Emergency! Scoly is dying!

[vietreefer]

Hi everyone! Hope you’re doing great

My bleeding apple scoly recently developed a dark ring around its mouth. Is it a bad sign that the coral is dying?

My test kits got delayed and still haven’t arrived so I don’t really know what the parameters are for calcium magnesium and alkalinity. My tank only holds 20 gallon and I do water change every 4-5 days so I’m really confident with those parameters. However, my PH is sitting at 8.2, salinity is 34ppt and 24 degrees for temperature.

Here is a pic of it that I took 2 days ago and its most recent pic. It seems like the scoly is losing colour. It’s placed in my scoly garden and the other scolys are still doing really well.
Hopefully someone can help me to save this scoly. It is the first coral I’ve ever had and would be really upset if it dies. Thank you and happy reefing!

 

[andrewey]

Can you provide a bit more information about the situation How old is the tank? How old is the scoly? What is your lighting like? Have you been feeding it and what/how often? Any nearby corals (that are not Scolys)?

 

[vietreefer]

Can you provide a bit more information about the situation How old is the tank? How old is the scoly? What is your lighting like? Have you been feeding it and what/how often? Any nearby corals (that are not Scolys)?

My tank is a waterbox 20 cube. It is 5 months old and this coral has been in the tank since the beginning. For lighting, I’m running the xr15 gen 4 pro at 40%. There’s only a few acans nearby

 

[MelReefer]

Bump

 

[Uncle99]

Ouch, that’s an expensive but usually easy to keep coral.
Definitely test and rule out water, those others look OK to me.

It looks like it’s being picked at. I have had this experience before.
Do you see any square white spots, patches, or skeleton showing, especially under the blues?
Do you feed it and is their anyone in your tank that’s a crab, shrimp or star?
I can’t target feed mine anymore as my shrimps pick the food right out of their mouth and leave damage.

Once I switched to broadcast feed, no more picking problems.

Thought I would just check in case.

 

[NewGoby]

Although I agree with @Uncle99 - it's most likely being picked at, I'd like to know a few things:

What is the stocking in the tank?
& what are the following water parameters:
Po4,
Nitrates,
Calcium

 

[vietreefer]

Ouch, that’s an expensive but usually easy to keep coral.
Definitely test and rule out water, those others look OK to me.

It looks like it’s being picked at. I have had this experience before.
Do you see any square white spots, patches, or skeleton showing, especially under the blues?
Do you feed it and is their anyone in your tank that’s a crab, shrimp or star?
I can’t target feed mine anymore as my shrimps pick the food right out of their mouth and leave damage.

Once I switched to broadcast feed, no more picking problems.

Thought I would just check in case.

Although I agree with @Uncle99 - it's most likely being picked at, I'd like to know a few things:

What is the stocking in the tank?
& what are the following water parameters:
Po4,
Nitrates,
Calcium

There are white spots around its mouth and some skeleton showing. For stocking, I have a pair of clownfish, a purple firefish, 2 trochus snails, 3 turbo snails, 1 nassarrius snail, and a small porcelain crab.

As mentioned above, I haven't tested my tank in a while because my test kits got delayed due to the pandemic. However, I do water change very often (40% of 20g every 4-5 days) so I'm not really worried about my parameters.

 

[NewGoby]

There are white spots around its mouth and some skeleton showing. For stocking, I have a pair of clownfish, a purple firefish, 2 trochus snails, 3 turbo snails, 1 nassarrius snail, and a small porcelain crab.

As mentioned above, I haven't tested my tank in a while because my test kits got delayed due to the pandemic. However, I do water change very often (40% of 20g every 4-5 days) so I'm not really worried about my parameters.

If you're doing a 40% water change every 4-5 days it could very well be that your po4 or nitrates are extremely low which could be harming the coral,

but my first guess would be that something is munching on it, your stocking seems fine, all are reef safe.. although there are minor debates about larger porcelain crabs - some say they could feed on coral if there isn't enough food floating around.

I'd say go out at night after the lights are out - see if there's anything on the scoly munching away,

for now you could make tiny holes in a plastic cup & place it over the scoly & put some stones on it to weigh it down - that way if anything is munching on it at night, it hopefully wont be able to get to it, unless it's already under the cup.

& do you feed the scoly?

 

[Uncle99]

Watch that porcelain crab. While a reef safe filter feeder, it is a scavenger.
My concern is that he’s picking the food out of the scollies grasp, not to kill it but to steal its food.
I had similar trouble with another scavenger, a cleaner shrimp, the scolly is a slow processor of foods, so lots of time to pick at night.
I just stopped target feeding the scollies, they get fed by broadcast now and all healed up.

 

[vietreefer]

If you're doing a 40% water change every 4-5 days it could very well be that your po4 or nitrates are extremely low which could be harming the coral,

but my first guess would be that something is munching on it, your stocking seems fine, all are reef safe.. although there are minor debates about larger porcelain crabs - some say they could feed on coral if there isn't enough food floating around.

I'd say go out at night after the lights are out - see if there's anything on the scoly munching away,

for now you could make tiny holes in a plastic cup & place it over the scoly & put some stones on it to weigh it down - that way if anything is munching on it at night, it hopefully wont be able to get to it, unless it's already under the cup.

& do you feed the scoly?

Watch that porcelain crab. While a reef safe filter feeder, it is a scavenger.
My concern is that he’s picking the food out of the scollies grasp, not to kill it but to steal its food.
I had similar trouble with another scavenger, a cleaner shrimp, the scolly is a slow processor of foods, so lots of time to pick at night.
I just stopped target feeding the scollies, they get fed by broadcast now and all healed up.

My test kits just arrived and the parameters seemed fine as I expected. However, I got 0.06ppm for phosphate which I think is a bit high. I placed it in low flow and low light area with my other scoly. That scoly immediately receeded like crazy after one night. I actually have no idea what is going on with my display tank so I just set up a quarantine tank and moved all my coral there.

Here is a pic of my other scoly. Would dipping them in iodine help?

 

[JohnMzreef]

0.06 ppm phosphate is fine. what is your nitrate level?

 

[vietreefer]

0.06 ppm phosphate is fine. what is your nitrate level?

0.2 ppm for nitrate on my display tank. I just moved all my corals to the quarantine tank with freshly mixed saltwater so I guess I'll test it after a couple of days. It's odd that some corals are actually thriving but some are not even though they are in the same tank.

 

[JohnMzreef]

0.2 ppm nitrate could be your problem. I know my scoly is not happy with nitrate much under 1 ppm. Its a confusing thing because some corals will not care. But some definitely will, esp if light is strong..

 

[Enerderek]

Corals tend to do better with higher nitrate (just not too crazy high, like 5-10). You don't want your nutrients in the tank too low. Try feeding your fish and inverts first before spot feeding the scoly. They do much better by spot feed than broadcast.

 

[Uncle99]

Looks like someone is having scolly for lunch.

 

[vietreefer]

0.2 ppm nitrate could be your problem. I know my scoly is not happy with nitrate much under 1 ppm. Its a confusing thing because some corals will not care. But some definitely will, esp if light is strong..

Corals tend to do better with higher nitrate (just not too crazy high, like 5-10). You don't want your nutrients in the tank too low. Try feeding your fish and inverts first before spot feeding the scoly. They do much better by spot feed than broadcast.

Looks like someone is having scolly for lunch.

Last night I finally caught what has been eating my scoly. It’s my little money cowrie.I just put a master grade scoly in my display tank yesterday and the cowrie already went on it. So far it has eaten $1k worth if scoly. It hurts when it chose my most 3 expensive coral to munch on

 

[Anihiel1]

Last night I finally caught what has been eating my scoly. It’s my little money cowrie.I just put a master grade scoly in my display tank yesterday and the cowrie already went on it. So far it has eaten $1k worth if scoly. It hurts when it chose my most 3 expensive coral to munch on

Ouch!!

 

[Uncle99]

That’s Unfortunate.
Seen this type of damage a lot on sand dwellers in the past.
Others can do this too. Good example is a Sand Sifting Star. Doesn’t do it on purpose, their just in the way.
Shrimps as well, they are likely just stealing food, but their damage looks like tiny white spots under the blue.
I guess we can add the cowrie now.

The good news is this tissue can repair, but slow, that damage maybe 4 months, that’s if you remove the culprit.