Help with sps!

[Emeraude1484]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

Yeah, that salinity is pretty low. Start bringing it up slowly with each water change.

I forgot to mention, if the birdsnest is still slowly dying, cut your losses (literally) and frag off all the good pieces and toss the rest. It'll regrow quickly. I find birdsnest to be sickness factories once they start going like this. I had a couple go and the others next to it went as well. Once I figured out to just frag it, all was well.

I brought up the salinity over 10 days with top off and water changes.
There isn't much left to save most pieces that come off are smaller than an inch of healthy tissue... Neither of the 2 colonies are being blasted by flow... I added a koralia at the complete opposite end of the tank trying to add flow but I can't see how to get flow through the colonies without blasting them.

[ScubaSteve]

From your picture it looks as though the colony was losing flesh from the inside out. Is this correct? Was the cyano there before or after the colony started to die?

If it was dying from the inside out, it's not getting enough flow. If it's outside in, then too much flow. I wouldn't worry too much about blasting it. It needs to be pretty intense for that. Once I figured out my birdsnest I started putting it about 8" from a hydor K3. That was the happiest colony I had... and it grew from a 1" frag from a dying colony to bigger than a melon in less than 6 months. So save a frag!

[Emeraude1484]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

From your picture it looks as though the colony was losing flesh from the inside out. Is this correct? Was the cyano there before or after the colony started to die?

If it was dying from the inside out, it's not getting enough flow. If it's outside in, then too much flow. I wouldn't worry too much about blasting it. It needs to be pretty intense for that. Once I figured out my birdsnest I started putting it about 8" from a hydor K3. That was the happiest colony I had... and it grew from a 1" frag from a dying colony to bigger than a melon in less than 6 months. So save a frag!

I'm pretty sure the cyano chokes the tissue. I'll try adding more flow. And ok I will!!!

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by Emeraude1484

I'm pretty sure the cyano chokes the tissue. I'll try adding more flow. And ok I will!!!

You don't necessarily need to add more flow (though I'm not sure what kind of flow you have), just tweak it. Move the power heads around around until you get a good flow pattern. Toss some food in the tank to see how the flow is moving around (your fish will love it!). I spent an hour doing the same last night and this morning one of my colonies that had been looking blah for months had crazy polyp extension! Just gotta find that sweet spot.

[Emeraude1484]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

You don't necessarily need to add more flow (though I'm not sure what kind of flow you have), just tweak it. Move the power heads around around until you get a good flow pattern. Toss some food in the tank to see how the flow is moving around (your fish will love it!). I spent an hour doing the same last night and this morning one of my colonies that had been looking blah for months had crazy polyp extension! Just gotta find that sweet spot.

I have the Mag 6 return and 2 koralia 550gph. One is essentially stuck on the back glass... Can't take the backing off, actually bent a scrapper trying.

[tang daddy]

The valonia algae can be taken care of from emerald crabs as I had the same issues as you about a few years ago, the cyano is abit of a battle, do more waterchanges and try to reduce feeding, you can also add bright wells (slowly) mb7 to help start another bacteria culture to out compete the cyano. I tried numerous approaches to rid cyano from sugar dosing which is a carbon source to manual removal. I finally caved and used medicine the cyano disappeared but the clams didn't like it and in turn lost all the clams as a result the tank turned into clam chowder and I lost 90% of my sps. $6000 in livestock down the drain.

Not trying to scare you but from experience will never use any Meds on my tank ever again. Try the filter sock and turkey baster technique to alleviate cyano or even adding mb7 which should out compete the bacteria.

Good luck!

[Emeraude1484]

Originally Posted by tang daddy

The valonia algae can be taken care of from emerald crabs as I had the same issues as you about a few years ago, the cyano is abit of a battle, do more waterchanges and try to reduce feeding, you can also add bright wells (slowly) mb7 to help start another bacteria culture to out compete the cyano. I tried numerous approaches to rid cyano from sugar dosing which is a carbon source to manual removal. I finally caved and used medicine the cyano disappeared but the clams didn't like it and in turn lost all the clams as a result the tank turned into clam chowder and I lost 90% of my sps. $6000 in livestock down the drain.

Not trying to scare you but from experience will never use any Meds on my tank ever again. Try the filter sock and turkey baster technique to alleviate cyano or even adding mb7 which should out compete the bacteria.

Good luck!

Every emerald crab died within a day for about a year, the LFS switched supplier and we now have 4 alive and well and chowing down the past month so the Valonia isn't really worrying me especially since I decided that scrapping the stuff off would probably not make things any worse than they already were. The cyano is better but I'll be doing another 3 days lights out in about 2 weeks to bring it down more. I'm doing about 15-20 gal wc weekly right now and that"s after blasting all the cyano off so I can siphon it out as well as as many bubble spores as I can get.
Thanks!