Shrinking polyps on my octospawn, please help!

[CrashTestBennie]

2 days ago my octospawn was looking happy and inflating its polyps. It seemed to be settling in as it is a new addition, 11 days ago. Today the polyps around the edge of its head are super deflated. Here are my parameters:
Ph-8.66
Temp-77.3
Ammonia-0.01
No3-65.0
Alk-8.6
Calcium-445
Mag-1080 started adding 5ml magnesion 2 days ago, and will continue every other day.
And thoughts or ideas?

 

[CrashTestBennie]

I don't know why it did several pictures...maybe it's a glitch on my end. I fixed it

 

[SudzFD]

Ammonia should be zero and your nitrates are super high. Do a 20% water change and see if that helps.

Some more questions that will help us understand your tank.

What is your plan for nitrate reduction? Refugium? Media? Water changes?

How old is your tank?

Do you dose anything?

How often do you test your water?

What lighting?

 

[SudzFD]

Based on the clean rock with light coat of brown diatoms. I will guess this tank is 30 days old ish?

 

[CrashTestBennie]

Ammonia should be zero and your nitrates are super high. Do a 20% water change and see if that helps.

Some more questions that will help us understand your tank.

What is your plan for nitrate reduction? Refugium? Media? Water changes?

How old is your tank?

Do you dose anything?

How often do you test your water?

What lighting?

Amazon just brought my phosphate test, and I have zero. I just built a refugium a couple weeks ago. I was doing 2g water changes every day until last week when the nitrates started to reduce without any water change. I'm testing daily. Tank cycled in August. I dose alk, calcium, shrimp nutrients, and magnesium as of 2 days ago. Lighting is popbloom rl90 turned way down to ~70 PAR. I had it at 135 PAR but noticed polyp recession about 7 or 8 days ago. I have carbon, gfo and filter floss. I'll do a 20% in the morning and see what happens. Thank you so very much!

P.S. I also dose chaeto-gro

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IMO 70 par is way too low for any euphyllia....

3 month old tank and dosing so many things, I counted 5 different things!!?? There is no need in such a new tank with low load of corals.

You mention your phosphate is zero but you are using gfo? It doesn't make sense.

Something is wrong with your filtration or habits to have nitrate so high like that. I'm surprised your not more concerned about this.

I think you are tying to do too much, in a tank that's too new. You have to let the tank settle down and find balance.

 

[CrashTestBennie]

IMO 70 par is way too low for any euphyllia....

3 month old tank and dosing so many things, I counted 5 different things!!?? There is no need in such a new tank with low load of corals.

You mention your phosphate is zero but you are using gfo? It doesn't make sense.

Something is wrong with your filtration or habits to have nitrate so high like that. I'm surprised your not more concerned about this.

I think you are tying to do too much, in a tank that's too new. You have to let the tank settle down and find balance.

What are you talking about? I'm losing sleep over this. Not concerned enough?! Please. I'm beating my head against the wall for my 1 piece of euphyllia. Thank you for pointing out that maybe GFO has something to do with this, but your judgement about my concern concerns me.

 

[dieselkeeper]

Amazon just brought my phosphate test, and I have zero. I just built a refugium a couple weeks ago. I was doing 2g water changes every day until last week when the nitrates started to reduce without any water change. I'm testing daily. Tank cycled in August. I dose alk, calcium, shrimp nutrients, and magnesium as of 2 days ago. Lighting is popbloom rl90 turned way down to ~70 PAR. I had it at 135 PAR but noticed polyp recession about 7 or 8 days ago. I have carbon, gfo and filter floss. I'll do a 20% in the morning and see what happens. Thank you so very much!

P.S. I also dose chaeto-gro

What was your all, calcium and mag at before dosing? If you dosed enough to make a substantial swing, that could be the cause.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

What are you talking about? I'm losing sleep over this. Not concerned enough?! Please. I'm beating my head against the wall for my 1 piece of euphyllia. Thank you for pointing out that maybe GFO has something to do with this, but your judgement about my concern concerns me.

100% correct I should not make assumption how others feel, my bad.

I guess I would just rephrase as "correcting the water quality would be my own action plan to making the coral happy".

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

And I understand my comments can rub folks the wrong way sometimes, I don't mean it like that. I've always had to make a conscience effort to make my words softer or people think I'm rude or angry, which I'm not, its just my mannerism. Anyway, I'm sorry for your coral, and genuinely want to help, cheers.

 

[CrashTestBennie]

What was your all, calcium and mag at before dosing? If you dosed enough to make a substantial swing, that could be the cause.

Mag was 1072. Alk I haven't dosed for 6 days, but 6 days ago it was 8.2. I dosed 3ml. Calcium I haven't dosed for a little over a week. But, I did dose a little too much and got it just above 500. I just started testing for mag a couple days ago, and phosphate the first time was about 6 hours ago... mag and po4 I bought salifert. The rest I use hanna checker. Thank you for your time and advice, I really appreciate it!

 

[CrashTestBennie]

100% correct I should not make assumption how others feel, my bad.

I guess I would just rephrase as "correcting the water quality would be my own action plan to making the coral happy".

Thank you, that does mean a lot. I have removed gfo. I've been using it because I thought phosphate was bad, and that you don't want any. Plus, I know algae is fed by phosphates. I guess I need to go through the algae phase eventually.

 

[CrashTestBennie]

And I understand my comments can rub folks the wrong way sometimes, I don't mean it like that. I've always had to make a conscience effort to make my words softer or people think I'm rude or angry, which I'm not, its just my mannerism. Anyway, I'm sorry for your coral, and genuinely want to help, cheers.

I can understand that. I've been working on some **** of my own. It means a lot that you said this. I was pretty discouraged to share, but hearing this makes me feel better. Thanks.

 

[SudzFD]

IMO 70 par is way too low for any euphyllia....

3 month old tank and dosing so many things, I counted 5 different things!!?? There is no need in such a new tank with low load of corals.

You mention your phosphate is zero but you are using gfo? It doesn't make sense.

Something is wrong with your filtration or habits to have nitrate so high like that. I'm surprised your not more concerned about this.

I think you are tying to do too much, in a tank that's too new. You have to let the tank settle down and find balance.

Mr Mojo is correct here, this game is about stability. That is number one. With everything you have going on I feel like there must be some large swings in your parameters. I’d stop dosing anything. Check your water twice a day for a week and see what trends you see. If something starts falling then dose that to correct it. I also agree that your PAR is too low. Slowing bring it up to probably double that over the next 2 weeks.

Keep us posted and we will do our best to help.

A lot of us have found over the years that our reef tanks do best when we go through “a I don’t care phase” and then get back into it. We’ve all been there, and many of us threw up our hands at some point and just left the tank alone with whatever wanted to stay alive. Then after taking a break from it, get back into it and we can keep all kinds of stuff.

Why does that Seem to be a common story? I believe it’s because the tank has to balance itself without our meddling. I don’t know how to prescribe this, but it’s an anecdote to say less is often more.

 

[CrashTestBennie]

Thanks. I have only dosed when things ask for it, with exception of shrimp minerals and chaetogro. Should I really let my numbers go below recommended? I'm willing to give it a shot. The reason I just knocked the PAR down from 130 is because the euphyllia and the candy cane were bleaching. Maybe it's my popbloom. I just bought an ai hydra 32, but haven't installed it because the current mount only extends to 9" above water surface. I did buy hardware yesterday to secure it to the wall so that I can mount the AI 32s 14" above surface. I promise you I don't add stuff just for the heck of it. When I do dose, it's by hand with syringe for accuracy. I don't do cap fulls as some recommend. Maybe I should have an ICP test run, or try having it serviced professionally? Everything else seems to be thriving. I'm just really worried about killing this beautiful octospawn...

 

[kevgib67]

The two things that jumped out to me are the zero phosphate, shoot for.05-.1 if you want all your coral happy. Second, magnesium needs to be around 1350. I keep mine about 1400 and my torches, frogspawn and hammers are very happy. I don’t think it’s a goner, it still has a decent flesh band. @Mr. Mojo Rising is giving solid advice and plus he’s a huge Doors fan.

 

[CrashTestBennie]

The two things that jumped out to me are the zero phosphate, shoot for.05-.1 if you want all your coral happy. Second, magnesium needs to be around 1350. I keep mine about 1400 and my torches, frogspawn and hammers are very happy. I don’t think it’s a goner, it still has a decent flesh band. @Mr. Mojo Rising is giving solid advice and plus he’s a huge Doors fan.

Right on! I'm slowly bringing up mag, as I just started testing for it this week. It's recommended to add only 5ml every other day. By the equation, I need to add 149ml, which at 5ml every other day would be 60 days. Do you recommend otherwise?
Yeah, I love the Doors. Mr. Mojo came on a little strong but I really appreciate the fact that he cares and is trying to help!
Thank you for help, both time and advice!

 

[Shirak]

What other stony corals do you have? If it's only the one LPS or maybe just a few then regular weekly water changes should be enough without any dosing of minerals. With maybe just a light touch up of sodium bicarbonate for Alk. here and there.

The coral looks pale and has lost a lot of flesh all around the outside of the skeleton where that white area is. This is most likely from lack of nutrients the coral can use. Try target feeding the coral defrosted mysis while your tank water gets back to normal levels. When the Nitrates and phosphates are that out of wack dosing one or the other may be necessary.

I am surprised your Mg is that low. What are you using to test with? Most salt mixes have plenty of Mg and it doesn't get used fast. That concerns me that your salinity is not correct and you have dosed other stuff to bump things like Ca. What are you using to measure salinity?


What product are you dosing for magnesium? You can raise magnesium 100ppm a day using epsom salt.