Help! Green Fungia plate coral dying

[Wasabiroot]

I don't think anyone is calling anyone out here. I think in your specific case antibacterial activity might be warranted. And the peroxide treatment was suggested with a huge asterisk/caveat that it was harsh and only one method

 

[Hawkaholic]

I don't think anyone is calling anyone out here. I think in your specific case antibacterial activity might be warranted. And the peroxide treatment was suggested with a huge asterisk/caveat that it was harsh and only one method

That why I posted the disclaimer. It is terrible advice, that is more likely to hurt most corals than help. Good for Zoas and the like. Terrible for sps.

I would hate for such information to lead to other peoples problems. I’m hopeful by documenting exactly what happens someone can learn something useful and build upon what we do here. Maybe another coral will survive down the road due to something stumbled upon. Or more likely a mistake I’m about to make can be avoided.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Flesh loss has stabilized for the time being. The mouth is still agape and I’m afraid that portion of the plate is dead. There are two small healthy mouths on the right half where the flesh overall still looks ok.

Today I am going to do another 30 minute dip in Logols iodine at the 40 drops per gallon rate.

Updates to follow. Death will be quick, but recovery slow. Hopefully I’m still posting about it’s recovery in a month.

 

[ReefdUp]

Before I get another lecture, I do have a bacterial problem in the fish if not the coral (blue hippo tang keeps getting popeye too). I broke down after 3 fish died and a yellow tang was looking ill. All I could find that should not hurt the corals and may actually help with my issues is cipro. This is my first time using it. If you have an axe to grind about over use of antibiotics it’s not with me. - 14 years of reefing and this is the first time I’m treating with cipro.

For anyone reading this thread be very careful with hydrogen peroxide. That is terrible advise for many corals - for instance stylophora will die extremely quickly in a hydrogen peroxide dip.

Wow. None of my concerns regarding antibiotics were directed at you. My concern was at seeing post-after-post across multie boards, where antibiotics are one of the first suggestions from other folks, without even considering asking about tank parameters.

And... wow. I gave options on your specific plate, which is an LPS. Never did I give that advice for across the board all-corals. You had a problem and I tried to give you options to save your dying coral of 12 years. Yes, hydrogen peroxide does not play well with sps. But this is a thread about your specific coral.

So much for trying to help someone. I'll go back to rehabilitating corals.

Good luck. Maybe take a deep breath. I hope your coral and fish recover.

 

[jimk60]

Wow. None of my concerns regarding antibiotics were directed at you. My concern was at seeing post-after-post across multie boards, where antibiotics are one of the first suggestions from other folks, without even considering asking about tank parameters.

And... wow. I gave options on your specific plate, which is an LPS. Never did I give that advice for across the board all-corals. You had a problem and I tried to give you options to save your dying coral of 12 years. Yes, hydrogen peroxide does not play well with sps. But this is a thread about your specific coral.

So much for trying to help someone. I'll go back to rehabilitating corals.

Good luck. Maybe take a deep breath. I hope your coral and fish recover.

Your work is amazing! Don't let one post frustrated you from helping the people who truly want it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Not looking good. Any tips on creating a mother colony? I’m pretty sure this one is toast as is. I would consider fragging it to see if I could save part, but it’s thick and all I have for fragging is a dremmel tool.

Elevate it a little. Presence of snails is not helping this coral.
Did you change light or water flow recently?

Assure you are in the following ranges:

• Temperature: 78º – 80º Fahrenheit
• Salinity: 31-35 ppt or Specific Gravity 1.024 – 1.026 sg
• Nitrate: < 10 ppm – Can be toxic to livestock if too high
• PH: between 8.1 and 8.3
• Phosphate: < .08ppm
• Calcium: 400-440 ppm
• Alkalinity: between 8 and 9.5 dKH
• Magnesium: 1280-1350 ppm

Some possible causes are:

• Sudden change in alkalinity.
• A drastic change in salinity.
• Consistently low alkalinity levels.
• Temperature swings, up or down.
• Bacteria such as Philaster Guamense
• High nitrate

 

[vetteguy53081]

Wow. None of my concerns regarding antibiotics were directed at you. My concern was at seeing post-after-post across multie boards, where antibiotics are one of the first suggestions from other folks, without even considering asking about tank parameters.

And... wow. I gave options on your specific plate, which is an LPS. Never did I give that advice for across the board all-corals. You had a problem and I tried to give you options to save your dying coral of 12 years. Yes, hydrogen peroxide does not play well with sps. But this is a thread about your specific coral.

So much for trying to help someone. I'll go back to rehabilitating corals.

Good luck. Maybe take a deep breath. I hope your coral and fish recover.

Getting excessive especially with cipro. The sudden miracle drug- I use no meds and 30+ years back, we had none of these and did just fine with tank management.
Occasionally use of one will be necessary, but not as a First recourse

 

[Hawkaholic]

Wow. None of my concerns regarding antibiotics were directed at you. My concern was at seeing post-after-post across multie boards, where antibiotics are one of the first suggestions from other folks, without even considering asking about tank parameters.

And... wow. I gave options on your specific plate, which is an LPS. Never did I give that advice for across the board all-corals. You had a problem and I tried to give you options to save your dying coral of 12 years. Yes, hydrogen peroxide does not play well with sps. But this is a thread about your specific coral.

So much for trying to help someone. I'll go back to rehabilitating corals.

Good luck. Maybe take a deep breath. I hope your coral and fish recover.

Thanks. Best of luck in your coral rehabs, it appears you’ve had some great success!

As an update adding one dose of 500mg cipro to my aprox 250 gallon system - first time using antibiotics - the purple torch coral that has been a little limp for the last couple weeks has perked up and looks amazing! Best exertion of polyps on stylophora in quiet some time as well. I’m going to do another dose tonight and see if my tanks overall health improves.

After one dose I fully advocate the use of cipro for corals that are unhealthy in otherwise stable tanks. I’ll update as the treatment continues.

I hate adding new livestock it always comes with a risk. This time it appears to be some form of bacteria.

The orange plate that exhibited the same symptoms died much quicker. I treated it with one dip in iodine (not Logols) and kept the crabs off of it the entire time.

Today I placed the green plate in a bowl to keep the crabs off. They had been clearing the dying flesh, but likely are causing additional injury.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Elevate it a little. Presence of snails is not helping this coral.
Did you change light or water flow recently?

Assure you are in the following ranges:

• Temperature: 78º – 80º Fahrenheit
• Salinity: 31-35 ppt or Specific Gravity 1.024 – 1.026 sg
• Nitrate: < 10 ppm – Can be toxic to livestock if too high
• PH: between 8.1 and 8.3
• Phosphate: < .08ppm
• Calcium: 400-440 ppm
• Alkalinity: between 8 and 9.5 dKH
• Magnesium: 1280-1350 ppm

No nothing that I’m aware of. I don’t test Nitrate or phos. If algae grows I put in phosban and do a couple bigger water changes to reduce nutrients. Last time this happened was over the summer while I was neglecting my tank due to work, funerals, etc.
For the first 10 years I had it I didn’t do anything but water changes (20% every 2 weeks) The last couple years I’ve added 2 part dosing. Alk and pH are as stable as they’ve ever been - 8-8.3 day night swing (we breath too much lol) nothing out of line in the apex history -salinity held stable by ATO, water changes are small - automated every 15 minutes thru dos. pH fairly stable, orp has been weird lately due to feeding AB+ also a recent addition -not sure I’m going to continue feeding. Doesn’t seem necessary with fish in the system.

Some possible causes are:

• Sudden change in alkalinity.
• A drastic change in salinity.
• Consistently low alkalinity levels.
• Temperature swings, up or down.
• Bacteria such as Philaster Guamense
• High nitrate

Is there any way to positively determine if it’s a bacteria and which one? Are there any labs that do cultures? Turnaround would have to be quick to be useful. I don’t think I’m up to culturing it myself though.

 

[vetteguy53081]

No nothing that I’m aware of. I don’t test Nitrate or phos. If algae grows I put in phosban and do a couple bigger water changes to reduce nutrients. Last time this happened was over the summer while I was neglecting my tank due to work, funerals, etc.
For the first 10 years I had it I didn’t do anything but water changes (20% every 2 weeks) The last couple years I’ve added 2 part dosing. Alk and pH are as stable as they’ve ever been - 8-8.3 day night swing (we breath too much lol) nothing out of line in the apex history -salinity held stable by ATO, water changes are small - automated every 15 minutes thru dos. pH fairly stable, orp has been weird lately due to feeding AB+ also a recent addition -not sure I’m going to continue feeding. Doesn’t seem necessary with fish in the system.

Is there any way to positively determine if it’s a bacteria and which one? Are there any labs that do cultures? Turnaround would have to be quick to be useful. I don’t think I’m up to culturing it myself though.

Microscope and for your parameters- What test kits are you using ?

 

[Hawkaholic]

Microscope and for your parameters- What test kits are you using ?

Just the Neptune apex and it’s included probes (ph, orp, temp, salinity run constantly) + trident(alk -4tests per day, ca,mg - 2 tests per day). pH, salinity Calibrated about a 2 months ago, trident 2 weeks ago.

I am aware that all the at home tests are not very accurate (like apex, api, Hanna etc). I am just tracking changes. If there are any changes even a gradual swing I nudge it back. I should submit to icp, to get a good baseline, but have not. I have Hanna checkers I just don’t use them.

I think you may be on to something with the change in flow. I added more flow over this area not long ago and it could be part of the problem.

Guessing here — urchin grazed over the top which would normally not be an issue, but it caused the flesh to retract and probably made a few nicks that turned into cuts in the increased flow allowing infection to overwhelm the first coral. Treatment seems to be helping this coral, but it may be too injured to fully recover.

where this doesn’t fit - it’s opposite sides of the plates that are affected. Flow may not be a factor at all? ‍

 

[bumpyj38]

Did all the tissue on the mother colony go away before the babies popped up? Or was there a little tissue let where they started? I find this fascinating

Yes. All the tissue came off completely. I put it in the back of the tank where it still got light and flow but I have no idea how much. About 3 months later I noticed some dots of Orange when my blue lights would come on. But as someone else said, it takes a long time from that point. A year later I have probably 10 that are the size of a pencil eraser. Finally getting bigger though.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Yes. All the tissue came off completely. I put it in the back of the tank where it still got light and flow but I have no idea how much. About 3 months later I noticed some dots of Orange when my blue lights would come on. But as someone else said, it takes a long time from that point. A year later I have probably 10 that are the size of a pencil eraser. Finally getting bigger though.

That’s encouraging! I’ve got a few more decades in me (hopefully) so I’m not in any rush. It can just stay where it’s at. I’d love to watch the full development arc. I’m curious how much they move once they pop off the mother colony on their own, amongst other things.

 

[Hawkaholic]

The severely injured half of the plate has mostly deteriorated. Hermit crabs keep finding their way into the dish and help themselves to the dying tissue -probably not helpful at all. The main mouth has fallen apart, the inner portion of the mouth was severely injured and full of sand from the clownfish before I started treatments and never improved. I think I caught the injury too late to save it. The less injured half with the smaller mouths is still alive. If I had a bandsaw I could frag it, but do not have any tools big enough to cut thru the plate. I’m hopeful the currently alive half stays alive and the other half begins to create babies (best case scenario at this point).

I did a 3rd cipro treatment to the dt and dipped the plate in Logols for 20 minutes last night. The other corals are doing great! The welso I added at the same time as the doomed orange plate is now inflating almost as big as the decade old one I have! The torches have all inflated to full size and are very healthy looking. I’m not sure how long it takes to knock out the bacteria that seems to be affecting the lps in my tank, so I’m going to continue treatment for a total of 10 days. I do not want to quit too soon and create resistance problems.

 

[derenjm]

Rev in a bowl you could get a breeding pen from Petco or anywhere that’s acrylic it already has slats in it to facilitate water flow. If you turn them upside down they stay at the bottom

 

[Hawkaholic]

Still losing corals. 2 Fungia, 20 torch heads, 1 plate coral, and last night a rock covered in a couple dozen blue mushroom corals died. I hate brown jelly.

ran several treatments (cypro once and futconizole for algae - that one worked, but was hard on the coral) and if the treatment doesn’t kill the corals outright they completely die overnight after looking off the day before. Looks good two days before they brown out overnight and not that bad the day before.

Does anyone know if Microbacter7 could be part of the issue? I have only started using it this year and have had die off events after each usage.

also have pretty bad cyano that won’t go away, thus the playing with mb7.

Sent in a water sample to icp - nothing really out of line except Vanadium is a little high (not sure what cause effect that would have).

 

[ReefdUp]

Willing to try helping again, if acceptable....

Recommend testing your nitrate and phosphates. Dosing MB7 can address nitrate and phosphate, depending on a lot of factors (including carbon sources).

Many marine issues are multifactorial. Corals are excellent at fighting off various bacteria, but they can lose that fight when the environment is off.

If you're dosing MB7 then losing corals, then I'd suggest looking at your nutrients. An imbalance can certainly provide an environment for issues.

You may be able to send a sample out for microbe lab testing, but I caution again that just because "bad" bacteria are present doesn't mean they're the cause. They likely need a compromised host or environment as well.

And if you know what bacteria it is (assuming it is a bacteria), cipro is one of the most available and encompassing treatments I'm tracking. There are various antibiotics for more targeted treatments, but many of these require prescriptions and/or are untested in aquaria.

I'd look at nutrients.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Willing to try helping again, if acceptable....

Recommend testing your nitrate and phosphates. Dosing MB7 can address nitrate and phosphate, depending on a lot of factors (including carbon sources).

Many marine issues are multifactorial. Corals are excellent at fighting off various bacteria, but they can lose that fight when the environment is off.

If you're dosing MB7 then losing corals, then I'd suggest looking at your nutrients. An imbalance can certainly provide an environment for issues.

You may be able to send a sample out for microbe lab testing, but I caution again that just because "bad" bacteria are present doesn't mean they're the cause. They likely need a compromised host or environment as well.

And if you know what bacteria it is (assuming it is a bacteria), cipro is one of the most available and encompassing treatments I'm tracking. There are various antibiotics for more targeted treatments, but many of these require prescriptions and/or are untested in aquaria.

I'd look at nutrients.

Thank you. Multiple issues it turns out. The main problem I suspect is Mobius. I had an older radion burn out and had to switch from apex running the lights to the mobius app. Figured out I was running the lights at 25% instead of the normal 50% for nearly a year. Par was under 100 across most of the tank. I’m raising it slowly back up to around 200 par in the mid levels. As I’ve increased the light my alk consumption has shot thru the roof (getting growth again) and so far no more coral death. I suppose the coral was getting weak due to lack of light and would get over run by something very closely resembling bjd at the end.

I never would’ve know from looking at the tank. I got a par meter for Christmas and it has paid off in spades!