bdhough
Active Member
As you can see from the pictures i have an acropora species growing in my 20 gallon tank. I moved it to its current spot about 3 weeks ago and ever since then it has been slowly deteriorating. It looks like its bleaching but i am not certain. I am certain its getting worse whatever is happening. I had to move it there because the montipora capricornus was getting to big as well as the hammer coral (second bottom left). I've heard of chem warfare and the acro is "downwind" of the seriatopora in the middle and the montipora digitata in front of it is about 2 inches at its closest. But its been close to the other SPS's before.
The only thing i can think of is that it doesn't like the water flow. That spot is probably the highest in the tank. Its below the outlet of a 106gph minifilter, roughly 6 inches from the lip and to add to that a rio 180 blows across the top of the water column at maybe 120 gph but its almost 2 feet away. But there again i've had it in a high flow area before and it used to open its polyps at night rather largely.
BACKROUND: I've had this little piece since July and it has grown fairly slowly because 1)I've only got pc's 2) I kept moving it around due to some other coral purchases which you can see in the pictures. (Please no lectures on the lights I know what im doing). I have not had any problems with the other corals and most everything grows rather well to my suprise as has this acro if not slowly. I use seachem reef advantage calcuim and their reef builder products along with occasional dosings of kents essentials and coralvite. I've backed off on the Microvert dosings the past couple of weeks and have not noticed much of a difference. I do feed daily, small amounts. I try to keep the calcium above 400 and alk at 10. Its hard to keep it stable at one number due to my current setup. Salinity is 1.025. PH is 8.1. I have no noticable nitrates.
So im stuck. Pics follow. Any ideas would be nice and what should I do with it?
The only thing i can think of is that it doesn't like the water flow. That spot is probably the highest in the tank. Its below the outlet of a 106gph minifilter, roughly 6 inches from the lip and to add to that a rio 180 blows across the top of the water column at maybe 120 gph but its almost 2 feet away. But there again i've had it in a high flow area before and it used to open its polyps at night rather largely.
BACKROUND: I've had this little piece since July and it has grown fairly slowly because 1)I've only got pc's 2) I kept moving it around due to some other coral purchases which you can see in the pictures. (Please no lectures on the lights I know what im doing). I have not had any problems with the other corals and most everything grows rather well to my suprise as has this acro if not slowly. I use seachem reef advantage calcuim and their reef builder products along with occasional dosings of kents essentials and coralvite. I've backed off on the Microvert dosings the past couple of weeks and have not noticed much of a difference. I do feed daily, small amounts. I try to keep the calcium above 400 and alk at 10. Its hard to keep it stable at one number due to my current setup. Salinity is 1.025. PH is 8.1. I have no noticable nitrates.
So im stuck. Pics follow. Any ideas would be nice and what should I do with it?
