Paly colony closing up shop

[Jan]

My paly colony has started to close up, polyp by polyp, and there's a fine greyish powder/slime or something on the closed-tight polyps. A few days ago there were 3 polpys like this, now there are 10-11. I've tried blowing them off with a powerhead gently brushing them with a rinsed Q-tip. No change except for more closed polyps. Thinking it might be a victim of chemical warefare I did a water change, no improvement. Then I moved it into my 120 gallon tank (better light too) and still no change, just continual decline.

Are there any particular ailments that these corals are prone to?

 

[returnofsid]

If you do think it's chemical, running Carbon will help remove the chemicals from the water. Have you checked your tank at night to make sure there's nothing irritating them? Other than that, I'm clueless.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

yea carbon it up..use ALOT if you think theres a battle.

 

[Brenden]

What is your NO3 reading?

 

[Jan]

I will measure NO3 in both tanks tonight after I get home from work; I'll post the results. I've been running both carbon and Phos-Guard in the 120, to combat a diatom outbreak. This is the newer of my two tanks. I've been running carbon alone in the 40 gallon. I switch out the carbon every week. The paly used to be in my 40 gallon and that's where the problem started. It's been in the 120 for ~36 hours now.

Status on the paly is that there are now about 20 polyps closed up, but there is less of that greyish coating on the purple leather stalks. Also I noticed that one of the first polyps to close up has opened itself a little bit and is sticking it's tentacles out the gap. (This must be where the expression "testing the water" came from!)

The diatom outbreak in my 120 is giving way to green hairy-looking algae. I still don't like it but I like it better than the diatom stuff. Plus I added 2 dozen snails last night so hopefully those will help.

P.S. I haven't checked the tank at night to see if something was bothering them. Good idea

 

[Jan]

The paly colony continues to decline. There are now about 25 closed up polyps with mucous on them. They're kind of grey now instead of purple.

Water parameters are as follows:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
ph: 1.7 (evening) (correction, 8.2)
alkalinity: 8.2 (correction, 1.7)
sg: 1.022

Any thoughts? At this rate the whole thing will be dead soon.

 

[returnofsid]

pH 1.7??? Might wanna check that one again. Might also boost your sg to 1.025. Other than that, or the possibility of some critter in there that's getting to them at night, I'm clueless. Have you tried moving them to a different part of the tank? How about the possibility of putting them in a QT tank?

 

[Jan]

Oops,

I should have said ph 8.2 and alkalinity 1.7...

I have moved the colony from my 40 gallon, where the problem started, to the 120. It continued to get worse.

I think I'm going to throw it out in the morning.

Oh, the sg is too low, you're right. I had an accident with my auto-top off and accidentally dumped in a 5 gallon bucket of RO/DI....it's been a rough week.

 

[Fishead77]

My paly colony has started to close up, polyp by polyp, and there's a fine greyish powder/slime or something on the closed-tight polyps. A few days ago there were 3 polpys like this, now there are 10-11. I've tried blowing them off with a powerhead gently brushing them with a rinsed Q-tip. No change except for more closed polyps. Thinking it might be a victim of chemical warefare I did a water change, no improvement. Then I moved it into my 120 gallon tank (better light too) and still no change, just continual decline.

Are there any particular ailments that these corals are prone to?

My guess is the lighting is the problem. I just replaced my MH and have the same problem. Sunburn!

 

[thekingfish]

The paly colony continues to decline. There are now about 25 closed up polyps with mucous on them. They're kind of grey now instead of purple.

A possibility could a fungal/bacterial infection.
Not much seems to help when you get hit with that but to frag some healthy
polyps away from the infection and hope for the best. Discarding the diseased polyps might be advisable to help insure it doesn't jump colonies but who can really say for sure.

Also if your alk is 1.7 mg/L or 4.76 dkh, it sounds kinda low.

 

[returnofsid]

Have you been able to get any pics of the colony? Fragging the good polyps to separate them from the bad may be a good idea.

 

[class clown]

Hey Jan,

I think all of the theories presented here - bacterial/fungal, predator, sunburn, toxins (biological warfare) - are possibilities. What's concerning is this started in your old tank and now has continued with you to your new one, right?. So I'm trying to think about what's consistent between the two systems.

• the same hitchicker predators? that would be bad luck, but maybe
• lighting - that's different on the two systems, the change in light may not have helped though
• toxins - hmmm? I am assumping you are using the same water source? tell us more about the source of the water. have you tested the TDS (total desolved solid) levels of your source water?
• bacterial/fungal - yeah that'll stick with the coral from system to system. sometimes it's hard to figure out where this came from. if bacterial/fungal, you'd want to get rid of the bad as soon as you can so it doesn't spread to more.

So --It's definatly hard to diagnose, but those are some thoughts that might get you going in the right direction.

For some advice on the water conditions:
the good news is that a quick drop in sg is not as bad as a quick increase (or so i've heard from others on here). It's happend to a lot of us once or twice or three times , so don't worry about it. Just try to bring it up over the next couple days more slowly than it went down. Oh.. and learn from my mistakes, don't dump salt in the tank, make sure you mix up some higher concentrated sg water and use this with some smaller water changes over the next couple days.

You should see your alk increase with the higher concentrated water changes too.

just out of curiousity, what are your calcium levels like? you'll be targeting an alk of 2.7 and calcium of 420 for any LPS & SPS corals which I know you were interested in running on this tank. If you don't have a test kit, I'll offer to test it out if you want to bring a sample over. I can do TDS too if you don't have a TDS meter.

Good luck Jan!

 

[returnofsid]

Jan, I just thought about something. Have you considered freshwater dips? Post a link to this in Anthony Calfo's forum and see what he says. For some coral diseases, he even suggests running under tap water for 30 seconds. Maybe even PM him about this, if you haven't already.

 

[Jan]

Hi everyone,

As it happens I read Anthony's post about freshwater dips yesterday. Instead of doing that, I decided to dip it in a saltwater/Reef Dip disinfectant blend. This is an iodine based disinfectant. I used my tankwater and added the disinfectant, dipped for 15 minutes while squirting colony with turkey baster. 3 baby brittle stars came out which have since been relocated to my tank. What I could see is that the first-affected group of polyps is definitely dead...white and turning translucent. I then had the choice of trying to scrape those off the rock and putting the rest of the colony back into my main tank. After some consideration I decided to throw away the entire rock and not save any of it. My main considerations were 1) exposure to palytoxin from the cleaning off process, and 2) possible failure to halt the infection which might contaminate my water and hurt the other corals. It was a tough decision...my first out and out death "on my watch." Oh well.

I appreciate everyone's comments and advice. I think it was a fungal or other pathogenic infection. Because of my recent allergic reaction to something in my tank, I am not wanting to take any chances with toxins, etc.

Ben, I have a calcium test and will do that today. I'll let you know how it is. I've been bringing up salinity by replacing my evap water with regular 1.025 SW. I will add some Sea Chem "buff" for the alkalinity and retest a bit later.

Thanks again

Jan

 

[returnofsid]

Ahhh Jen,
Sorry to hear about your loss. That really sucks. However, in light of what you discovered during the dip and in light of your recent alergy, I can't say I blame you at all! I hope discarding the coral ends the problems you're having in the tank!!