Pale Acros

[Brian’sBrain]

This tank was rebooted and started cycling September in a stock tank and the tank itself restated late December, so a new tank. Some of the rock from another tank I have and the previous tank were used. I threw in a bunch of lps and hardy sps on day one in December and all was well.

I added hardier acros to this tank maybe a month after to see what would happen. (Green slimer, pc rainbow, Oregon tort, yellow tip, hawkins, red dragon) Over the past month, they lost color and went pale. With the exception of red dragon and hawkins. All other sps is fine.

I’ve associated pale acros to low nutrients and high light. But could I not have enough light? Just thought it was interesting that the lower light acros and other sps are maintaining color.

checked yesterday
KH 8.1 -monitor daily and it’s been +\- .3dkh
Ca 420
Mg 1400
No3 10.3
PO4 0.03
Salinity 35ppt

I only run filter floss, a skimmer and a CO2 scrubber.
My radions are only Running 30%. Waiting for pogee to get back to me about my par meter.

I could removed these frags and put them back into the tank they came from where they were doing well and wait a few more months

 

[Dom]

Agreed. Put them back where they were happy and thriving. Then, test your parameters in the tank they came from. Your goal is to get the parameters as close to a match as possible.

Specifically, I'd match salinity and temperature.

Remember, while the hobby has general water chemistry parameters that are "good", each tank has its own needs. As an example, in a fish-only tank (no corals), things like calcium are less important.

 

[Brian’sBrain]

Yea I’ll probably be putting them back. Thought it would’ve been fine. The other tank is a 60 cube with only 1 g5 xr15 running the same spectrum but is at 70%. Same temp, salinity, light/flow schedule, filtration, nutrients, chemistry, so I thought it would be fine

 

[dadnjesse]

I'm guessing XR15's at 30% is less par than you think.

 

[Lavey29]

XR15s and very weak in par. I run mine at 100% intensity with great mixed reef results on 36x22x22 tank with 2 gen 5 lights.

 

[Brian’sBrain]

Thanks. I think I’ll move some of the frags over to my other tank and start ramping up the light. Hopefully my par meter issue gets figured out soon

 

[Uncle99]

A couple seem to be near a torch.
However pics can be deceiving.

 

[Brian’sBrain]

The acros are a decent distance from the torches and anemone

 

[Brian’sBrain]

I moved some of the corals to my other tank a couple weeks ago were they started to color back up. It’s just the acropora and anacropora that paled out.

From the tank the corals went pale/bleached, I took par measurements and I was only getting 180-220 umol at 50% radion intensity. The holding tank they came from were only 130-150 umol with a radion xr15 on the frag rack, but they remain colorful and healthy in there.

I wouldn’t think that’s a significant difference to cause light shock right, especially being low par for acros? So something else. I was looking at maybe a trident to test and get a trend especially of KH because I’ve had issue of burnt tips before the reboot and now still.

still testing and not seeing anything crazy. I’ll test again today

 

[FlowGod]

I moved some of the corals to my other tank a couple weeks ago were they started to color back up. It’s just the acropora and anacropora that paled out.

From the tank the corals went pale/bleached, I took par measurements and I was only getting 180-220 umol at 50% radion intensity. The holding tank they came from were only 130-150 umol with a radion xr15 on the frag rack, but they remain colorful and healthy in there.

I wouldn’t think that’s a significant difference to cause light shock right, especially being low par for acros? So something else. I was looking at maybe a trident to test and get a trend especially of KH because I’ve had issue of burnt tips before the reboot and now still.

still testing and not seeing anything crazy. I’ll test again today

What is your ph range? Also, how are you testing your Nitrates and Phosphates?

 

[Brian’sBrain]

What is your ph range? Also, how are you testing your Nitrates and Phosphates?

I use Hanna for nitrate and phosphate. The graph for phosphate and nitrate are shortened to reflect only the reboot testing. I haven’t tested yet today but will update

 

[Brian’sBrain]

My graphs also fo KH, ca, mg
Hanna for Kh, Red Sea for ca and mg

 

[FlowGod]

I use Hanna for nitrate and phosphate. The graph for phosphate and nitrate are shortened to reflect only the reboot testing. I haven’t tested yet today but will update

View attachment 3063123View attachment 3063130View attachment 3063131

Hmm, looks fine to me. I have a hard time testing and getting accurate nitrates and phosphates results, but I don't have much experience with the hanna checkers. I started spot feeding my acros everyday and they are really coloring up nicely. Maybe your ratio of light intensity to nutrients isnt where those acros like it.

 

[Brian’sBrain]

Hmm, looks fine to me. I have a hard time testing and getting accurate nitrates and phosphates results, but I don't have much experience with the hanna checkers. I started spot feeding my acros everyday and they are really coloring up nicely. Maybe your ratio of light intensity to nutrients isnt where those acros like it.

My other tank I mentioned previously runs very low nutrients despite have no filtration other than filter floss. Nutrients on that tank read 0-5 nitrate and 0-0.03 phosphate, but the par is very low for acros. However, acro frags seem to grow very slow in there, but seem healthy and colorful. Maybe that’s why they’re doing ok in there. Low nutrients and low par.

Makes me wonder how people grew acros with zeovit tanks with no nutrients, metal halides baking, and not killing them. Acros make this hobby confusing lol

 

[FlowGod]

My other tank I mentioned previously runs very low nutrients despite have no filtration other than filter floss. Nutrients on that tank read 0-5 nitrate and 0-0.03 phosphate, but the par is very low for acros. However, acro frags seem to grow very slow in there, but seem healthy and colorful. Maybe that’s why they’re doing ok in there. Low nutrients and low par.

Makes me wonder how people grew acros with zeovit tanks with no nutrients, metal halides baking, and not killing them. Acros make this hobby confusing lol

Acros are confusing. Its almost like the more the learn the more confusing things can get. But from my experience low nutrients and really high light are no good. Maybe try spot feeding the acros a bit if you got them under the higher lighting?

 

[coral reeftank]

That anemone might be your culprit. In the past I had a similar issue. Previously, the tank was flourishing and my acros were super colored up and growing great, then I added a CSB nem.

Things were ok for a bit, but once the nem started to grow and split multiple times thats when I noticed my acros starting to decline rapidly. I could not keep a single sps in that system alive, even easy sps like an orange setosa. Nothing would thrive.

Eventually, I transferred all the nems into their own dedicated tank, did a large water change, and new carbon, then voilà! I added in sps again and they flourished!

In my experience, I would not recommend keeping anemones with sps unless you have a very large water volume or run carbon religiously. I just think that the chemical warfare from the anemones is just too much for most sps to tolerate. We also have to keep in mind where these organisms originate from in the wild and take into consideration the ecological make up of these environments. That’s why people say keeping a mixed reef is the hardest!

In this hobby we just have to be proactive and make compromises on what we stock our systems with. We can’t keep everything happy all the time, but it’s hard to pick and choose sometimes. But I guess that’s what makes the hobby so addicting and challenging!

 

[Brian’sBrain]

That anemone might be your culprit. In the past I had a similar issue. Previously, the tank was flourishing and my acros were super colored up and growing great, then I added a CSB nem.

Things were ok for a bit, but once the nem started to grow and split multiple times thats when I noticed my acros starting to decline rapidly. I could not keep a single sps in that system alive, even easy sps like an orange setosa. Nothing would thrive.

Eventually, I transferred all the nems into their own dedicated tank, did a large water change, and new carbon, then voilà! I added in sps again and they flourished!

In my experience, I would not recommend keeping anemones with sps unless you have a very large water volume or run carbon religiously. I just think that the chemical warfare from the anemones is just too much for most sps to tolerate. We also have to keep in mind where these organisms originate from in the wild and take into consideration the ecological make up of these environments. That’s why people say keeping a mixed reef is the hardest!

In this hobby we just have to be proactive and make compromises on what we stock our systems with. We can’t keep everything happy all the time, but it’s hard to pick and choose sometimes. But I guess that’s what makes the hobby so addicting and challenging!

Interesting! I had regular rainbow bta that split like rabbits previously. Sps grew well, colorful, and healthy when they were small and I only had one or two.

When I look at my pictures, sps started dying off when I had a large number of them (like 12) a couple years ago. Idk if that’s a coincidence or not. I then got rid of the rainbow bta and got the chsb and it’s grown huge. Maybe almost the size of a basketball, but has never split.

I’ve been contemplating rehoming simply because it’s so large and takes up a ton of space, but that’s more a reason to

 

[coral reeftank]

Interesting! I had regular rainbow bta that split like rabbits previously. Sps grew well, colorful, and healthy when they were small and I only had one or two.

When I look at my pictures, sps started dying off when I had a large number of them (like 12) a couple years ago. Idk if that’s a coincidence or not. I then got rid of the rainbow bta and got the chsb and it’s grown huge. Maybe almost the size of a basketball, but has never split.

I’ve been contemplating rehoming simply because it’s so large and takes up a ton of space, but that’s more a reason to

Yea, I didn’t notice a steady decline until I had a large biomass of anemones as well. When the system was at it’s worst I had about 5-7 large CSB nems. You might be able to eek your way through with a smaller new but once you get a large nem or when they start splitting a lot, that’s when things go South.

 

[coral reeftank]

I would definitely recommend you rehome the anemone, but that can be hard since they’re also just so darn cool!

 

[Brian’sBrain]

I would definitely recommend you rehome the anemone, but that can be hard since they’re also just so darn cool!

It is. It’s always the thing people point out because it’s so large and bright. But this tank was set up to be sps dominate being bare bottom, short aquascape, and lots of flow/light. I’ll probably look to rehome for this reason and the fact it takes up like 15% of the rock space