SuncrestReef Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Over the past few days some of my LPS corals have been losing tissue. It started about a week ago with a favia, then my large acan colony, and now my plate coral. I monitor my parameters carefully and the only thing that has changed is phosphate. I've been working to reduce phosphate over the past several weeks to combat a few patches of stubborn algae, and now for the past week or so my PO4 has been consistently around 0.01 - 0.02 ppm. In the past it was between 0.05 - 0.10 ppm: Is it possible this reduction in PO4 could be the cause? I could easily bring the levels back up to where they were before. There has been no other change in lighting or flow, and these corals had been healthy for many months until this week. All of my other LPS (hammers, duncans, gonioporas, lobos, etc.) and SPS seem to be doing fine. I spot feed all my corals Reef Roids twice per week. My parameters are: Temp = 78 Salinity = 1.026 pH = 8.1 - 8.35 Alk = 8.20 dKH Cal = 420 ppm Mag = 1360 ppm PO4 = 0.01 - 0.02 ppm NO3 = 4 - 8 ppm Thoughts? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The ReefBox Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 John those look like “sting” marks is anything touching Them? Or could have fallen into? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 1 hour ago, viper55 said: John those look like “sting” marks is anything touching Them? Or could have fallen into? No, none of these corals are within reach of any other corals. I feed them at night, so I'm frequently observing them after lights out and know how far sweeper tentacles can reach, and these are all safe from neighbors. There are no corals that could fall on them either. All 3 have started showing problems within days of each other, and they're at opposite ends and the middle of the tank, so it's not isolated to one area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorge Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Yes to Po4 dropping too quickly. Coral are made up of algae as well. What did you use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 1 minute ago, Jorge said: Yes to Po4 dropping too quickly. Coral are made up of algae as well. What did you use? I've been running GFO for a year, but recently turned up the flow through GFO reactor by about 25%, and started running my refugium lights 24/7 to increase chaeto growth. No additives. If I just turn down the GFO and revert back to 12 hour refugium lighting, I'm sure my PO4 will bounce back due to fish feeding and Reef Roids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorge Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 They could potentially adapt to lower levels of phosphate. I believe dropping po4 levels has a similar effect like all of a sudden running carbon. Light penetrates deeper and par levels increase from clearer water. I will say that it looks a bit like jelly on the plate coral. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Sorry to hear that, good advice in this thread. The only thing I could toss out (unlikely) is to question if you have coral nippers. I doubt it based on the pattern, but throwing ideas out because TN stinks! Good luck, post back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 2 minutes ago, TheClark said: Sorry to hear that, good advice in this thread. The only thing I could toss out (unlikely) is to question if you have coral nippers. I doubt it based on the pattern, but throwing ideas out because TN stinks! Good luck, post back! None of my fish or inverts have nipped on corals in the past, and I haven't added any new livestock in the past 6 months. Since I'm retired, I'm looking at my tank very frequently at all hours of the day so I'm pretty in touch with behaviors in my tank and I doubt they're nipping behind my back. 😊 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 1 hour ago, SuncrestReef said: None of my fish or inverts have nipped on corals in the past, and I haven't added any new livestock in the past 6 months. Since I'm retired, I'm looking at my tank very frequently at all hours of the day so I'm pretty in touch with behaviors in my tank and I doubt they're nipping behind my back. 😊 No nanny cam required! Good luck, I hope you get it sorted out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xmas_one Posted July 17, 2019 Share Posted July 17, 2019 Running gfo and chaeto? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted July 17, 2019 Author Share Posted July 17, 2019 19 minutes ago, xmas_one said: Running gfo and chaeto? Yes. I have a small 3.5 gallon refugium (originally the ATO reservoir) with chaeto, but it’s not enough to keep PO4 down to acceptable levels on its own, so I also have a GFO reactor. I started my tank with dry Pukani rock and my PO4 levels were extremely high (over 1.5 ppm) for the first month or so, but the combination of chaeto and GFO brought it down to 0.1 ppm. Just recently I increased the GFO flow and ran the chaeto lights 24/7 to further reduce PO4 to 0.01-0.02 ppm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxkenny90xx Posted July 18, 2019 Share Posted July 18, 2019 (edited) I agree it's most likely the reduced phosphate (you have to do it very slowly). Any reason you wanted your Po4 levels lowered (algae issues)? Imo if your corals were happy before, no need to make any changes (chasing #s always causes me problems). Edited July 18, 2019 by xxkenny90xx 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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