pink birdsnest frag

hey i have a concern about the pinkbirds nest frag it was doing good for the first few days but now the tissue looks like it is flaking off and i dont know what that means? all water parameters are good and calcium is at 400 and a jason suggested me to cut led lights back to only 6-8 hours of day light so not sure what is going on any suggetions would be great. water temp is 78.9.
1) placement in tank?
2) what calcium level should be?
3) what it is doing with tissue id flaking and leaving a white skeleton looking frag on some parts of the frag will check what it is doing when i get home.
4) light schedule? ( LEDS )

A picture might help.

1) Placement depends on your lighting. If it came from a system with less light you should start placing it on the bottom and slowly move it up over a period of weeks. If it came from a higher lighting system you should place it higher.

2) Calcium at 400 is good but you also need to check Alkalinity and Magnesium. High Phosphates/Nitrates can be a problem too. You say water parameters are good, Ammonia, Nitrites?

3) Sounds like RTN/STN (Rapid Tissue Necrosis/Slow Tissue Necrosis). SPS corals do this for a number of reason or for no reason we can explain. Might be best to frag off the healthy parts to try and save it. Usually there's no coming back once it starts to decline but if you frag off the healthy parts you may be able to save it.

4) Depends on your lighting. You'll find people that run lights anywhere from 6 to 12 hours a day. I personally run my blue lights for 12 hours and my whites for 10. Blues come on at 10am, whites on at 11am, whites off at 9pm, blues off at 10pm. I've found that it's something you'll have to experiment with but I don't think lighting is the issue with the birdsnest. Usually too much light causes bleaching/paleness and too little light causes browning. In my opinion lighting is blamed for too many issues in a reef tank when the problem usually comes down to water quality.

What about fish in the tank? Any Angels? Pests?

Hi Brent. Is that a Multibarred Angel I see, and maybe another Angel too?
The Multi will nip at LPS it says, but not soft corals. If you have another Angel in there it may be worth while looking up to see if it has a liking for SPS.
I would have loved a Flame Angel or a Potter's Angel, but I shied away from any Angel after reading that most of them were LPS/SPS nippers, and I knew I had so fallen into the Darkside that they were the priority to Angels.
If you do have Angels, would they be OK with the others in your live rock only tank?

no angles at all,
1 - yellow coris wrasse
1 - naso tang
1 - sailfin tang
1 - blue hippo
7 - blue/green chromis
2 - mated pair of true percula clowns
1 - yellow watchmen goby
? - hermit crabs
? - narrasius snails
2 - skunk cleaner shrimp
2 - fire shrimp
that sums up my live stock everythink i belive is reef safe and nitrites, ammonia are 0

I just remembered, you had the issue with the brown algae and the tap water right? Your tank probably isn't ready for sps right now. Tap water can contain copper which is no good for any inverts but even a trace amount could wipe out an sps. It could also be a high level of phosphates or many other things that are in tap water that some corals like softies or lps can tolerate but sps will not. Any small trace of a bad water parameter can kill an sps quick.

You also grabbed quite a few pieces of sps from Tony, right? How are they doing?

My light is scheduled where blues are on at 7 am, left white at 8 am, and right white at 9am. Then they go off in the reverse of left white at 7pm, right white at 8pm, and blues at 9pm. It is placed at the very top of the tank right next to an overflow box so current is good. I only use RODI water.

Out of cuiocity how are the other frags doin? How long has ur tank been up and running? Like a year or so right? I would recommend fragging off the dieing sections as well to prevent it from spreading any farther..

If you lose it I'll frag you another one. :-)

i did a 30% water change last thursday and check the parameters,
checked my log book and on sat. before the meeting they were

1 ) Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrates and Phospate - 0 ppm
2 ) Specific Gravity 1.023 - 1.025
3 ) Temperature 78
4 ) Calcium 400 - 450 ppm

now with the Alkalinity i am sure my reef master test has the tester in it but tell me what Alkalinity is for?
same with Magnesium?

this morning the frag looks all white with two small spots that have some color left but as far as all the other corals go they are doing great no problems at all and all of them have good color and polps are extending way out only one i am have ing a problem with is the pink birdsnest?????

matt i would love another one but want to know why this one is not making it first so, what kind of set up did it come out of?
1 - lighting and schedule?
2 - water temp and parameters?
3 - placement in your tank?
anything to see what i did to change and prevent it on the next go aroud.

Here's a couple of good articles on Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium. Hard corals and clams use these to build skeleton or shell. All 3 need to be in acceptable ranges to keep hard corals or clams.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/11/chemistry

My lighting schedule: blues on at noon, whites on at 2pm, whites off at 8pm, blues off at 10pm.

Water params:
78-80 temp swing
7.8-8.3 ph swing
1.026 w refractometor
0 nitrate with api test
400cal with elos test
7 dkh alk with salifert test
1100 mag with elos test (still raising this slowly)
.06 phosphate with hannah checker (always reads 0 on api test)

Might have gotten too cold on the trip or something. Just got "pissed" because it was in a urine sample cup? Haha

LOL next time lets hold of on the U.A. and try a bag lol,
thats what i was thinking because we were at the meeting for a little wile and i went straight home but never know

it's alive i think the frag might make it i moved it down to the middle/ lower half of the tank to see if that helped maybe or maybe not but the polpys are still there and color is coming back some so will keep you updated matt.
it is hard to get a pic, but i will try

Great news! Hope it keeps coming back!