Help me understand what's going on with my acros

[KK's Reef]

Woke up this morning and some of my acros had a stringy brownish thing coming from it's polyps. Some of my brightest across are also looking dull and pale. My first thought is that it's expelling its zooxanthallae.

* I did my weekly water change last night. Stirred a 1/4 of the sand bed to get ditritus into the water column. Changed filter floss. Changed bag of carbon (monthly). Dosed half a capful of Microbacter7. All part of my usual routine.

* Had a late dinner, and after 1 hour I noticed that the water was extremely cloudy. Looks like some of the snails have spawned. Not unusual as I've had trochus snails spawn in this tank before and had a few babies reach maturity.

* Parameters are: Temp - 78, Alk 8.0, Cal - 440, PO4 - 0.08, Salinity - 34.9. I don't test Nitrate.

Most of the stringy stuff has been blown off by the flow as of this writing, but the acros are looking dull. There aren't any bone-white patches, but some of the flesh is pale and only have some of the brown/purple marbling that you see on the side of the acros that don't get direct light. Polyps are out and as of now, no STN/RTN that I can see.

What's the best approach here? Wait and see? Do a coral dip? Bath in cipro? The tank has been stable and these acro frags are 1 to 2 years old and encrusting the plug/growing upwards. LPS and softies are fine. Something stressed the acros and the cloudy water may have something to do with it, but I've never heard of snail spawn irritating corals (if it is that).


Here's a pic of a TCK Solarbeam tenuis. Easily the brightest frag in the tank, but you can see that most of it's flesh is pale.

Here's a short clip of the same frag.

Here's another tenuis with the stringy stuff and patches of pale tissue.

Appreciate any feedback.

 

[Reefing Madness]

 

[Lavey29]

Looks like brown out but unusual if they have been good for 1 to 2 years. Any changes to lighting or flow? Have you done a recent ICP to check everything? It's possible sulfur dioxide is released with your sand stirring too. Run big bag of carbon.

 

[ZaneTer]

Can you give us pictures under white light?

 

[KK's Reef]

I think I know what it is. The sand sifting and making nutrients available in the water column probably caused a bacteria bloom, but I don't think that affects corals.

However, I had a firefish die a day or two earlier. I didn't remove it because the CUC was taking care of it. I think that, with the detritus from the sand, spiked the PO4 from .08 to 0.38 (tested last night).

I'll try to take pics under white light tonight.
I am running a bag of carbon.
No changes to flow.
Changed from an AB+ template, to a Radiant Color template, but kept the same hours and instensity.
No ICP test.

Acros are acting normal. Polyps out. But there are patches of pale/white flesh, not quite bone. I'm planning to do smaller water changes every few days to bring the PO4 down.

 

[Lavey29]

Most likely the light change. Doubt slightly elevated phosphate would do it. Mine sits high with no issues.

 

[anthonymckay]

Most likely the light change. Doubt slightly elevated phosphate would do it. Mine sits high with no issues.

0.08 to 0.38 is a pretty massive jump in po4 levels. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is related. Po4 instability has caused me issues before.

 

[magallonbuckinbulls]

Woke up this morning and some of my acros had a stringy brownish thing coming from it's polyps. Some of my brightest across are also looking dull and pale. My first thought is that it's expelling its zooxanthallae.

* I did my weekly water change last night. Stirred a 1/4 of the sand bed to get ditritus into the water column. Changed filter floss. Changed bag of carbon (monthly). Dosed half a capful of Microbacter7. All part of my usual routine.

* Had a late dinner, and after 1 hour I noticed that the water was extremely cloudy. Looks like some of the snails have spawned. Not unusual as I've had trochus snails spawn in this tank before and had a few babies reach maturity.

* Parameters are: Temp - 78, Alk 8.0, Cal - 440, PO4 - 0.08, Salinity - 34.9. I don't test Nitrate.

Most of the stringy stuff has been blown off by the flow as of this writing, but the acros are looking dull. There aren't any bone-white patches, but some of the flesh is pale and only have some of the brown/purple marbling that you see on the side of the acros that don't get direct light. Polyps are out and as of now, no STN/RTN that I can see.

What's the best approach here? Wait and see? Do a coral dip? Bath in cipro? The tank has been stable and these acro frags are 1 to 2 years old and encrusting the plug/growing upwards. LPS and softies are fine. Something stressed the acros and the cloudy water may have something to do with it, but I've never heard of snail spawn irritating corals (if it is that).


Here's a pic of a TCK Solarbeam tenuis. Easily the brightest frag in the tank, but you can see that most of it's flesh is pale.

Here's a short clip of the same frag.

Here's another tenuis with the stringy stuff and patches of pale tissue.

Appreciate any feedback.

Don’t stir your sand! No bueno…

 

[KK's Reef]

I've had elevated PO4 before with no issues, other than algae. But that's over weeks/months due to overfeeding, or forgetting a water change here and there. But this is a +.30 change in about 24 hours. I would think it's what shocked the acros.

 

[crazyfishmom]

I suspect the change in lights if an acclimation period was not used. My PO4 spikes from 0.05 to 0.35 every time I feed my LPS reef roids and none of my acros skip a beat. I realize that my be specific to my tank so I’m not dismissing anyone else’s thoughts on this but normally that kind of PO4 spike leads to browning and not that extreme loss of color.

 

[Lavey29]

0.08 to 0.38 is a pretty massive jump in po4 levels. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is related. Po4 instability has caused me issues before.

Mine swings .1 to .3 and back to .2 all the time.

 

[KK's Reef]

I suspect the change in lights if an acclimation period was not used. My PO4 spikes from 0.05 to 0.35 every time I feed my LPS reef roids and none of my acros skip a beat. I realize that my be specific to my tank so I’m not dismissing anyone else’s thoughts on this but normally that kind of PO4 spike leads to browning and not that extreme loss of color.

I suppose it can be the lights. Looking at the AB+ intensity, all channels are the same across the board. The Radiant Color template only has a few channels in the set intensity, and the other channels are about 1/2 or 1/3 of the set intensity. But, I didn't change the light template until after lights out at night.

I've never acclimated frags after shipping and they've handled the intensity right off the bat. Also, the Radiant template only gives 20-30 less PAR than the AB+ template with the same intensity (I mapped the PAR with a meter before switching templates), so it's not like they were getting blasted with too much light.

 

[RockBox13]

Just vacuum your sandbed every time you change water and directly remove the detritus. What size tank is this? What kind of filtration does it have?

 

[KK's Reef]

Just vacuum your sandbed every time you change water and directly remove the detritus. What size tank is this? What kind of filtration does it have?

Yup, I know. I got a bit lazy this time and stirred up the sand with a feeder. The flow is pretty strong as long as the detritus is suspended, it will end up in the filter floss.