What would cause this kind of recession on a chalice?

[eww]

We have had this piece for just over 4 months now and it has been healthy and growing since the day we put it in. We got it from Sarang and those of you who know him know of the quality of pieces he kept. Now just in the last couple of weeks we have notices the edges receding showing the skeleton underneath. I have attached a picture below of what it looks like tonight. The recession is pretty similar all the way around so I don't think it would be being stung by anything as it would seem that would show up as dead or injured spots not a consistent ring around the edge. Our water parameters are:

Sal 1.026
Temp 79*
Ammonia, Nitrates and Nitrites are 0
Phosphates are as close to 0 as our Elos kit will tell us. Our hair algae issue is slowly going away so the GFO and manual removal is doing the job.
Alk 10.5 **
Cal 370 **
Mg 1100 **
Ph 8.1 **

** These seem a little low to me (Alk seems a touch high) but not out of acceptable range from what I have read. I religiously dose daily with BRS two part and will be dosing a little extra over the next few days to raise these closer to 420/1350/8.2. I haven't tested these in a while and was surprised to see these number actually.

I have a 20 gal water change ready to go now and will be doing that tomorrow as our routine maintenance. We use Reef Crystals and just changed to them from standard IO two water changes ago. I had let the last water change slip a bit with the holidays and everything going on so it was more like 6 weeks rather than our typical 2-3 weeks.

Any input is as always appreciated...

 

[thatguy559]

do you have a shot in the tank where its placed at? flow? lighting?

 

[eww]

Here is a FTS and its down in the lower left front corner of the tank on the sand bed (you can see it). That's where it has been the entire time we have had it. The Elegance has been loved to the right a bit and the flow keeps it going the opposite direction from the chalice. Flow is pretty low but not dead and lighting is 39w T5HO's (2 ATI blue+, 1 ATI Blue Special and 1 KZ Fiji Purple) on Icecap 660's with individual reflectors. Lot of light even at 30" deep. We've had no issue growing anything down low. There have been more issues with things bleaching out up high.

Another from the side

 

[thatguy559]

hMMm im new to chalices but i got mine in a medium flow. maybe your elegance puts out feelers? i never owned one before so i dont know how they react at night

 

[mojoreef]

! know a few years ago Ron wrote some bogus article that had every one changing their salt types. When they did this thier was a huge amount of folks that had some pretty big problems in their tanks, some folks even lost their tanks. It kind of caught most of us by surprise and we ended up instructing people to slowly work this change over into play. As in dont just change all at once but to slowly work your way over to the new salt.
Another possibilty could be the Alk it is a touch high and could be playing a role. Another to look at is how close was that edge to the sand?? remember the sand is a reduction factory and it will try to reduce what ever allows it to.

On the salt thing you might want to through up a thread in Boomers forum asking him for some more info, he was in the middle of that one.

hope it helps

Mojo

 

[Top Water]

A couple things. A chalice can go down hill in a day . (religiously dose daily concerns me) You may have spiked one way or another causing shock.
Also some corals have sweeper and that coral in the pic looked too close and may have stung it at night.

 

[returnofsid]

I'd say that your Ca and Mg are slightly low, but not low enough to cause any concerns. Everything else looks fine. Echino do rely on Mg, for tissue building, so maybe the low Mg is the culprit.

What kind of flow is it getting? Too low of flow may cause something like this.

Is it getting covered with sand, around the edges? I've had Echino, on the sand bed, recede, like yours, from being covered with sand, or having sand constantly blown against the edges.

 

[eww]

I am adding Mg supplement today to start bringing that up over the next couple of days.

The flow is low but not non-existent and the elegance is down stream. I think with the receded area being all the way around the coral it would be something other than being stung or chemical warfare.

The sand never gets blown up on the coral as the flow is too low to move the coarse grain stuff we have. The couple of times the Pistol Shrimp got crazy and buried the edge over night I cleared it the next morning and that has been a long time ago as well.

I will try the water chemistry corrections first and see what happens.

 

[eww]

Remember that picture from 12/28 shown above. Well that was only 19 days ago or so. I have since done 2 water changes and stopped dosing. Here is a couple of shots I took of it tonight. Obviously things are going from bad to worse. I did an iodine dip for 15 min and then a Melafix dip for 5 min and placed it back in the tank tonight. There were no obvious badies in the dip water. Any more thoughts on what could be causing this? Should I do anything else? Any last ditch efforts I should try to save this piece? At this rate I figure there may only be another week or so before all the tissue is gone.

 

[Faciosity]

Cut off all the dead skeleton and dying tissue, and place it in a different area of the tank. I've had several chalices do the same thing for unknown reasons, but havn't completely lost one yet. Mine have all recovered and started growing, so there might be a chance of saving it! I would suggest placement higher in the tank (unless you have intense Metal Halide lighting!) with constant moderate flow to fight bacterial infection and try to feed it.

 

[Faciosity]

That's just what worked for me, no way can I say it will work for sure but it's a last effort worth trying.

 

[Faciosity]

Cut off all the dead skeleton and dying tissue, and place it in a different area of the tank. I've had several chalices do the same thing for unknown reasons, but havn't completely lost one yet. Mine have all recovered and started growing, so there might be a chance of saving it! I would suggest placement higher in the tank (unless you have intense Metal Halide lighting!) with constant moderate flow to fight bacterial infection and try to feed it.

Sorry I just realized that you said what lighting you had, and I would definately move it higher with plenty of space around it and more flow.

 

[rreef]

Agreed move this to another area with more flow, you will find that the bottom corner of most tanks the flow is okay until about an inch off the sand then it seems to stagnate.

I have tried different flow direction over the years and this seems to be a dead zone unless you are using a alternating directional PH's in different locations.

Just my .02

 

[ashton]

Were you ever able to get your mag raised? I have alot of chalices and generally keep my alk at 10 ca @ 400 and then Mag around 1400.

 

[eww]

Yes the Mg is raised to about 1400 now. Alk is running around 8.5 to 9. Ca is about 400. I dosed the Mg up with Tech M and the others came in check with the 2 water changes I have done. I have a third in the barrel now for today. I will try and move it up higher and see what happens. Flow is tricky in this small 36"x15" footprint with the Elegances (2 of them). They don't like the flow so I will try and rearrange some stuff.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Hold off on any and all dosing! It is NOT mineral depletion that is hurting your corals.
If anything, it is allopathy as in chemical arefare between LPS, SPS, and softys.
Soft corals are the main perpetrator of Chemical Warfare, especially leathers, and especially Sinularia and GSP.
The release of alopathic chemicals that effect all corals sharing the same water.
Certainly LPS will almost always kill SPS if they are in reach. Some Acans will kill anything they contact.


The additional dosing will end up starting a mini-cycle from die-off if not already occuring.
Water changes, carbon, and hands off, allowing the tank to settle back in

 

[eww]

Hey Mike, I have stopped all disingenuous since the original discussion about our vitals being unhappy. Should I move this piece up into more light and flow or just sit and wait to see what happens? Also should I cut away the dead skeleton ad mentioned above? Or just keep out and let everything ride out period?

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[Faciosity]

Cutting away the dead skeleton isn't always necessary, but I have noticed that corals (especially chalice corals and most other LPS) regrow over dead skeleton much slower than encrusting a rock and growing new skeleton. The other reason I mentioned this, is because if any of the flesh shows signs of infection, it must be removed before it spreads further. Regardless of what the actual problem is, more flow will help the healing process.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Hey Mike, I have stopped all disingenuous since the original discussion about our vitals being unhappy. Should I move this piece up into more light and flow or just sit and wait to see what happens? Also should I cut away the dead skeleton ad mentioned above? Or just keep out and let everything ride out period?

I would leave everything alone and let "Nature find a way" If everything else was great and one coral got stung, cutting would help, BUT
with this system wide issues, more interference can only hurt. It is stability and time that will help

 

[rreef]

Herefishy,

I respectfully have to disagree. While I'm sure there are other things going on with this tank that weren't mentioned in this thread. Leaving it to take natures course isn't going to help, it sounds as if EWW has taken steps to help some of the issues, and the Chalice is still receding. At this point their best option is to continue to keep the parameters in check, and also move this coral to another place in the tank.

If you get everything in check and continue to go down hill you have to try something else, Also, if a coral gets sick and starts receding it is usually best to add a little more flow to help remove any decay (provided you don't have a hospital tank for your corals.

Again, not trying to argue, just wanting them to succeed in their efforts to save their coral.