Birdsnest turning white

Has the birdsnest been in the tank whole time during the GFO debris incident? It might have something to do with it, no?

 

Likely not, unless it physically settled on the flesh it should have little to no effect. However, I didn't see your PO4 test results, what were they? That is the 2nd most important level for sps life\death IMO

 

exactly, I thought that too, but everything else seemed unaffected by it.

No phosphate test kit yet, I'll pick one up this week and make sure its not to blame. Thank you

 

Most people don't have good luck with API Nitrate kits. I bought one as my first test kit and it was horribly inaccurate. I would get a second opinion from a LFS with a Salifert or Red Sea kit.

My money is on too much light too soon. T-5's in the store to MH at home was probably a bit much. When you moved it up probably didn't help matters.

When I went from T-5's to LED's my bridsnest began to bleach and I had to put it in the shade for a while. It resides on the bottom at about 170 PAR and is slowly getting it's color back.

 

FWIW-birdsnest seem to be one of the more sensitive sps to keep-your tank also looks pretty new and just might be to immature to house this coral, let alone many of the stick sps.

 

If your gonna be buying test kits, get the Hanna checkers IMO. They might be 25 bucks more but they are 10x more accurate and will last a lifetime, matched with consistency.

A helpful hint for ya, use this link: HANNA Checker HC Handheld Colorimeters to pricematch the checkers you want from MarineDepot or whoever your marine hobbiest shop is.

Just make sure the number is the same. Hell you can even buy them from eseasongear, but I am always ordering more fish stuff with it and you can lump it into one order.

 

Thanks for the link! I've had my eye on hanna checkers for awhile. I really like my salifert kit too. API is just hard to read colors sometimes, so I def need a new ph and nitrate kit

 

I've actually found just the opposite to be true. Bird nests are among the less demanding of the SPS, far easier than Acros. They also do not need as much light as Acros and can have problems with too much, too quickly. Do you happen to know what the water parameters were from the store? We often think about paramters fluctuating in our own tanks but sometimes forget about the drastic changes possible between the store and our own tanks.

 

I wouldn't worry so much about the pH or nitrate tests from Hanna, I mean it would be nice but a salifert will do you just as well for these. I would reccommend the Hanna's more for PO4, Alk, Calc the things you monitor much more frequently once the system is up and running stable.

This

 

IMO

your light acclimatization method sounds pretty good to me, if it is wrong, then I have been doing it wrong for a couple of years now

I do very similar, sand bed for a week, base level of rockwork for a week, and then final location

also under 250watt Halides ( although my lamps are mounted 13 inches from water surface, how high are your lamps off the water?)

if the coral arrived with white/ bald, STN affected areas at the base, then its very likely all that has happened is that the infection has just got progressively worse in your tank

it is possible light has been a stressor that has increased the momentum of said infection
it is possible that water parameter issues are a stressor that has increased the momentum of said infection

but if it had it to start with, you where to a degree fighting an uphill battle with the coral anyway and as such however you handled it, acclimatized it etc, may have made no significant difference to this particular coral

fragging healthy looking areas is a good idea
if you get more than 1 frag, place them at various levels in the tank and see which ones do the best for you