Acans dying

Guttersnipe · Mar 24, 2018

Hi reefers!
Here’s my situation. I have had some of my acans for almost a year. All of a sudden I’m starting to lose them one by one. First it was my blastos, which I’ve had for over a year. They started showing skeleton and then lost all tissue. Now my acans are doing the same thing. I removed a dead acan colony today to examine it and noticed a lot of fireworms around the base of the skeleton.
My question is do these worms eat or burrow into the flesh of lps and slowly kill them?
Thanks reefers!

Jason mack · Mar 24, 2018

#reefsquad any ideas ??

reeferfoxx · Mar 24, 2018

Need to get your parameters.

SG
Temp
Alk
Ca
Mg
PO4
NO3
pH
Ammonia?

Type of lighting? Flow? Any algae growing?? Front tank picture?

NikoO · Mar 24, 2018

Most likely alk swing or some kind of lps parasite?
Never heard of that though...

Guttersnipe · Mar 24, 2018

reeferfoxx said:
Need to get your parameters.

SG
Temp
Alk
Ca
Mg
PO4
NO3
pH
Ammonia?

Type of lighting? Flow? Any algae growing?? Front tank picture?

I’m currently at work.
Once I get home I’ll take a picture of the tank and post my parameters.

Justfebreezeit · Mar 24, 2018

Low nutrients is my guess.

Guttersnipe · Mar 24, 2018

Justfebreezeit said:
Low nutrients is my guess.

The acans have been in my tank for almost a year and the blastos over a year. I think if it was low nutrients they would have died a lot sooner

Justfebreezeit · Mar 24, 2018

Guttersnipe said:
The acans have been in my tank for almost a year and the blastos over a year. I think if it was low nutrients they would have died a lot sooner

Possibly or its a new issue. Merely a guess though. When you post your params we can see.

DSC reef · Mar 24, 2018

Pics when you can get them up. Are you sure they were fireworms and not bristleworms? LPS can deteriorate slowly from lack of nutrients in the water.

Guttersnipe · Mar 24, 2018

DSC reef said:
Pics when you can get them up. Are you sure they were fireworms and not bristleworms? LPS can deteriorate slowly from lack of nutrients in the water.

I get off work at 10 tonight and will post parameter and picture of my tank.
I’m actually not sure if I saw fireworms or bristleworms. They look kind of the same to me.
I can try to get a picture of the worms too.

Guttersnipe · Mar 25, 2018

Ok guys here’s the situation. I just got done doing some testing and the results aren’t good. This coming Monday will be my first day off this month. I’ve been working everyday this month and haven’t been doing my weekly water changes. I’m sure that is the reason why my lps have been dying.
So my test result are
Phosphate 0.61
Nitrate 0
Alkalinity 6.1
I was going to test for mag and calcium too but after seeing how low my alk was I stopped testing and did a 10 gallon water change. I usually do 5 gallons a week. My tank is a reefer 250 so around 65 gallon total water volume. I tried taking a picture but it came out too blue. My light turns completely off at 11pm and it was already 1030 when I took the picture.
I might do another 10 gallon water change tomorrow after work.
What do you guys think?
My light is the latest mitras. And skimmer is vertex omega 180i

Jason mack · Mar 25, 2018

I would first get all your parameters back on point and see if things improve , after that we can look a trouble shooting it if things haven’t improved .. good luck
Mack

kireek · Mar 29, 2018

Jason mack said:
I would first get all your parameters back on point and see if things improve , after that we can look a trouble shooting it if things haven’t improved .. good luck
Mack

What he said.Check your Calcium and mag.Acans like their calcium. They also like their Nitrates,so you will want to bring those up as well.Last but not least,never overlook salinity.

Kayotic5011 · Mar 29, 2018

Guttersnipe said:
My question is do these worms eat or burrow into the flesh of lps and slowly kill them?

Most likely not, as most of these types of worms are on the side of the clean up crew. There are some predatory species and a lot of split feelings about these worms, but for the most part they are only scavengers. The reason they get a bad rep is because they are so secretive and hard to see that the only time you do see one is around a dead or dying fish, coral or other marine animal. I have one that lives under the actual under side of my platygyra every time I feed my coral it comes out and gets a little piece of mysis shrimp and goes away. I wish it wasn't in there but it wants nothing to do with my coral except to make it a home. My platygyra is happy and healthy and there are no marks on my coral so Im good with having it in there for now. I have heard of these things finishing off a weak or dying fish and as they get bigger they look for bigger items so that could be an issue later on....There is a lot of opinions about these worms but in my personal opinion they were there eating the bad flesh of the dying corals and had nothing to do with your corals actually dying.