Green slimer help

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

Struggling to keep green slimer alive. Coral was very healthy when I got it about 3 weeks ago. First it browned a bit, then it started losing tissue. It starts to look better and then it browns and loses more tissue. Monti and birds nest seem to be doing just fine. I did have an alkalinity drop and I may have brought it back up a little too quickly. So do I attribute this as the cause and wait it out? Could it be the lighting? The piece is in a shallow tank under a kessil 160. I decreased and increased light but did not see any improvements. Is it pests? I included the other picture (sorry I forgot the name I was told) because it looks like something took a bite out of it. Tank has only two clowns and a peppermint shrimp. Tank parameters are alkalinity 9, pH 8.1, Calcium 390. Nitrates are near 0. Is it low nutrients?

Would appreciate any help.

 

[kabal2]

I hope it will recover, it happened to mine as well and I believe we got it from the same person, mine stopped stn and is recovering slowly

 

[amado]

You need to gets Par meter. You can rent one. You really need to know what par you have in different zones. If you will keep sps
You need to know the par they are sitting in. The kessil 160 has a very narrow light.
right under it the light might be 250 and 4” to the right the par might be 70-50.

I replaced my lights on my frag tank and I was shocked with the new numbers I was getting with the new light. Our eyes are not good judge of par. I would also make sure you don’t have any other corals attacking It.
and last what are you dipping your corals with ?

 

[MadReefer]

Calcium seems a bit low as well.

 

[iTzJu]

what is your po4 level?

i would focus on stability in the tank. seems like your seeing dips in alk which will affect sps if its consistently happening. the lighting might also be an issue if the 160 is dimmed too low however i find that green slimers are pretty hardy for sps, had one growing under a frag rack with little light but again the tank was rock stable.

 

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

I am working on bringing calcium up. Once calcium is 400, I plan to drip Kalk to maintain alk and calcium levels. I am thinking the piece ( a decent size) I added to the tank required more than I expected. Placement in this tank was supposed to be temporary. I do have a tank with better lighting. So I can move the piece but I am afraid this will just stress it more. I also have to rule out pests. I use Coral Rx for dipping. Is it time to try my hand at using Bayer? I am a believer in patience and getting things stabile but I also want to make sure I don't wait to long and lose it entirely.

 

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

Phosphate between .1 - .2 ppm.

 

[iTzJu]

your phosphates are pretty high imo. try dropping it (slowly) to around below. 1. in the range of .03 ~ .07

 

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

How small are nudibranchs if I have them? I don't see anything moving but this is getting worse. Green monti seems to be getting a white spot now.

 

[iTzJu]

only way to know is dip and then see what falls off. nudis also walk around at night. grab a flashlight at night and see if you can spot any.

I don't think it's pest, more like chemistry issues. just a suggestion too, you might wanna check if you have any magnets rusting out in your tank. weirdly those spots remind me of a time when one of my mp40 magents rasted out and started effecting my corals. FYI, that coral is a orange setosa, not a green slimer.

 

[horseplay]

When the coral starts to lose tissue it is very difficult to reverse the course unfortunately. I think you had an alk swing and the fact your alk is pretty high to start with probably did the green slimer in. I know the water your coral came from has about 7dkh. On top of that the nitrate is zero which is never a good thing.

I would stop any dosing of kalk and see if the alk will drop. The lower the alk and increasing nitrate. If you can dose nitrate I would do it immediately.

Do not increase light. Lower par will not kill an SPS in the short term.

Hopefully part of the coral will recover and it can start growing from there.

 

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

Then I guess I really screwed this up. When I measured my alk at 7 I thought it dropped too low. I try to keep it around 8. In my haste I overdid it and ended up with an alk of 9. Presently I am at 8.7. Calcium still at 390. Leave calcium alone too? I am all for doing less is better but I was afraid to do nothing. Unfortunately I do not have anything to add nitrates. Also I didn't find anything rusting in the sump.

Appreciate all the advice so far.

 

[Coral Reef To Classroom]

I am watching the tank for "bugs" and I notice a frag of chalice sending out a long sweeper. I did not know they could be that long. I didn't exactly see the sweeper touching the seratosa because I had the seratosa frag out of the tank earlier to get a closer look. Maybe the seratosa was getting stung. Maybe the slimer is doing poorly because of poor chemistry and the seratosa was getting stung.