SPS question
 

i'm having an issue lately of losing the tips on a handful of colonies and i have lost a couple pieces as well. there is no sign of any pests and have dipped like crazy and magnify glassed them all with no signs. one thing i did find is my CA is 500. has anyone heard of too high of CA causing these kinds of problems

That sounds similar to the problems I had back in Jan.
I never did find out what caused the problem but after going through 5 buckets of salt worth of water changes, the tank is recovering

*Edit* The only thing I can think of was the inteceptor treatment I did in dec., after the second treatment everything went down hill rapidly

I've had this kinda problem too. I found the best solution for me was to keep softies instead. Never happened again.

Colin,
What are you other parameters? Alk, Mag, PH, etc? What are you using for magnesium?

When the tips alone are effected, this is often caused by a K+ imbalance or a generally too low nutrient situation that is not being supplemented by AAs and other organics. This often happens with to aggressive carbon filtration, but an overly efficient nutrient removal system in general will do it too.


:idea: Check your Potassium level!! buy a Kalium test kit. It should be at around 380.

When the tips alone are effected, this is often caused by a K+ imbalance or a generally too low nutrient situation that is not being supplemented by AAs and other organics. This often happens with a too aggressive carbon filtration, but an overly efficient nutrient removal system in general will do it, too.


:idea: Check your Potassium level!! buy a Kalium test kit. It should be at around 380.

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...2/goodpost.gif

I agree that is a great place to start.

:mrgreen:

Interesting, I had this problem as well earlier this year. Just the tips were affected and I noticed on a couple of corals that I accidentally brushed up against that the tips were very crumbly not hard like they should have been. I also noticed that if I broke the tips off just to where the tissue was they'd heal up pretty quickly but then later on other ones would have the same issue. I can't remember what I chalked it up to at the time, low alk perhaps. Never thought of potassium but I think I might get a kit just to scope it out even though I'm not having the issues now.

I did add a bucket of Seachem into the mix at some point after this happened, maybe it has better K+ levels than IO on its own.

Seachem reef salt does have higher K+ than Instant Ocean. IME most peoples tanks are somewhat K+ deprived when using certain salts and nutrient reduction systems.

I highly recommend the KZ Kalium test kit even though it can be hard to read sometimes. Using ZEOvit Pohl's K-Balance STRONG Potassium is what I use to raise the potasium.