Yet another dieing bird's nest

[blasterman]

Stop blaming the lighting, spectrum, number of banana peels in the flux capacitor, etc.

I've always had mediocre luck with birdsnest corals, but one thing I've found that will make them RTN and and do poorly and have tested to confirm it is phosphate levels.

Super low or non existent levels of phosphate, or phosphate levels that consistently spike downward will do bad things to birdsnest. Wonky Nitrate levels don't seem to bug them much, but they seem to want some phosphate in the water column, and not have it bounce around. This is why birds nest corals tend to to be the first to suffer and decline during algae outbreaks because nutrients get quickly stripped out of the water.

 

[pseudorand]

Mexican red leg hermits should be reef safe, right? Here's one on my dieing bird's nest.

He could just be eating the dead ones. Or perhaps the GHA under it.

 

[djryan2000]

Stop blaming the lighting, spectrum, number of banana peels in the flux capacitor, etc.

I've always had mediocre luck with birdsnest corals, but one thing I've found that will make them RTN and and do poorly and have tested to confirm it is phosphate levels.

Super low or non existent levels of phosphate, or phosphate levels that consistently spike downward will do bad things to birdsnest. Wonky Nitrate levels don't seem to bug them much, but they seem to want some phosphate in the water column, and not have it bounce around. This is why birds nest corals tend to to be the first to suffer and decline during algae outbreaks because nutrients get quickly stripped out of the water.

I came back to give a massive +1 to this comment. It motivated me to start dosing phosphate, and now that I have for a couple weeks, my birdsnest along with the rest of my reef is doing much better. Thank you for the reply!

 

[pseudorand]

I came back to give a massive +1 to this comment. It motivated me to start dosing phosphate, and now that I have for a couple weeks, my birdsnest along with the rest of my reef is doing much better. Thank you for the reply!

I'd love to believe it's that simple. But my phosphate nis persistently at 0.1ppm (yes, 0.1, not 0.01). I do run Phosguard, but at the recommended level (1c for my roughly 140gal of water). And I change it only once a week, not the recommended every 4 days. I've been trying to drop my phosphates, but all I've been able to do is keep it steady. And high.

What's more, while in QT, I did spike phosphate by feeding reef roids and brought it back down with water changes. The bird's nest did fine in QT. There was a time when it retreated for a few days, but it came back nicely. (I'm not sure if that was after the reef roids or not.) It didn't have problems until a few weeks after I put it in my DT.

Mine also died bottom-up, and it's no where near big enough for the bottom to be flow-restricted. If it were nutrients, why would it die on a pattern like that?

 

[djryan2000]

I'd love to believe it's that simple. But my phosphate nis persistently at 0.1ppm (yes, 0.1, not 0.01). I do run Phosguard, but at the recommended level (1c for my roughly 140gal of water). And I change it only once a week, not the recommended every 4 days. I've been trying to drop my phosphates, but all I've been able to do is keep it steady. And high.

What's more, while in QT, I did spike phosphate by feeding reef roids and brought it back down with water changes. The bird's nest did fine in QT. There was a time when it retreated for a few days, but it came back nicely. (I'm not sure if that was after the reef roids or not.) It didn't have problems until a few weeks after I put it in my DT.

Mine also died bottom-up, and it's no where near big enough for the bottom to be flow-restricted. If it were nutrients, why would it die on a pattern like that?

Honestly I couldnt tell you. I guess I got lucky - my reef was clearly suffering and bringing my phosphates from 0 with the Hannah ULR to around .1 seems to have fixed all my issues. I wonder if you have a large fluctuations of a parameter throughout the day, or between tests? How often do you test the water?

By this I mean say your alk usually is 11 and it drops to 9 but you don't test regularly everything would seem fine.

Besides that I'm all out of ideas. Sometimes corals don't like us as much as we like them, happened to me when I tried to add duncans to my tank. It just closed up and died and I'm still scratching my head as to why.

 

[Ceddyfuckinnb]

Mine died within a month, too much light. I thought oh sps hit it will 250 par and that was a no no. Looked great for a few weeks then polyps closed up and started bleaching.

Haha so me,,, you live & you learn!

 

[pseudorand]

Haha so me,,, you live & you learn!

Strangely enough, three years later and a different birds nest in the same tank is taking over. I have to cut it back weekly. It's in high flow and high light. I haven't changed anything, but obviously lots of stuff I can't control or measure probably changed.