SPS Polyp Disease

[ReefHunter006]

This disease(assumption) never seems to fully go away in my tank. It appears to be exacerbated by carbon dosing.

Usually lasts about 3-4 months. Coral pales out and polyps begin to bubble out like a bounce mushroom. Typically 1-2 sps affected at anytime and as it fades, a new coral gets it. Once it begins to disappear the coral goes back to normal.

Coral stops growing entirely during this time.

 

[jmichaelh7]

This disease(assumption) never seems to fully go away in my tank. It appears to be exacerbated by carbon dosing.

Usually lasts about 3-4 months. Coral pales out and polyps begin to bubble out like a bounce mushroom. Typically 1-2 sps affected at anytime and as it fades, a new coral gets it. Once it begins to disappear the coral goes back to normal.

Coral stops growing entirely during this time.

What the

 

[educatedreefer]

What are your parameters and what’s your goal with carbon dosing; is it to boost your bacterial culture to lower nutrients/nitrates?
Corals typically “expand” to increase their surface area so their zooxanthellae can acquire more light for photosynthesis or under mutation under high photoradiation.
But as for the paling of the sps, I can attest to that as I used to run a Zeovit system where I kept my nutrients at or near 0, so possibly when you dose carbon, your bacteria blooms and competes with the coral for nutrients?
I would lower the carbon dosing and possibly raise your nitrates to 20-25, but as for the polyps bubbling up, that’s wicked cool to see!

 

[Sabellafella]

Neoplasia / hyperplasia very very cool read.

By the looks of thise polyps, this coral is definitely heavily infested with red or some type of bugs. Try dipping

I have something like 300 400 different acro colonys, this will pop up from time to time after I change my t5 bulbs. Usually just cut it off.

 

[ReefHunter006]

Neoplasia / hyperplasia very very cool read.

By the looks of thise polyps, this coral is definitely heavily infested with red or some type of bugs. Try dipping

I have something like 300 400 different acro colonys, this will pop up from time to time after I change my t5 bulbs. Usually just cut it off.

There are no bugs that I’m aware of. I am not sure what you are seeing. If you would like to point it out I would be happy to take a closer look, but I’m frequently looking at all of my coral through a macro lens.

Agree on hyperplasia.

 

[ReefHunter006]

What are your parameters and what’s your goal with carbon dosing; is it to boost your bacterial culture to lower nutrients/nitrates?
Corals typically “expand” to increase their surface area so their zooxanthellae can acquire more light for photosynthesis or under mutation under high photoradiation.
But as for the paling of the sps, I can attest to that as I used to run a Zeovit system where I kept my nutrients at or near 0, so possibly when you dose carbon, your bacteria blooms and competes with the coral for nutrients?
I would lower the carbon dosing and possibly raise your nitrates to 20-25, but as for the polyps bubbling up, that’s wicked cool to see!

I haven’t carbon dosed on this system in about three months. When I do, it’s not enough for nutrient export to any large extent. I do it because I believe the bacteria will act as an algae deterrent and provide a good source for the coral.

I keep my nitrates between 5-8 and po4 less than .12. Nitrates are dosed because the system is fishless.

 

[ReefHunter006]

What the

Check out the frag that had it before this one!
That green is a bunch of inflated polyps.

Three months later

 

[ReefHunter006]

Cipro in-tank doses at .125mg/l - .2mg/l were ineffective at stopping the polyp disease, 1 week post treatment in tank.

Going to attempt stronger dips at 1-5 g/l outside of the tank.

Polyp disease has broken routine and persisted past the usual timeframe. Some corals have worsened.

Picture below: new infection

Picture below: Increase in density of tissue “bubbles”, but seems to have remained localized to the same infected area. Argument could be made it is slightly larger.

Tank has been experiencing STN in a large amount of corals. This months ICP remains clean. There has been an improvement in coral color for the ones that paled out two weeks ago.

Multiple tenuis polyps have turned dark brown.

The frag in picture 2 had STN around the base for two weeks. Complete recession to the base that stopped at cipro dose 1 @ .125mg/l in tank.

 

[sculpin01]

I would consider getting an Aquabiomics test and directly swabbing the affected corals. Cipro is effective against Arcobacter and other gram negative rods but there's no telling what is causing this. If it's something weird like Aquarickettsia, it'll need an entirely different class of antibiotics (doxycycline?).

The coral symbiont Candidatus Aquarickettsia is variably abundant in threatened Caribbean acroporids and transmitted horizontally - PubMed

The symbiont "Candidatus Aquarickettsia rohweri" infects a diversity of aquatic hosts. In the threatened Caribbean coral, Acropora cervicornis, Aquarickettsia proliferates in response to increased nutrient exposure, resulting in suppressed growth and increased disease susceptibility and...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[ReefHunter006]

The necrosis continues. A few new batches of dying tissue. The Bali slimer was growing so well until this. Some brown algae are forming on the tips. I’m not sure there is anything left to do, used most of the tools are my disposal.

Bali Slimer last month

 

[ReefHunter006]

Bali slimer above is still alive and necrosis has stalled.

6 new frags have started showing similar onset symptoms, and I expect necrosis to begin on them in the next two months.

No new deaths, but multiple experiencing very slow necrosis.

 

[Mad Doc]

Bali slimer above is still alive and necrosis has stalled.

6 new frags have started showing similar onset symptoms, and I expect necrosis to begin on them in the next two months.

No new deaths, but multiple experiencing very slow necrosis.

Mate I’m having the exact same issue, have you had any progress?

 

[ReefHunter006]

No, and I’ve tried a lot from cipro in tank, dipping, probiotics, etc.

I started using PNS ProBio once a week, starting about three weeks ago now. I’ve had no new deaths, but signs of necrosis are evident.

ProBio anecdotally seems to be eliciting a positive reaction, but I think it needs more time for me to really come to that conclusion. Also PNS pro bio is too expensive to sustain long term for my larger tanks.

Lowering alk to 7.2-7.7 also appeared to reduce the deaths, but only slow the necrosis. I think that may be very tank dependent, because it seems like anything above 8.5 causes problems in my tanks.

 

[Mad Doc]

No, and I’ve tried a lot from cipro in tank, dipping, probiotics, etc.

I started using PNS ProBio once a week, starting about three weeks ago now. I’ve had no new deaths, but signs of necrosis are evident.

ProBio anecdotally seems to be eliciting a positive reaction, but I think it needs more time for me to really come to that conclusion. Also PNS pro bio is too expensive to sustain long term for my larger tanks.

Lowering alk to 7.2-7.7 also appeared to reduce the deaths, but only slow the necrosis. I think that may be very tank dependent, because it seems like anything above 8.5 causes problems in my tanks.

Can we compare what we do similar and maybe get to the bottom of this? I have spoken to several well known reefers already and no success. What do you dose in details? What do you feed and how often?

 

[ReefHunter006]

Happy to. I’m at work right now but can provide more details tonight.

Here is my list of stuff I’m doing manually. Will provide more detail tonight, but give it a look to see if anything stands out at the moment.

would love to get to the bottom of it.

DT/FT means display and frag tank. Disease is in frag tank.

 

[sculpin01]

I'd personally stop the Zeofood. There's no telling what's in it, but there's a good chance it functions as carbon dosing. Carbon dosing has been implicated multiple times with this phenomena, likely fueling whatever pathogen is responsible.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yea I would go back to the basics on this one. When a green slimer makes a turn like that in a month, something is off. I would stop dosing everything except for the big three and do water changes on a routine. Sorry your going through this but I have not seen anyone DO anything to fix the bubbling and stn. Some had success moving the coral to a completely different system but not everyone has that opportunity. And other reefers would be taking a risk if they take the coral in to an established acro tank.
Since it’s only one or two corals that have the issue at one time have you tried to remove the affected corals from the system permanently? I would hope that pulling any affected coral as soon as you see signs of this issue, will help a lot. Just like with random rapid tissue necrosis, pulling the affected corals asap is the best method to combat it quickly. I would hope that if there are no affected corals in the tank then it won’t spread.

I have battled this issue one year and only a few pieces were affected greatly. I used a carbon source (vodka and vinegar) heavily before, during and after the bubbling was gone. The only thing I changed was my calcium which was a little high and once I lowered it to match my alk with the red field ratio the bubbling faded and healed over. Although I think mine was hyperplasia and this looks like neoplasia, I would hope the treatment would be the same (maybe wishful thinking).
I have seen people point to carbon dosing as the problem but never seen anyone actually stop carbon dosing with the corals healing right afterward or at all. I am curious how some think a carbon source would cause this problem. So hard to figure this one out since it’s fairly “rare” but I hope more thought goes into it and we get a better understanding over time.

 

[ReefHunter006]

SCTLD confirmation

 

[BrianReefer]

I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m 100% certain this is all over our hobby and we just don’t know it. I tried every antibiotic in every combo after months of losses on my established SPS tank and recently shut it down to start over. I think most will just assume it’s instability or many other issues and never run the aquabiomics test to find out, but I think this is going to become (or likely already is, but untested) a rampant issue for hobbyists and vendors. It travels on rock, coral, inverts, fish and in the water column. I hope the Florida universities figure out an effective treatment soon that we can repurpose in our tanks. Until then I’m reluctant to get back into acros in my restart as I lost many, many thousands!!

 

[ReefHunter006]

I’m sorry to hear it, but I’m 100% certain this is all over our hobby and we just don’t know it. I tried every antibiotic in every combo after months of losses on my established SPS tank and recently shut it down to start over. I think most will just assume it’s instability or many other issues and never run the aquabiomics test to find out, but I think this is going to become (or likely already is, but untested) a rampant issue for hobbyists and vendors. It travels on rock, coral, inverts, fish and in the water column. I hope the Florida universities figure out an effective treatment soon that we can repurpose in our tanks. Until then I’m reluctant to get back into acros in my restart as I lost many, many thousands!!

I agree. I spent a long time thinking it was something I’m doing wrong. I would watch friends put i. 1/5th of the time and effort and far less money than me, only to constantly see this issue.