Xmas Favia problem - Help

[kirkwood]

I bought a healthy xmas favia frag at least over a year ago and it encrusted itself into my rock.. About 3 months ago I noticed the first sign of a brown patch on the coral.. The first picture shows the healthy coral with the yellow circle around the brown patch.. Over the last 3 months that brown patch has spread, basically devouring all the turquoise walls between each head.. The next picture shows how it looks today.. Worthy of noting is that the dead patches only exist on the surface of the coral and not the sides where it has encrusted downwards... I have viewed the coral at night with a flashlight and I never see any nuisance pests damaging it or any tentacles from neighboring corals (of which there really isn't anything that could do much damage to it in the general vicinity)

My question is whether anyone thinks the look of this coral could be due to insufficient Calcium??? I will explain now why that is my guess... My current water params are 1.0255 salinity, 8.1 ph, 8 dKH, 1350 Mag, 0 Nitrates... It is a 60 gallon system and I do about a 5% water change each week...Just about the time I noticed the problem with the favia was when I began testing my alkalinity, which I wasn't too knowledgeable about and making sure that I kept it in the 7 - 10 dKH range... It was much lower than that for years, probably about 5dKH or lower... I believe that once I corrected the alkalinity that this then "unlocked" the calcium in the tank... I added a birds nest frag about 8 months ago and that has grown into a large colony that I have fragged 4 times due to size... I believe that the birds nest is sucking up a lot of the available calcium in the system.. I did go to Pure Reef up in Alpharetta a couple weeks ago and they tested my calcium at 250.. When I asked Chris over at Einstein Aquatic about that reading he thought it was a bad test and that if my calcium was that low that things would be dead in my tank... I just got some Aquavitro "Calcification" to use alongside my buffer Aquavitro "8.4", and am hoping this can save the Xmas favia... after all, it is Xmas:yes:

any help is appreciate..

 

[jennm]

Do you feed it, or your corals in general? It looks "thin" to me.

Jenn

 

[kirkwood]

Jenn,

Good point. What type of food would you recommend for favia?? I had stopped feeding to corals probably about 6-8 months ago as I just assumed they would survive through photosynthesis and whatever was left over after the fish fed... Although 2 weeks ago I purchased a bottle of Phyto from Pure Reef in Alpharetta and began feeding that and immediately my acan puffed up as well as my candy cane... they looked much better.. I'm also feeding cyclopeeze a couple times a week for fish and I also have Kent Marine Microvert which I'm not sure if I need to use if I'm using Phyto... But perhaps you're right that it was a feeding issue...

If so, do you think it will recover if I maintain my current feeding?

 

[jennm]

Sounds like you're using a good mix of stuff. I'd try target feeding a bit - that way you don't have to put extra food (= extra waste) into the water, but try to get it more to that colony when its feeder tentacles are open. Try using a turkey baster to aim food at it and see what it responds best to.

I don't know if it will recover or not - I've seen stuff in better shape not make it and stuff that I thought was done, bounce back.

Jenn

 

[dakota9]

Hi Jenn,

The feeder that I purchased from your store works much better than a baster, and as little as it cost, you're much better off. It has a smaller opening than a baster for pinpoint accuracy. Every reefer should have one and I use mine daily!

Thanks!

 

[crewdawg1981]

Hmmm... my xmas favia has thrived in all sorts of environments and I've only fed it to help it recover from being picked on by a hippo tang.

Is it under too much light?

 

[kirkwood]

i really doubt its under too much light, as it had thrived at the current location with the current lighting in the past... i have a 55 gallon and running 220 watts T5 and it is placed just below the mid level of the tank.. I have fire/ice war corals placed higher in the system that are doing fine...

so nobody thinks this could be calcium related? the only thing that changed in the system since the xmas favia began taking a turn for the worse is the addition of some sps corals, specifically a blue/green birdsnest that has grown exponentially and i've cut off 5 frags... so i know there has got to be less calcium available to all other corals...