Duncan coral melting from inside out

[Davy Jones]

Noticed my newish colony of duncans started looking a bit off. Went to dip the colony in iodine and heads started falling off the skeleton when i took it out of the water, I left it in the reef dip for about 25 minutes, removed all of the heads that were basically slouching off the stalks and put it back in the tank.

Any idea as to what causes them to die from within the head??

 

[CodyRVA]

What dip did you use that called for 25 minutes? What are your parameters, how long have you had the coral, how old is your tank, what lighting and flow are you working with?

 

[Davy Jones]

What dip did you use that called for 25 minutes? What are your parameters, how long have you had the coral, how old is your tank, what lighting and flow are you working with?

Seachem reef dip

tank is ~ 3 years old, somewhat rebooted 1 year ago when i moved from teh apartment to my house. All the same rock and coral but sandbed removed.

Alk 7.4dkh via red sea test kit
Cal 410ppm
Mag 1350ppm
salinity 34ppt
temp 78.4
ph 8.14 via apex

lighting was switched recently from t5/led hybrid to GHL Mitras LX7 last wednesday.

Coral has been in the tank ~ 3 weeks

flow is handled by an eheim compact 3000+, mp10, mp40 and tunze nano

Tank is a red sea reefer 250

skimmer is vertex 150

All other lps are doing very well since the light switch. Sps are also responding well however i have always struggled with sps since i went bare bottom.


This is also not the first time i have had a duncan coral melt, this would be my 5th attempt over the course of the year after the move. For whatever reason duncans just dont like my tank, all the others however have been frags from the lfs, this colony was purchased from another local reefer who runs similar parameters as i do, he grew it from 1 head to about 45 i estimate

 

[CodyRVA]

Doesn't sound like a chemistry issue, but likely a lighting or flow issue. Have you tried repositioning it at all?

 

[Davy Jones]

Doesn't sound like a chemistry issue, but likely a lighting or flow issue. Have you tried repositioning it at all?

Is it possible for a polyp bail out after a week with a different light? That seems like a pretty quick change. Especially since it's in a little less light then it was before.

As for flow I turned all my pumps to their minimum power to hopefully let the Duncan recover. This morning it looks rather sad, I would say 15 or so heads throuout look okay and the rest seem unhappy. We will see when I get home after the lights come on what it looks like

 

[Shaddow_wolf169]

Never had one bail did have yellow bugs on one picked them off and it lived.