Reef nutrition

An SPS starts dying and then it's all down hill from there

bondolo

bondolo

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A number of times I've experienced the same problem. A corner or small piece of an SPS coral dies off. Over the course of a couple of days the rest of the coral dies and I'm powerless to do anything to help it.

Right now this piece is dying in my tank.

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It started dying when a piece of pink stylo fell on it. The original dead spot was smaller than a dime but it's now grown to half of the plug in less than 48 hours. If things go true to form the piece will be completely dead in another 48 hours.

When I originally noticed the problem I debrided the area by holding the coral in front of a powerhead for 10-15 seconds twice in the 6 hours after finding it dying. I've since done that at least once a day for the last two days.

I've also broken off what I could of the healthy overhanging edge and moved that piece to another part of the tank. Yay... less than 10% of the original size assuming it even survives.

So, what should I be doing? I'm tired of the same outcome every time one of my SPS corals gets into trouble.
 
Might have made it worse by blasting it with a power head. Try to give it a dip in revive and place it in a low flow area for a few days and see what happens.
 
Parameters as of Tuesday PM:

pH : 8.275
SG : 1.025
Temp: 77F
Alk : 8.25 DKH
Ca: > 400ppm < 500ppm (i messed up counting drops with the test but know it's over 400)
Mg: Unknown. Probably > 1000. I haven't tested this recently but continue supplementing.
PO4: 0.13ppm
N03 : unknown

The tank is, right now, the most stable that it's ever been and growth has been very good. Coraline has been exploding.

I'll try revive dip right away.
 
Mg: Unknown. Probably > 1000. I haven't tested this recently but continue supplementing.
Click to expand...
I'm no expert on SPS but adding a potentially toxic additive without testing does not sound like a good thing
 
Test for magnesium, i recently had some sps issues, found my magnesium was a bit on the low side, fixed it up, more water changes, sps are bouncing back.
 
You might want to check nitrates as well. That can certainly cause issues.

One thing I have read is that people cut off a tiny amount around the dying area, then put a bit of
superglue on the freshly cut area.
The concept: You cut out the infection, then bandage with glue.
But I have never tried it myself, so some googling on that might be in order before you do.
 
My vote would go towards low mag, if it were NO3 the coral would be brown.

Go easy on the dipping with Montis, they really don't like it very much.
 
bondolo said:
Parameters as of Tuesday PM:

pH : 8.275
SG : 1.025
Temp: 77F
Alk : 8.25 DKH
Ca: > 400ppm < 500ppm (i messed up counting drops with the test but know it's over 400)
Mg: Unknown. Probably > 1000. I haven't tested this recently but continue supplementing.
PO4: 0.13ppm
N03 : unknown

The tank is, right now, the most stable that it's ever been and growth has been very good. Coraline has been exploding.

I'll try revive dip right away.
Click to expand...

These stood out like sore thumbs to me:

Alk : 8.25 DKH
 
That monti didn't make it.

All good advice though.

I'm slowly upping the Alk to 9.25-9.5 dKH range (about 0.25 per day, basically double dosing my two part, safe to go faster?). Once stable I'll be upping the daily dose by 10%

I checked the Mg and it was between 1250 and 1300 so I'm double dosing it for a few days as well to get it closer to 1400. Once stable I'll be upping the daily dose by 10%

It sounds like the PO4 (and probably NO3) is the most likely problem though so I'm doing lots of cleaning, vacuuming and water changes. I'll do a 20% change every two days until the PO4 is down below 0.05. I've changed my GFO and slacked off on feeding to help the PO4 levels as well.

Thanks for the tips. Hopefully I'll have better results the next time a coral gets damaged or stressed.
 
I just had a meltdown of SPS, due to high PO4 level. My guess is once these SPS exposed to high PO4 level for a period of time, they are unhealthy and immune system is compromised. They can not defense certainly bacteria which use to be fine when they are healthy, one day TN start with one coral and hit other coral one by one.

Gurus, please correct me if I am misleading here.
 
couple beat me to the punch... low MG... and what Robert said about the ALK/MG relationship (swings).
 
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