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Author Topic: What eats purple stylophora?  (Read 4860 times)

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Offline Gary

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What eats purple stylophora?
« on: August 15, 2018, 13:38:29 »
Something has been eating my purple stylophora. Any ideas what it maybe? I will look closer at it tonight.
Thanks,
Gary

Offline SweetReefOH

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2018, 17:17:46 »
Do you have peppermint shrimp? I threw one in my tank last year and within 5 minutes he was ripping polyps out of my stylo.

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #2 on: August 15, 2018, 17:45:55 »
Looks more like stn or rtn to me.
Jeff

Offline joelbegt

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #3 on: August 15, 2018, 18:58:38 »
I have to agree with Jeff on it looking like rtn/stn

What fish do you have in the display?

Offline mtamorrow

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #4 on: August 15, 2018, 20:26:07 »
I can't help it!!!!!

Do you happen to have a...….one eyed one horned flying purple stylo eater in your tank?
It costs HOW much?!

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #5 on: August 15, 2018, 22:26:55 »
There are no shrimp, unless I want to feed them to the fish. LOL  Fish in the tank - yellow globe, wrasse (six line and hoeven), queen angel, copperband butterfly, blue chromis, blue tang, yellow tang, sailfin tang (Desjardini), royal gramma, longnose hawkfish, and tassle filefish. I'm still looking for the one eyed one horned flying purple stylo eater. He might be in a rock and roll band but he is rapidly running out of food here! Thanks all.

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2018, 22:59:25 »
Gary
  check your alk and salinity (with a calibrated refractometer).  I find sps are really affected by alk levels.  Reeferntaining has also recently found some issues with his salt.
Jeff

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #7 on: August 16, 2018, 10:10:41 »
Jeff,
Test equipment - Good
Alk test kit checks with in reason to another test kit.
Temp 78-79.5 F
SG goal is 1.025. SG increases slowly because of the dosing. Plan on doing a 20% change today. Alk goal is 9-10 dKh. Here are the alk test results.

7/30 Kh 11.8 dKh
8/2   Kh 11.8 dKh, SG1.024
8/5   Kh 11.8 dKh, Ca 480ppm, Dosers OFF (adjusted from 150 ml/day decreased to 140 ml/day)
8/6   PS cleaned, removed chaeto from refugium, added the more coral skeletons and removed the blue LED from rt end of refugium
8/8   Kh 10.4 dKh
8/11 Kh  8.7 dKh, Dosers ON
8/13 Kh  9.5 dKh
8/15 Kh  9.8 dKh
8/16 Kh 10.1 dKh, SG1.025, Plan to do 20% water change (match alk, temp, SG)

Thanks,
Gary

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #8 on: August 16, 2018, 12:14:29 »
The high alk probably did it. I personally don't like to go above 9 but others will run higher. At the high 11s you had most likely caused the burn.  I have read where it can be up to two weeks before you can see the effects of an event.  Be careful of the water changes at this point, many salts have high alk which wouldn't help your issue.  Sounds crazy but you can add muratic acid too lower your alk.
Jeff

Offline erky

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #9 on: August 16, 2018, 14:06:59 »
i have a billion lbs of it if you need some sooner than later.

check alk swings, tell us about your dosing plan?

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2018, 23:25:56 »
Jeff,
The doser is OFF and the tank ALK was at 10.1 dKh this morning. I will let the tank ALK decrease naturely to avoid shocks to the other tank inhabitants. On my water changes I match the Alk, SG, and temperature to avoid spikes in the tank stability.
Thanks,
Gary

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2018, 00:05:30 »
Erky,
Thanks for the offer and help! I have some but I don't want to shock the other tank mates. The dosers are off. I will monitor the chemistry more frequently to match the dosing to the usage. I have been interested in the ALK monitors and waiting for the technology to mature. You and Brian have been leading the way. Yours with the dosing improves the automation but calibration every two week is another item to add to the tank maintenance list.
Thanks again,
Gary

Offline erky

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2018, 09:29:56 »
Erky,
Thanks for the offer and help! I have some but I don't want to shock the other tank mates. The dosers are off. I will monitor the chemistry more frequently to match the dosing to the usage. I have been interested in the ALK monitors and waiting for the technology to mature. You and Brian have been leading the way. Yours with the dosing improves the automation but calibration every two week is another item to add to the tank maintenance list.
Thanks again,
Gary

calibration take about 5 minutes, much less time than doing alk test in that same amount of time.

I am working on a DIY reagent solution also.

If you care about your carals and want stability then i would suggest one. It is a steep buy-in currently, but worth the security in the long run.

I would like to have some members over if they wanted to check it out. send me a pm if you have questions.

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2018, 14:32:26 »
How does it notify you that it needs calibrated? Message, beeping, or does it stop functioning? 5 minutes isn't bad.

Are the DIY reagent solution considerably cheaper?

The fish and coral care take up a lot of time (just ask my significant other). There are a lot of swamps to drain and ALK is just one of them. I'm still looking at the  maturity, cost, reliability, maintenance, and availability. Stability of Alk is definitely a big plus. I intend to pick one up, but when do I buy in? availability has been a problem.

I would definitely like to see it first hand and we can set a member visit up. Just let me know when it would be convenient.

Thanks,
Gary

Offline SweetReefOH

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2018, 19:34:21 »
If you’re already running an apex and currently dose 2 part, the poor mans solution to alk stability is the DOS doser.  You have to spend a considerable amount of time setting up/testing when you first get it,  but after you get the initial set up dialed in, just open your phone and add a mL or two and you’re back on point.

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2018, 23:02:18 »
I'm planning to take the current BRS dosers off of timers and drive them from the Apex (easy to adjust and program). I was looking at the DOS to do automatic water changes. What do you think of DOS as a Water changer? Do you like the DOS and have you had any issues? I just saw that Neptune has the TRIDENT (CAL, ALK, MAG) MONITORING SYSTEM coming out soon too. More automation!

Offline SweetReefOH

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What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #16 on: August 18, 2018, 09:08:30 »
It works as a water changer. I’ve seen and read a lot of people using it as such. I personally would not trust anything to do my water change like that. But I’m a control freak lol. I love the DOS. I love the interface in Fusion and the “time blocks” you create to dose a certain volume. Fusion automatically calculates it. I’ve been running it for a year and have only calibrated it once during initial setup. The only issue is it can be a little loud when it kicks on. Small price to pay for the convenience.

Looking forward to the trident, but I’ll probably wait a while until the bugs are worked out.

I'm planning to take the current BRS dosers off of timers and drive them from the Apex (easy to adjust and program). I was looking at the DOS to do automatic water changes. What do you think of DOS as a Water changer? Do you like the DOS and have you had any issues? I just saw that Neptune has the TRIDENT (CAL, ALK, MAG) MONITORING SYSTEM coming out soon too. More automation!
« Last Edit: August 18, 2018, 09:22:59 by Reeferntraining »

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #17 on: August 18, 2018, 20:47:41 »
[quote author=Reeferntraining link=topic=22326.msg183914#msg183914 date=1534597710

Looking forward to the trident, but I’ll probably wait a while until the bugs are worked out.

[/quote]
And hopefully the price will come down.
Jeff

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #18 on: August 28, 2018, 20:57:39 »
Alkalinity has been in 8.8 to 9.1 dkh for a while.  I did a 50 gallon water change 8/22. The recession has slowed or hopefully stopped. I did frag a piece which is doing well on the other side of the tank, but it did loose a small portion of one tip. I think things are looking up!

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #19 on: August 28, 2018, 21:32:11 »
Not to be a bearer of bad news but you might as well cut what is still alive off and start again with the pieces.  Extra frags to sell at swap.  The dead lower part will most likely never encrust back over and will never look good like it did.  starting fresh it will encrust back to the rock it is mounted to and start the colony over again and look good from the bottom up.
Jeff

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #20 on: August 29, 2018, 08:44:31 »
Jeff,
Thanks. I will have to start cutting and gluing. Is now as good a time or should I wait another week or two so as to avoid another shock during recovery? My  plan is to pickup a Neptune DOS and use it for auto water changes. I dread doing water changes and this should improve stability.
Thanks,
Gary

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #21 on: August 29, 2018, 09:29:25 »
Actually a lot of people start fragging a coral if it starts to stn trying to save what they can. I have found that fragging while the main colony is going through stn won't help much, seems the frags will continue the stn. If it has stopped with the stn you are good to start cutting. If the main colony has quit the stn most likely the stressor that caused it all is over and hopefully you should be good.
Jeff

Offline Gary

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #22 on: August 29, 2018, 14:29:39 »
Jeff,
Okay. I will monitor it  for another week and then frag some. I think the stn has stopped but with the delayed response is difficult to predict looming disasters. Hopefully we are moving toward more stability. Automation maybe able to counter some of the ADD?
Thanks,
Gary

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: What eats purple stylophora?
« Reply #23 on: August 29, 2018, 17:56:08 »
Most corals will grow back over their skeleton but it would have to be clean of all algea which is next to impossible. I have had corals regrow like that but as soon as they hit a patch of algea they start to encrust outwards and not down.  If you wouldn't frag it you would always have a nice branch of coral growing out from a dead Skelton so in the long term it will look a lot better to just start over with your largest piece and frag out the rest.
Jeff

 

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