over the next few nights. How long after lights out do you usually check? I may set the radion to end a little earlier this week than normal so I don't have to stay up.. lol

[Jrodinnola]

Update: after removing the emeralds, the tort and bonsai are completely healed up and colored nicely. The purple rim monti has recovered all its green coloration and looks great. The only thing that hasn't gained its color back is the red planet.. And the polyps on ALL the acros are still retracted for whatever reason. All the montipora (setosa, lengi si, idaho grape, mystic sunset) and a ora bird of paradise has full polyp extension. My levels haven't fluctuated much at all.. But I did notice a bunch of vermatid snails nearby..would they cause full polyps retraction of the acros but not the montis? The vermatids have been in there since I got the frags, and the acros opened up fine in the beginning, which makes me think there's some parameter flux that I'm missing. Just trying to narrow down what to focus on.. Also, today marks one month and a week since this all started happening.. and the red planet is almost grey it's so pale. I'm pretty sure that it wont make it if this goes on any longer...

[swk]

+20

Emerald crabs are NOT sps safe!

[Jrodinnola]

bump

[markalot]

I can't grow a Red Planet either so I would ignore it for now.

Acros need good flow, decent light, some food in the water, and rock solid KH. Sometimes thay can take months to recover, but if you are growing skin back I think you are in pretty good shape.