SPS Bleached

[daniella3d]

How come your alkalinity is so high? Are you dosing something for alkalinity? what type of salt are you using?

You just have to keep in mind that with very low level of nutriment it is a risk to have RTN or STN when you have such high alkalinity. It is not safe to keep your alkalinity so high.

First step is to raise your magnesium and calcium slowly, but don't dose anything for alkalinity until it drop lower. If you don't have much in coral it may take a while before your current alkalinity level drop.

But before buying any delicate SPS I would get these value: calcium 420, magnesium 1350, alkalinity 8. Then try to keep this stable and you will be fine.

Originally Posted by nanomano

so by raising my calcium my alk should go down? my wallet is tapped ATM but I got caclium/Mag buffer combined its by seachem.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

How come your alkalinity is so high? Are you dosing something for alkalinity? what type of salt are you using?

You just have to keep in mind that with very low level of nutriment it is a risk to have RTN or STN when you have such high alkalinity. It is not safe to keep your alkalinity so high.

.

It's high just for fun, as far as I can tell. It's always been high. I even run zeo and have very little nutrient. I supplement with a Ca reactor and use RBS salt. It's been like that for 16 months, so I'm not too worried about the perceived dangers of high alk. I did read on the Internet that it's bad, but you can't believe everything on the Internet. Nasty place, that Internet.
Only RTN I've had was yesterday, and that probably had a lot to do with the frag falling into my torch coral

[Myka]

Your tank is still in its infant days and so are you as far as reef keeping goes, so losing some SPS (especially stag-type) isn't unlikely. I think you should focus on the fact that you're able to keep Monti cap so far, and be happy about that achievement. Going from Montis to Birdnest would probably be a better way to progress rather than jumping straight to stags.

Btw, your nutrients are undetectable, but it depends on what type of test kits you are using. There are more sensitive kits out there particularly for phosphate (Elos has one, D-D Merck has one). What kits are you using? Low nutrients is not a problem for SPS, rather a good thing. Ultra low nutrients (aka ULN) could be an issue for some SPS (definitely an issue for LPS and softies) and you actually can starve them, but you would need to be carbon dosing in order to achieve ultra low nutrients.

People commonly keep SPS in tanks with alkalinity ranging from 7-12 dKH, although 8-10 dKH is more common. Brad's a bit "abnormal" (hahahaha) at 14 dKH, but if he says that's where it likes to sit then sometimes it's not worth fighting things. Higher alkalinity has some bonuses, like helping to keep many algae at bay. Keep in mind though that calcium and alkalinity should compliment each other, so if alkalinity is high calcium should be high too. If you check the link in my signature that mentions parameters I posted a chart that explains the appropriate, complimenting levels.

As far as terminology goes, "bleaching" is usually a slow process where a color gets more and more pastel. RTN is rapid tissue necrosis which is something that usually happens overnight, and almost always starts at the base and goes up. If you catch RTN in the middle of the event you will see the skin falling off the coral in little pieces (sometimes fairly big pieces). STN is slow tissue necrosis which happens over several weeks or several months and can start at the base or the tips. You won't see the tissue falling off because it is going so slowly that the tissue just dissolves unnoticed.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

But before buying any delicate SPS I would get these value: calcium 420, magnesium 1350, alkalinity 8. Then try to keep this stable and you will be fine.

While I agree that these are wonderful numbers to GROW SPS, I don't think they're required to keep it alive as a freshly introduced frag. Maybe long term, the stress of not growing might tick it off a bit, but not bleach it in a couple of days.

Now, that being said, there's a lot of advantage in maintaining proper growing levels at all times. I would work on that routine before worrying about adding SPS.

[reefwars]

im not anal over my parameters these days the way i see it is all my corals are doing well both sps and lps , im doing regular water changes equipment is good so why fix it if its working well.

even with high " nutriments" my sps are doing well i would also second that it was prob a acclimation issue of just not taking the move well give it another try

[daniella3d]

huh...I was talking to nanomano, not to you. You know the risk of running with high alkalinity and low nutriment, then you do what you want

I know it's all over the net but I beleive it because I have very experienced people telling me about it and I do beleive them because some of them have 30 years of experience in saltwater and a lot of them with corals.

I also know a lot of people who did have RTN and STN all the time running alkalinity higher than 10 with low nutriment, and that resolved when they lower the alkalinity.

You might just be lucky It is a risk, so once people know about it, they do what they want.

Originally Posted by Aquattro

It's high just for fun, as far as I can tell. It's always been high. I even run zeo and have very little nutrient. I supplement with a Ca reactor and use RBS salt. It's been like that for 16 months, so I'm not too worried about the perceived dangers of high alk. I did read on the Internet that it's bad, but you can't believe everything on the Internet. Nasty place, that Internet.
Only RTN I've had was yesterday, and that probably had a lot to do with the frag falling into my torch coral

[Nano]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

huh...I was talking to nanomano, not to you. You know the risk of running with high alkalinity and low nutriment, then you do what you want

I know it's all over the net but I beleive it because I have very experienced people telling me about it and I do beleive them because some of them have 30 years of experience in saltwater and a lot of them with corals.

I also know a lot of people who did have RTN and STN all the time running alkalinity higher than 10 with low nutriment, and that resolved when they lower the alkalinity.

You might just be lucky It is a risk, so once people know about it, they do what they want.

wow I went to bed and you guys have taught me a lot here! not to sure why the alk is high, it always has been, with lower CA. hopefully it balances out

[MMAX]

Now now daniella, no need to get worked up.

[daniella3d]

Here is a thread on Reef Central where people discus the effect of high alkalinity with different setup. It is interesting to read about all these people experiences:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1297225

Originally Posted by nanomano

wow I went to bed and you guys have taught me a lot here! not to sure why the alk is high, it always has been, with lower CA. hopefully it balances out

[Myka]

Daniella is right about low nutrients and high alkalinity, but that is more of an issue with ultra low nutrients when carbon dosing. That's why you see Zeovit recommending 7 dKH.

For the newbies, carbon dosing is not the carbon you put in the filter.