My fruity pebbles is looking bad

[dball711]

I havent seen phosphate level listed. Also zero Nitrate is not good, nitrate is coral food.

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I agree Bobby, should really take all the parameters into consideration.

Charlieborg, I'm happy to send another frag your way but first lets eliminate a few possible reasons why it might be happening. Feel free to reach out directly to me, also let's keep this post going as it may be helpful to other that experience similar issues.
Dave

 

[jcook54]

It kinda looks like sting damage. I had something similar happen and my initial thought was monti nudis. (Once you have a history with those things, any white spot on a monti strikes fear in your heart.) In my case it ended up being an irrate candy cane that was sending out longer sweepers that I had ever seen. Was there anything even close that could have been sending out sweepers?

 

[dball711]

I forgot about Monti eating nudis, bet to do a dip and see if any come off.

 

[ActiveAngel]

It kinda looks like sting damage. I had something similar happen and my initial thought was monti nudis. (Once you have a history with those things, any white spot on a monti strikes fear in your heart.) In my case it ended up being an irrate candy cane that was sending out longer sweepers that I had ever seen. Was there anything even close that could have been sending out sweepers?

I agree; if not Monti Eating Nudis (or other pest), it definitely looks like sting damage.

It may be Alk, Salinity, or Temp. Those can kill coral quickly. It wouldn’t usually look like this, but it doesn’t hurt to cover your bases (which it seems you have). For salinity, use a refract and calibrate it. For temp, verify with a mercury based thermometer and ensure it’s stable throughout the day. For Alk, I like the approach of using 2 different brands of test kits, in case one is bad (for any reason).

High Lights would usually start the death near the top, not the edge; and corals often will become pale first... so possible, but slightly less likely.

I doubt it’s calc, nitrates, or phosphates (as long as you have at least some bio source in there such as fish). I know nitrates are a huge trend right now; but I’ve been running tanks with <0.1ppm nitrates and <0.01ppm phosphates for years and always had insane coral growth. Maybe growth would be faster if I had nitrates; but I never had corals die from it. Anytime I helped friends investigate why their corals were dying; there was always other issues that were significantly off.

I know it’s against popular opinion; but just my $0.02 based on my experience

 

[charlieborg]

How would I raise Nitrate?

 

[ActiveAngel]

How would I raise Nitrate?

You can turn off or reduce any protein skimmers, remove fast growing algae like Chaeto, add more fish, feed more often, feed more dirty, or you can dose sodium nitrate. Any of these will do great for raising nitrates.

Once again, I’d put money on nitrates not being your issue. But if you want to raise them, that’s how you can do it.

 

[charlieborg]

dipping it now.

 

[ActiveAngel]

Great photos; I stand more firmly that looks like pests or stings from another coral.

I don’t see any big Nudis. But those might be eggs that I see (which would infer possibly 1+ nudi). Do you have any coral dips?

 

[ActiveAngel]

Sorry; didn’t see the words.

follow the instructions on the bottle. Most coral dips won’t kill pests, but they will weaken them. And time is a bigger factor than strength; so go full recommended concentration but don’t leave the corals in it for too long. Also; most dips won’t kill eggs. So doing it twice with a couple days/weeks downtime is helpful to catch any newly hatched baby pests.

Nudies like to hide in cracks and on the underside of corals and plugs.

For example; I’ll put the corals in an appropriately strengthened mix of tank water and X drops of a given dip for about 5-7 minutes to weaken pests. After that, I use a pipette to gently blast the coral, being sure to get into all the cracks and anything that looks suspicious. Mosts pests won’t be able to hold on in their weakened state and will fly off. I will keep the frags in the dip for an additional 5-7 minutes as I blast away. Then promptly move them to a container of tank water for rinsing. I continue to blast and inspect in the rinse water during this time.

If nothing bad comes off during this, then they go to my QT system. After being in the QT for a couple weeks, if still healthy, I will do this again, transferring them to my main reef.
-
That said, it could still just be stings from a neighboring coral putting out sweepers.
Could you do a closer or higher quality photo?

 

[charlieborg]

My DH is 192

 

[charlieborg]

I'm thinking it got stung also. Thanks for all the help though .. I guess I was getting excited therefor a while!

 

[ActiveAngel]

My DH is 192

You’re welcome; anytime.

I’m not sure what you mean by DH, and it being 192.

 

[bhodges82]

Now I can see it better without the blue light, it does appear to have been chewed on by something, or burnt maybe.

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[bhodges82]

Did you blow it off with a turkey baster to see if any thing came off when you dipped it?

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