Losing birdsnests and a few others.

[gradth]

So I have not been around much lately, holidays, work, everything. But over the last month I have almost completly lost my neon green and purple birdsnests that I was so proud of. Almost a complete set of white skeletons.

 

I have tested every test I have, nothing is out of whack. Did a hefty water change last week. No it seems a few of my montis are losing color, not really dying but not bright anymore.

 

Im starting to think it might be the cheap bulbs I bought. Running 3 250watt hallides. About 6 months ago I replaced the bulbs with the ebay ones that were 20 bucks a piece. More of a test than anything. Well up until about 2 months ago all my corals responded really well, gots tons of growth. So I guess my question would be, will lights falling off that quick kill sps?

 

Also, if the corals respond well to new cheap bulbs, is it better to just replace the cheap bulbs more often or fork out the 180-200 bucks for bulbs that are better but only last 9-12 months. Seems like kinda a wash to me. Do ushios and the other name brand fall off so quickly?

 

Like to get some solid input on this. I got to spring for some bulbs soon and I want to try and not lose any thing else.

[reefboy]

my b-nest were receding as were other sps come to find out it was low calcium and ph as my test kits were old and not testing correctly you may want to have a friend test or take to a store to make sure your test are correct and did you test for phos? inmy OP lighting will just brown out corals not kill them when they get old.

[JonBoy]

I had birdsnest problems and my KH was at 5 learned that I have to dose daily now, I agree with jody to get a test from a different kit.

[NoobtoSalt]

I never bought any birdsnest from you but once you figure out what the problem is let me know and I can hook you up with a couple of small frags to get you started again.

[gradth]

Thanks folks, Ill see about retesting stuff, my calcium kit is pretty new. PH is not though.

 

Any thoughts on the light issue. Will light bulbs cause that are going bad do that?

[Emerald525]

Hey Josh, did the lights affect the temperature of your tank and put out more heat? I have seen that with cheaper bulbs. I'm not sure if a poor quality light would cause the demise of your sps alone but I have personally seen how rapid temperature fluctuations can make them RTN.

[reefboy]

in my 25+ years old bulbs only kill corals when they dont produce enough light or in a halides case if the outer glass is broken and corals are exposed to UV and in the case of being old it would take weeks for this to happen and you would notice color changes before they started to die.

[ReeFit]

sounds like lack of nutrients to me. your trace elements are probably gone, you may want to consider dosing something along with some food of some sort.

[gradth]

sounds like lack of nutrients to me. your trace elements are probably gone' date=' you may want to consider dosing something along with some food of some sort.[/quote']

 

Like what, been a while since I dosed Iodine, ran out and have not gotten anything. If nothing really has changed in what I do why would nutrients go away?

[reef165]

If you are doing reg water changes then I don't think that you need to worry about dosing iodine, I would look twards the low KH and ph, I lost several sps a couple monthes ago do to low KH, they just started turning white, in the morning it would look really faded almost white on the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of the coral and by night the bottom half would be just skeleton and the next morning more would be a whitish color and so on till the coral was dead.

[finch6013]

I agree with those that say get a test done with a new kit. Also if you were away from your tank for a while you probably fed your fish less. Causing less nutrients for the sps and same thing with not keeping up on water changes. It's the things we don't test for like trace elements and food source that will kill sps without warning. KH,PH and CA can be pretty out of wack as long as its not a quick decline. The big three being off usually results in poor color and growth, not death.

[Electrokate]

Bought some 14 or 15K (don't remember) "Plus" brand cheap ebay bulbs and had tons of problems. No money saved, had to go out and replace them a couple months later, they browned everything and nothing grew. But nothing died. That was probably 5 years ago and I don't know what you got but I'd say definitely read up before buying any bulbs, brand does matter. T5, LED etc they all vary significantly.

I might have missed it but did you say if you are losing the polyps gradually or within 24 hours? Do they bleach first or disappear entirely? Is this from the tips down or the base up?

I have some nocturnal snow white asterina starfish that eat Pocillopora, Stylophora and Seriatopora from the base up and in the morning you can see they hide pretty close to where they ate, in the shadows. Check for that if areas are denuded of flesh and the rest of the colony looks good.

If I have a lighting issue I usually lose the birdsnest from the tips down, with the polyps at or near the base surviving.

I also lost a bit of tissue once when I accidentally knocked the return line into a position where it was blasting the colony.

Kate

[Kimberlee]

gradth I have 1 of those purple birds nest frags you were selling. I'd be more than happy to kick it back to you

[CCR]

Odd My 6" pink BN just turned white over night. Nothing else affective. Was able to save some of it, well 2 half in. pieces. Very frustrating indeed. Will be testing in a couple of minutes. Tank has been very stable. So this will be interesting.

[gradth]

I believe they were the plus brand off ebay. First few months I had a ton of growth on everything, then it started to slow.

 

nocturnal snow white asterina starfish that eat Pocillopora

I have a massive asterina population. My harlequin does a pretty good job but just in his area. Hes finally putting a dent in them.

 

they went from the base up and I did notice asterinas on them, but only after they started turning white. this was a slow death, not over nite. I have had a few frags go white over night in the past, this was not the case.

 

Tank has not been neglected in any way really, just kinda stopped obcessing about tanks and website. Feeding really has not changed much when it came to the fish. They all seem healthy. It is strickly related to birdsnest. My slimer is fine, a few millis that dont seem bothered, not growing a bunch, but not dying like the birdsnest. Every frag is either on its way to being dead or totally white. Only thing I really have not done is changed out my carbon in a month or so and ran out of iodine, which I used to dose about once a month.

 

Which leads me to think either a bug that just likes birdsnest or the lights.

 

I moved a few frags over to my 40 that had just barely started and they have died as well.

 

Kinda at a loss. Wondering if I should remove the birdsnest all together.

[ReeFit]

If it was lights or nutrients you would think your slimer would go first.

[Electrokate]

When the starfish ate mine it was from the base up where the polyps were shaded by the new growth thus already pretty pale. I try and remove any of those, but it's not the biggest deal since those shaded polyps were going to die anyways, but I don't want the stars out of control. It's always the bright white ones, not the green ones. The blue and lavender ones I have seen eat zoanthids but not sps.

The Plus bulbs were a problem for me, but who knows how much of a problem they would be this many years on.

I was thinking maybe you should also double check that your refractometer was calibrated, or if it is the plastic kind that it has no crusting inside and that it is accurate. The plastic one I have is consistent, not accurate, so I circled the 1.0255 spot as compared with a UW Med lab calibrated refractometer and for years it's been great, but til then I did not know it was off and lost a few SPS.

Also if you are using tap water where are you at? There was a problem in NE portland and in Bend recently with the tap water.

Kate

[gradth]

No im using RODI water, just replaced ro filter and the waters good.

 

I just might of found a small problem. Seems my skimmer was all gunked up and the pump mesh mod I had done a while back had lost most of the mesh. So I tore the skimmer all apart and replaced the mesh mod and no its back to skimming like mad.

 

Ill double check my calibration but I think its pretty on target. I also loss my hydropora(what ever its called). Now one of my encrusting montis are losing some color. I do think that is the light on that one.

[stylaster]

just saw this and have been having pretty much the same issue, lost about 90% of my sps and all my levels tested out fine, even got new kits to test! I also posted about my losses and what i did. I feel for ya, it really sucks!