Reef nutrition

Micro rainbow Goniapora suddenly losing polyps and tissue?

rdriggett

rdriggett

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Hi all, I came back from picking up a frag and noticed my favorite Goni has skeleton showing where just two days ago it was lush with good PE.
I dosed about 5ppm nitrate today but I don’t think that would affect it within hours.
Params:
Alk 10.5
Calc 460
Mag 1460
N 5-10
P 0
Salinity 1.025

0DA3B72C-5192-4E3B-8696-BCC7487609D9.jpeg

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If the only thing you changed was a pretty quick change from 0 Nitrate to 10, and right at that time you saw this occur, by Occam's razor you likely have your answer.

I personally am not an expert in safe nitrate increase levels, but I would not have done that change that quickly personally. Especially if phosphate is registering 0, and if things had been looking healthy without changing that number. That smells a lot like one of those "keep your hands out", "nothing good happens fast" type of changes.

Not a personal critique, but noting to call it out since only one other person mentioned it.
 
richiev said:
If the only thing you changed was a pretty quick change from 0 Nitrate to 10, and right at that time you saw this occur, by Occam's razor you likely have your answer.

I personally am not an expert in safe nitrate increase levels, but I would not have done that change that quickly personally. Especially if phosphate is registering 0, and if things had been looking healthy without changing that number. That smells a lot like one of those "keep your hands out", "nothing good happens fast" type of changes.

Not a personal critique, but noting to call it out since only one other person mentioned it.
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I wish I could easily pinpoint it as a nitrate increase but the amount of tissue loss seems too great for a single day. I could very well be wrong. I've noticed snails crawling on my frag rack between this Goni and an acan but I cant blame that for certain either. I'll try to maintain stability as much as possible with read-able nitrate levels now.
 
Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing— In your retracted pic the areas where the flesh is retracted back to the skeleton are normal. The minority parts lower down where it is retracted deeper than the skeleton are the areas of concern. Those same areas are also not extended on your pic of it overall looking healthy, making me think that it may not be something that just happened.

I think the nitrate increase is likely to be coincidence. Gonis are fickle. They can recede/die for no reason humans can figure out. Also they retract in (without being a sign of something worse) when they are disturbed or irritated, so if you are dipping/moving/messing with them every day since you noticed they were retracted they will stay that way regardless of how they are doing overall. I recommend not doing anything else with it at this point and see how it looks in a day or 2. If you post more pics here that would be helpful too.
 
JVU said:
Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing— In your retracted pic the areas where the flesh is retracted back to the skeleton are normal. The minority parts lower down where it is retracted deeper than the skeleton are the areas of concern. Those same areas are also not extended on your pic of it overall looking healthy, making me think that it may not be something that just happened.

I think the nitrate increase is likely to be coincidence. Gonis are fickle. They can recede/die for no reason humans can figure out. Also they retract in (without being a sign of something worse) when they are disturbed or irritated, so if you are dipping/moving/messing with them every day since you noticed they were retracted they will stay that way regardless of how they are doing overall. I recommend not doing anything else with it at this point and see how it looks in a day or 2. If you post more pics here that would be helpful too.
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I haven't disturbed this Goni since I purchased it at CFM months ago until I took the retracted photo. I'm referring to the bare white skeleton along the bottom that has no polyps. I will maintain stability while leaving it alone and hope it gets better. What type of pictures should I take of it to assist in your aid of this problem?
 
rdriggett said:
I haven't disturbed this Goni since I purchased it at CFM months ago until I took the retracted photo. I'm referring to the bare white skeleton along the bottom that has no polyps. I will maintain stability while leaving it alone and hope it gets better. What type of pictures should I take of it to assist in your aid of this problem?
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No worries- I was assuming you might have already been dipping it as discussed above, or possibly otherwise changing things. Iodine dip is probably good if you haven’t already done it. The pics you gave are good as of Sunday, I meant followup pics to see how it’s doing.
 
JVU said:
No worries- I was assuming you might have already been dipping it as discussed above, or possibly otherwise changing things. Iodine dip is probably good if you haven’t already done it. The pics you gave are good as of Sunday, I meant followup pics to see how it’s doing.
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Amazon should be delivering SeaChem Reef Dip iodine today. I want to give it an iodine dip however Eric's "leave it alone!!" message is strong. I will do some further research on Goni iodine dips and make my decision. I'll take a follow up picture in a few days as I want to minimize stress on it.
 
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