A reef in recovery: trying to save my sps tank

[adamt]

A reef in recovery: trying to save my sps tank (pics)

Hi guys, Ive been off the forum for a while, but im back with a vengeance lol. As some of you know the caulk on my 65 gallon deep blue tank failed and had to be replaced. The move was extrememly stressfull on me and my corals. After I set up the new tank I let the maintenance get away from me and I ended up with hair algae and lots of tissue loss. I recently got the hair algae under control and things were looking up so i decided to add some more corals. In doing so i caused a rock slide in my tank breaking off the tips off most of my corals in the process. I have redone all of the rock work and was able to save most of the corals. Ill post some pictures a little later on today. I dont think the tissue will ever grow back where it was lost on my corals, but the new growth is promising and the polyp extension is coming back strong.

Is there any special treatment or maintenance I should be doing to help the broken tips grow back? My tri color validia was hit hard and most of the tips were broken off. I am adding amino acids in hope that will help the corals rebound, but I would greatly appreciate some tips or advice from people who have gone through similiar issues...

thanks guys, pics in a bit!

 

[adamt]

the tps on this tri color took a beating

I lost alot of tissue on this millie but the new stuff on top is looking good

Same thing with this slimer

more broken tips on this birdsnest

the two below are new, can anyone tell me what they are?

full tank shot

Im kinda concerned now that I went from not enough light to too much, my ora red planets which used to be a nice deep red are growing like crazy but theyre light pink now. I have 312w of t5 over 65g tank, 3 aquablue specials and 5 blue+. I ordered some new bulbs and I think Im gonna switch to 6 blue+, 1 kz fiji purple, and 1 aquablue special. I know its gonna be really blue if its too much Ill swap out a blue + for an aquablue or a ge starcoat. Do yall think 8 bulbs is too much for a 65? i could easily take two of the bulbs away or swap them out for lower par bulbs like ati super actinics.

Im real discouraged with the condition of the corals, any advice would be greatly appreciated... oh the parameters:

sal. 1.025
ph 8.2-8.4
hardness 9
calcium 450
magnesium 1350

 

[CONSTANTNE]

If I were you just run carbon and some GFO. Do 10-15% water changes weekly. If you keep your parameters stable (temp, salinity, etc), then there shouldnt be a problem and everything will bounce back.

Also, you may want to consider breaking off the dead parts on the corals as they wont grow back. Also, with time any broken tips should grow back with no problem.

 

[NYreefNoob]

colors are gone from high phosphates, broken tips grow back, not to much light as your not running any higher amount of t5 then i am except my fixture is brighter, the higher the red planet the less red it will be and lose most of the green, the white coral is basically dead, and isa aussie piece forget the name i have it also, and seeing the amount of green on glass and algea on powerheads ur nutrients are to high

 

[adamt]

The white coral is brand new and was white when i got it (I was told it was some kind of deep water and the white was normal), I was a little worried that it was dead but the tips are blueing up and theres little fans that come out of the tips and move around till they grab something. There are some light brown spots on a few of the tips that got broken, but that piece came out pretty unscathed.

btw didnt mean to sound rude in the earlier post, Im just worried about my tank. The rocks falling over was really stressful for me, especially considering my track recordwith the leaky tank (thanks again for all your help reefnoob!)

 

[adamt]

if you look close you can see some of the feathery looking polyps

 

[CONSTANTNE]

if you look close you can see some of the feathery looking polyps

If you can see polyp extension at night when lights are off then its still alive.

 

[adamt]

I hope its not dead, it looked like when I bought it lol (its the one that went in after i finished fixing the rocks so it didnt even get messed up). It was white with blue tips when i got it, the guy fragged it right in front of me, he did a good job but it was dry for a little too long imo. It's sliming a little bit today but it does have some polyp extension and the tips are still blue. Ive got it at the bottom of the tank in moderate flow under the blue +'s

Looking at the pirctures it does just look like a skeleton though

 

[CONSTANTNE]

I have an idea of what it looked like. It can def still be alive so just hold onto it and see if the color comes back. Only time I see polyp extension on my enchinata is when the lights are completely off.

 

[adamt]

those little fans pop out of the tips of the coral every couple seconds, its sliming a little atm but it was fragged two days ago so I guess its understandable that its a little stressed

 

[adamt]

now is it cool to take that pink millie out of the water to cut the dead branches off or should I attempt to do it in the tank?

 

[JARRETT SHARK]

To me the pics look like the slimmer and milli look like the are Rtn or Stn from the base up. was this from the tank move??
You ever have red bugs or aefw because colors like very white and those are first signs of bugs and of losing color?

 

[prattreef]

Most of your stuff should recover. The "white" acro is alive but seriously bleached.It might recover, it might not, but there is no way it should have been sold to you like that.

 

[adamt]

Yeah the guys at the store where adamant about he fact that it was supposed to look like that,the corals they had there that i was familiar with all looked good so i really didnt have any reason not to trust what they were saying , but it is really white i prolly should have known better. The spots that are bleached out on the mille and slimer had macro algae growing on them which is why the tissue was lost originally, Ive looked at the corals with a magnifying glass and didnt see any bugs, I dip the corals before i add them and ive never seen red bugs in the dip after, but who knows. The flow rate in my tank was not adequate and I slacked off on maintenance for a while and I had a bloom of hair and macro algae. Ive gotten rid of 99% of it and ive increased the flow and starting using wave timer to get alternating current so there is constant back and forth movement across all of the corals. The millie has really responded to the increased flow but i want to remove the dead branches, is it cool to take it out of the water to do this or should i do it in the tank?

 

[adamt]

Another problem is the pictures Im taking, Ive tried adjusting the white balance but im def not photographer lol. My pictures all look really washed out, the colors are alot more vivid in real life. Like this millie is a gorgeous blueish purple but it just looks grey in the picture

 

[prattreef]

You can take it out of the water, just not for too long.

 

[NYreefNoob]

do believe the one is a echinata sp ? aussie piece, and is very tempermental, have tried it 3 times and the 4th has been a winner so far

 

[adamt]

Yeah i took it out and trimmed off the dead branches and any of the smaller ones with some tissue loss, so now all of the branches left have polyp extension and the tissue connects between all the branches.

Just going to continue testing the water every day and do a 15% water change weekly (I use oceanic salt now but I was thinking of switching to the esv salt). I added a pura pad which is supposed to remove phos amongst other things. Ill keep the parameters steady and hope for the best! Im gonna talk to the guy from the store about that white coral too, Im not sure itll do any good but he seems like a decent guy so ill give him a chance to do the right thing before i judge.

 

[adamt]

do believe the one is a echinata sp ? aussie piece, and is very tempermental, have tried it 3 times and the 4th has been a winner so far

The white one? some people where saying it might be turaki. Its not looking that great I think it was probably already stressed and suffering from color loss and fragging and moving probably put it over the top, it seems like its fading . They had a nice hawkins... shoulda grabbed that instead.

 

[NYreefNoob]

u using the bags from Al of oceanic ?