So just for the sake of documenting what's happening online, here's what I've done so far:
Last night I dipped several corals showing the very first signs of the necrosis. It was particularly noticeable in my pink lemonade colony, there is a 1mm area that completely surrounds the base that is beginning to show symptoms. As I mentioned before, this is very slow moving, it might move up 1-2mm per week. I guess we can call this the "ring of death".
The dip I used was TMPCC (iodine). I dipped using approximately 50mL in about 3 gallons of water. Dip time totaled about 8-10 minutes. I had to use so much water because I was dipping an entire rock with three colonie s attached. I have dipped using Coral Rx to no avail, this dip did not stop the necrosis. I chose Iodine based on the recommendations in this thread, hoping that it might kill off whatever bacteria is causing the problem.
I typically don't use an Iodine dip on my sps corals, I feel it's overly harsh and causes discoloration in the tissue. For this reason I have been strictly using Coral Rx. Having had this experience I will move to a dual-dip solution, using both iodine and Coral Rx. A more harsh dip is an acceptable risk if I can avoid another tank-wide infection. On the other hand, perhaps these bacteria are always present in our system but only bloom during high-stress situations, such as the salinity spike that I experienced (and the following correction in salinity).
In addition to the dip, I dripped 3% H202 on the base of several corals, others I did not, I will observe and note the progression on both specimens. On other corals, I simply super-glued over the problematic area.
I am also dosing 15mL of H202 directly in the tank, today will be the 3rd day of this dose. System volume is approximately 180g. There is an algae in my system that looks similar to dinoflagellates, I am thinking a toxic within this creature could be the root cause of the necrosis.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
