Green Slimer Turning Purple on Bottom

[lrosenberg5]

Hi All - I recently introduced a few SPS pieces to my tank. Everything looks fine but the base of the green slimmer looks like it is starting to turn purple, starting from one side moving towards the center. See the attached picture of the frag on the rock as well as a side view of the tank so you can see its placement, as well as the list below for my parameters

I would note that:

• I've had some trouble with birdsnest coral bleaching at the base. Fragged it and all the frags have ended up having the same problem
• Running my AI light 10" (highest it can go) off the top of the tank and using a slightly edited version of the Eddie Putra setting, at 15% acclimation reduction
• I started running my Jebao wavemaker a bit more over the past few days on the lowest setting
• Started seeing coraline algae growth about 3 weeks ago
• The AIO sump has a good amount of what look like pineapple sponges in it

Any idea what the problem is? All my LPS are looking great and growing. Can't tell if it is too much/too little flow, light or anything.




Aquarium Parameters:
Time: 6 month old tank
Aquarium water volume: Waterbox 20 gallon cube (~17 gallons net)
Water: RODI with Red Sea Salt
Filtration type: Filter floss, 1 chemi-pure blue nano pack (just took out), ceramic media
Dosing: 1ml of all-for-reef per day (@ 4am)
Lighting: AI Prime

Water quality
Temperature: 77 F
pH: 8.2
Salinity: 1.026
Nitrate: <5ppm (API test so tough to tell)
Phosphorus: 0ppm (API test so tough to tell)
DKH: 8.2
Calcium: 440ppm
Mag: 1350ppm

 

[ReefKidDarian]

its prob getting ready to bleach or dieing.

 

[ckozma]

Think that is bleaching/death.

 

[lrosenberg5]

Think that is bleaching/death.

Anything I can do to stop it or is it too late? Also any idea why?

 

[Pistondog]

Is there polyp extension?

 

[lrosenberg5]

Is there polyp extension?

Yep, polyp extension on the green part. The small base that is purple-ish doesn't have any polyp extension anymore.

The top 80% of the frag looks normal

 

[Pistondog]

Yep, polyp extension on the green part. The small base that is purple-ish doesn't have any polyp extension anymore.

The top 80% of the frag looks normal

Get an icp test to verify element levels.

 

[Pistondog]

Certainly not too much light.

 

[Sshannon]

retest with a different kit for alk, calc and nitrate, or have a reputable LFS do it for you. if it gets really bad, you may have to frag what you can save above the tissue loss.

 

[lrosenberg5]

retest with a different kit for alk, calc and nitrate, or have a reputable LFS do it for you. if it gets really bad, you may have to frag what you can save above the tissue loss.

Just re-tested:

Calc:
Red Sea - 440
API - 420/440

Alk:
Hanna - 8.3
Salifert - 8.6-8.9

I only have the API nitrate kit which again came back at 0

 

[LuizW13]

Has your Nitrates and Phosphate always been at or near to zero?

 

[lrosenberg5]

Has your Nitrates and Phosphate always been at or near to zero?

Basically yes. I use the API test kits and nitrate has always been around 0-5ppm. Their phosphate test goes from 0ppm to 25ppm and that one has always been at zero

 

[LuizW13]

Basically yes. I use the API test kits and nitrate has always been around 0-5ppm. Their phosphate test goes from 0ppm to 25ppm and that one has always been at zero

I'd say that's the main issue. Corals need Nitrates and Phosphates in their environment.


Watch the presentation below

 

[Pistondog]

Basically yes. I use the API test kits and nitrate has always been around 0-5ppm. Their phosphate test goes from 0ppm to 25ppm and that one has always been at zero

That phosphate kit`s range is not useful for your tank. 0 is not 0 in that case. It might be 0.05, which is sufficient po4.

 

[lrosenberg5]

That phosphate kit`s range is not useful for your tank. 0 is not 0 in that case. It might be 0.05, which is sufficient po4.

For sure. Just ordered the Hanna phosphate ULR. Will come back in a few days once it gets here and let you know the reading.

 

[lrosenberg5]

That phosphate kit`s range is not useful for your tank. 0 is not 0 in that case. It might be 0.05, which is sufficient po4.

Hanna phosphate checker arrived. Came in at 0.05 so right where it should be. Any other ideas why i'm getting the purplish bleaching from the bottom of the coral? It's definitely gotten worse over the past few days

 

[adsf430]

Not sure but I have the same issue with my green slimer.

 

[lrosenberg5]

Update - the coloring fully receded from the plug. I tried fragging above where the healthy part started. Both pieces didn't make it

 

[LuizW13]

Update - the coloring fully receded from the plug. I tried fragging above where the healthy part started. Both pieces didn't make it

Shows how incredibly complex the biology of these animals are. I had a hard time with them too in the beginning.

 

[Dkmoo]

Have you measured the PAR levels where those 2 frags where? I would guess that for SPS, esp acros, 1 AI prime for a 20G box is not enough so would start there to make sure. With SPS you really need to have your PAR mapped so you know exactly where each par level is everywhere in your tank.

Keep in mind that the "advertised" PAR levels from the AI prime website is with all channels blasting 100%. Im not familiar with Putra setting but based on the pic it looks blue heavy so I'm guessing you dialed down the cool white, red and green by quite a bit. Every though the prime "overdrive" feature compensate it a bit, the par out put is still significantly reduced from the advertised max all channel levels.

As a point of reference, I have a 30G long, should be similar depth as yiur 20G box (36x12.5x16.5). In order to achieve 250 - 350PAR for the acros, i had ended up with 3 AI primes + 2 reefbrite 50/50s. Some of that is obviously due to the length and need to have even spread, but it gives you an idea of the kind of light it takes.

One other thing I could foresee with a mixed reef on a small box is that it will be an interesting challenge to have the wide range of pars needed thats suitable for every coral. Once you bring an area to 250 PAR + for the acros, the other areas may now be too high for your current corals so you will need to introduce shades and stuff and get creative with your light and rock work. For ex, for me, I basically made 2 of my prime on 1 side, 1 on the other, and created half a tank that's 250 - 400 bottom to top for my Acros, and the other half 50 to 250 bottom to top for the rest of my lower light corals.