Overnight loss of tissue

[earwicker7]

For the last two days, there has been a loss of tissue on a montipora verricosa frag of mine. The tissue is loose at the tips, seems to blow off soon after the lights go on, and seems to be mostly regrown by the time lights are about to go out. I haven't changed my dosage lately, (I'm 37 days in) but I did have to remove my carbon just before the frag arrived to treat the tank for ich (not with copper, but Ich Attack). Now that the ich is gone, I tossed the carbon back in about 5 days ago. I don't know if possibly the change from lots of ich medicine to none is enough of a change in the water quality or maybe going from no carbon to carbon was just a shock on a new frag. Should I just lower my dosage or stop the zeostart altogether for a couple of days?

[Aged Salt]

Hi, I've never used that product, but suspect if everything was fine with your corals before it's use, then that's the culprit. I would recommend using fresh carbon, while holding all zeo-dosing for 3 days, then proceed as before, Bob

[invincible569]

You may also want to test out all parameters.. Salinity, Alk, Mg, etc. Make sure they are in check. Any temps swings?

[earwicker7]

All of the above parameters are fine, and I've got a chiller, so it stays 76-78 degrees constantly. I'll go ahead and stop dosing for a few days and hope it gets better. Thanks for the help.

[Aged Salt]

If the tissue loss is from the tops, try also lowering the coraldown in your reefscape, if possible. Bob

[invincible569]

reclibrate your refractometer or borrow someone else's just in case. You can never be too sure.

[earwicker7]

I think I'll probably lower the frag, as the tissue loss is from the top. It's still weird though, because I placed the frag where it is now as soon as I got it, and it was fine for the first couple of weeks.

I also went back and rechecked my alkalinity, and it had slipped a little, from 9.9 to about 9.5. I know that's higher than where it should be for the zeovit system, so I've been trying to lower it slowly, but now I think I'm just going to keep it where it is until stage 3 so I don't change too much stuff at once. This change was over a period of about a week, would this cause tissue loss? So far, I've been pretty good at keeping it constant, just lowering it about 0.1 a week, but I'm not perfect and it looks like it went down too fast this time.

I'll also recalibrate my refractometer, although I think it's doing alright as it always reads 1.026 when I check the water in the tank.

[Aged Salt]

Hi, < .5 drop is not too fast, & I strongly urge you to continue the gradual drop down to KH-8. As your waters continue to be more nutrient deficit, the higher KH will impact your other corals even further. As Edward hinted, be sure your other parameters/salinity remains stable during the alk. reduction. Bob

[earwicker7]

So you really think it's a good idea to drop the nutrient levels and the alkalinity at the same time? I'm just worried that it's too much all at once given that sps corals need stable parameters. How does the higher alkalinity affect the corals? If it's just an issue of color, I'd rather lower one thing at a time, but if it could negatively affect the health of the corals, I'll take your advice and lower the alkalinity now.

[Aged Salt]

Tissue-tip loss is a classic sign of higher than 8 KH. In a lowering nutrient environment[ZEOvit], all elements/minerals must must be reduced, or tissue recession will occur. Higher KH also adversely affects the zeolite's biofilm formation, leading to increased release of elements/minerals from the stones, the exact mechanism is not known. For a time, coral growth is acclerated, then gradually, tissue-recession begins to crop-up. Always remember, with ZEOvit method the parameters are at NSW levels, & less quantities of the zeo-components are needed to further reduce the remaining depleting nutrients as time goes on. Bob

[earwicker7]

Ok, that makes sense. How quickly should I drop the alkalinity?

[Aged Salt]

One can reduce the KH very gradually from 9.5 --->8 over 10-14 days, w/o a problem while maintaing Ca>420-440/Mg 1200-1350 & stable salinity. Bob

[earwicker7]

Alright, sounds like a plan. Thanks for all the help.

[femunu]

So dKH is the culprit which I am fighting with huh? Thanks for the advice. Just checked, my dKH is 12.5��. U guys saved me from a heart attack.. Thanks