Sps keepers (experts) please help.

[wickedfish]

Idk man. That first pic looks pretty nasty. I'd pull them out and dip them. Especially since u have had aefw in ur tank before.

Also when I put that flame angel in my tank, the first sign was no polyp extension. He would go around and nip at all the extended polyps. This doesn't look like that to me.

I'd rule out aefw first before u look at anything else. Dip them sticks

Big boy, you think I'd start a thread not ruling that out? Man you're amateur hour nonstop. I love you bro but I'm not Lindsey when I do the actual coral drama threads. Dipped, basted, etc nada.

And by basting I mean I basted the entire tank with no flow and nada! It's only this type of Sps. All others have no nipped tips, no discoloration etc.

I agree I may need someone to test my sh!t. Cause that tenuis broke my will to keep Sps.

@ Soliballs, I doubt it was flow man. The solitort is in the same place and the pump is in the same place. I also rule out lighting cause other coral around these are just fine. WT Fuuuuuuuuuu!? You still have Sanchis test vials? May need to send this DP water in for a real test.

 

[wickedfish]

I think you need someone to come over with their own test kits to double check all your parameters. I know you've been doing a lot of water changes and making a lot of adjustments recently. What if you've been adjusting based off a bad test kit?

Actually haven't done too many wc's. I did a 5 gallon two weeks ago and a 30 gallon on Sunday in the past month. But I'm at a loss. It's weird to see this. I have corals I bought browned out recently (rather not say, he's good peeps) that have colored up significantly in 3 weeks that I've had this issue. All signs point to a pest crab or fish or shoot maybe Sanh comes in and dips em in his mouth at night!

 

[wickedfish]

i don't think it's aefw. What else you changed

I changed my filters on my rodi filters. Other than that I cut an hour and a half off the T5's and lowered them an inch. It's like an ultra slow STN. Gotta be a fish.

 

[wickedfish]

what caused your ph to change? did you stir your tank?

Ph is stable. Haven't stirred the tank.

As a matter of fact coralline is growing good in the tank for once. Maybe it's the new pellet food. Haaaaaa!

I swear if it's a fish, first thing trap, then freezer!

 

[watchguy123]

Alk, it's always alk. When it changes, seems to lead to a whole cascade of other changes.

Otherwise, gotta go through the long list of parameters, examining them one by one. After all those, then check for pests but those dramatic changes your showing would require pretty serious munching pest or fish. Sloughing with polyp extension is unusual.

After eliminating all other causes, then likely bio pellets or carbon overdosing. And lastly, sometimes colonies croak for no explainable reason which perhaps is the most frustrating event because you have no idea how to prevent it in the future or correct whatever is wrong. I recently had two well established colonies rtn, and my changes were new lights and pumps but I thought I had taken the correct measures to deal with the changes. However, I had recently fragged them and sometimes that is the cause in itself.

So many minor factors can add up to enough of a change to make any colony unhappy. I think that is what makes long term sps tanks so unique. I'm on vacation for two weeks and somebody is just feeding the fish, wonder what I'll find when I get home. Sorry, I don't have a very specific answer to your current problem

 

[sealbeach1]

I had a very similar problem and it turned out to be a combination of Alk and my Flame Angel and Coral Beauty nipping.... removed the suspect fish and stablized the Alk and things returned to normal.....

 

[wickedfish]

I had a very similar problem and it turned out to be a combination of Alk and my Flame Angel and Coral Beauty nipping.... removed the suspect fish and stablized the Alk and things returned to normal.....

Oh well. Guess I need to get that Lil guy out.

 

[wickedfish]

Alk is at 8.2

 

[wickedfish]

First time using a fish trap. Every fish I don't want has gone inside the trap

Coral nipper has not gone within 3' of the trap. How do they know?

 

[WayneL333]

Just fill a bucket up with tank water and take out the more aggressively trapped fish first. It'll give your shyer fish more time to go into the trap. Once you catch your fish, you can just put your other fish back in.

 

[wickedfish]

Smart man. Cause he is the shyest one

 

[gcarroll]

Things I would try:
Another alk test kit.
Check calcium level (Make sure it is in balance with alk)
Raise alk to 9.5 -10 just in case you (I know no bio bellets, are you doing any carbon dosing at all)
Dip with Tropic Marin Coral cure (it is a Lugols based dip that could help fight infection)

Good luck! Those seemed to be some "wicked" pieces.

 

[wickedfish]

Ill get some of that dip. For the amount of messed up tips I'd expect to see nipping. And I don't see any of that.

No carbon dosing going on. Ill check calcium and mag now.

 

[wickedfish]

I was dosing coral snow every day for a week. Maybe that pis$ed off those coral?????

 

[wickedfish]

Okay so magnesium high at 1550 exceeded chart but I always keep magnesium above 1470.
Calcium at 440. And tried another salifert for alkalinity and got a slightly higher reading at 8.3 alk.

 

[wickedfish]

Did a dip and baste with this and I got nothing but asterina stars and coral spunk.

 

[solitude127]

Do you think it might be some sort of bacteria in your RO/DI unit? How long have you had it and when was the last time you sanitized it?

 

[wickedfish]

Do you think it might be some sort of bacteria in your RO/DI unit? How long have you had it and when was the last time you sanitized it?

3 years and I clean it just with hot water and a cloth, never bleach like you do.

I know the water here in Gardena is gross.

I took out the Yellow tenuis yesterday and looked at it under a magnifying glass and it was just the top tips that had discoloration and damage. Must be a fish or I dunno.

 

[solitude127]

Just a thought. that water is something we put in out tank everyday via ATO.

 

[sealbeach1]

I tried the same exact fish trap for 3 weeks and the coral beauty and the flame never would go in, everybody else did....

Finally, remove rock and netted both, removed a lot of rock ( I have a 300 gal. tank ). right after catching them all of my corals started doing much better.....