bBurn18
Community Member
Hello
I have a 50 gallon IM lagoon aquarium running for 10 months. Before today the only acropora I have in my system is a Hawkins Echinata. I have it in lower light but it's growing slowly and has great color.
Today's measurements:
0.04 PO4 (unstable)
2 ppm nitrate (unstable)
8.1-8.4 pH (stable)
7.6 dkh (stable)
1.026 salinity (stable)
79 degrees F (stable)
380 ppm calcium (stable)
Fish/Inverts
Two clowns
Purple firefish
Springers Damsel (blue sapphire)
YW Goby
Vanderbilt Chromis
Pistol shrimp
Porcelain crab
14 days ago I received a shipment of 5 acro frags from TSA. All looked pretty good once they got into my tank (don't have a quarantine) but two looked just a bit upset (lighter/white) on the top of the main branch.
I let them chill on the sand for two days and then I placed them in their new homes at the top of the rockwork where par ranged from 200-300 with the intent to move up to the 300-400 range over time. TSA said they grow their frags in ~350 par.
On day 4 on the staghorn I noticed a bright white stringy filament coming from a polyp (Picture attached) but I didn't think anything of it at the time.
On day 9 of them being in my tank I noticed the alk was a little low so I moved it from 7.2 to 7.5 with soda ash.
Also on the same day, later in the afternoon I added AF life force mud like I do once a month. I started to notice, after the water cleared, some mucus on three of the acros in different parts of the rock work (different par and flow dynamics). Then upon closer inspection all three were showing the beginning of white tips at main branch.
I started measuring params and learned my PO4 was reading 0. So I immediately lowered my chaeto light schedule and now have been running at 0.03 to 0.05 ppm the last 5 days or so. The staghorn has gotten worse (more bleaching at the base and up top) and the other two seem to be staying the same with no additional bleaching but all three continue to expell mucus and that white filament.
Im not sure how long PO4 was reading zero. It could have been a few days. I had not had much success in growing chaeto (it's my only export method other than water changes) so I started adding chaeto grow and now it's growing like a weed. I didn't anticipate such a quick turn around and got lazy on my testing. But I know that when the acros arrived it was 0.03 ppm, so max would be 9 days.
The other two frags look great and unaffected by anything so far.
So the questions all revolve around what's going on and how to best move forward.
Im guessing the low PO4 along w shipping and acclimation stress is the main issue for these stress responses? Any other ideas? The dkh move was very small but could that have done something?
What I've done so far is lower the light by 10%, increased feeding frequency, lowered chaeto light schedule to 3 hours which has kept my PO4 stable the last 5 days.
The purple staghorn (currently doing the worst) seemed stressed when it arrived, evident by the white filament being expelled only a few days after arriving and the white tip upon arrival. Currently it's in the lowest par of the 5 and with the least flow.
I'm just trying to keep things stable right now and monitor.
One interesting thing I noticed today when I turned off all powerheads and pumps, the mucus and filament started to come out of two of the corals. Previously when I had them on I didn't see any. Could they be in too much flow?
Thanks so much for your insights.
The photos have been taken over a four day period. The darker one of the purple staghorn was on day 4 when it first showed the white filament.
I have a 50 gallon IM lagoon aquarium running for 10 months. Before today the only acropora I have in my system is a Hawkins Echinata. I have it in lower light but it's growing slowly and has great color.
Today's measurements:
0.04 PO4 (unstable)
2 ppm nitrate (unstable)
8.1-8.4 pH (stable)
7.6 dkh (stable)
1.026 salinity (stable)
79 degrees F (stable)
380 ppm calcium (stable)
Fish/Inverts
Two clowns
Purple firefish
Springers Damsel (blue sapphire)
YW Goby
Vanderbilt Chromis
Pistol shrimp
Porcelain crab
14 days ago I received a shipment of 5 acro frags from TSA. All looked pretty good once they got into my tank (don't have a quarantine) but two looked just a bit upset (lighter/white) on the top of the main branch.
I let them chill on the sand for two days and then I placed them in their new homes at the top of the rockwork where par ranged from 200-300 with the intent to move up to the 300-400 range over time. TSA said they grow their frags in ~350 par.
On day 4 on the staghorn I noticed a bright white stringy filament coming from a polyp (Picture attached) but I didn't think anything of it at the time.
On day 9 of them being in my tank I noticed the alk was a little low so I moved it from 7.2 to 7.5 with soda ash.
Also on the same day, later in the afternoon I added AF life force mud like I do once a month. I started to notice, after the water cleared, some mucus on three of the acros in different parts of the rock work (different par and flow dynamics). Then upon closer inspection all three were showing the beginning of white tips at main branch.
I started measuring params and learned my PO4 was reading 0. So I immediately lowered my chaeto light schedule and now have been running at 0.03 to 0.05 ppm the last 5 days or so. The staghorn has gotten worse (more bleaching at the base and up top) and the other two seem to be staying the same with no additional bleaching but all three continue to expell mucus and that white filament.
Im not sure how long PO4 was reading zero. It could have been a few days. I had not had much success in growing chaeto (it's my only export method other than water changes) so I started adding chaeto grow and now it's growing like a weed. I didn't anticipate such a quick turn around and got lazy on my testing. But I know that when the acros arrived it was 0.03 ppm, so max would be 9 days.
The other two frags look great and unaffected by anything so far.
So the questions all revolve around what's going on and how to best move forward.
Im guessing the low PO4 along w shipping and acclimation stress is the main issue for these stress responses? Any other ideas? The dkh move was very small but could that have done something?
What I've done so far is lower the light by 10%, increased feeding frequency, lowered chaeto light schedule to 3 hours which has kept my PO4 stable the last 5 days.
The purple staghorn (currently doing the worst) seemed stressed when it arrived, evident by the white filament being expelled only a few days after arriving and the white tip upon arrival. Currently it's in the lowest par of the 5 and with the least flow.
I'm just trying to keep things stable right now and monitor.
One interesting thing I noticed today when I turned off all powerheads and pumps, the mucus and filament started to come out of two of the corals. Previously when I had them on I didn't see any. Could they be in too much flow?
Thanks so much for your insights.
The photos have been taken over a four day period. The darker one of the purple staghorn was on day 4 when it first showed the white filament.
