Green Frogskin Acropora Losing Tissue

[nickkohrn]

I brought home nine SPS frags from a local show yesterday, and everything is doing well except for a Green Frogskin Acropora. It’s a smooth-skin SPS, so I knew from reading other threads that dipping may be difficult due to its more sensitive nature. My acclimation process follows:

1. Temperature acclimation for fifteen minutes
2. Remove from original frag plug
3. Dip in Bayer for five minutes (five milliliter of Bayer per one cup of tank water)
4. Rinse in bowl of tank water
5. Mount on new frag plug
6. Place in display

It started losing tissue and bleaching quickly after. As of this morning, there is still a little tissue left, but I’m going to leave it in the tank to see if it can miraculously recover. Everything else, looks great. The other corals that I picked up include the following:

• GARF Bonsai Acropora
• Battlecorals Frankenberry Acropora
• ORA Bird of Paradise Seriatopora
• Green Acropora Millepora
• Red Acropora Millepora
• Pro Corals Rainbow Acropora
• German Blue-Polyp Montipora Digitata
• Bubblegum Montipora Digitata
• Tyree Rainbow Stylophora

For future reference, I have a few questions:

1. Would a different dip, such as Melafix, have been more gentle?
2. Was my dip too concentrated?
3. Did I dip for too long?

This is my first time having an SPS-only system, and I don’t want to cause other future corals to suffer the same fate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Neo Jeo]

I brought home nine SPS frags from a local show yesterday, and everything is doing well except for a Green Frogskin Acropora. It’s a smooth-skin SPS, so I knew from reading other threads that dipping may be difficult due to its more sensitive nature. My acclimation process follows:

1. Temperature acclimation for fifteen minutes
2. Remove from original frag plug
3. Dip in Bayer for five minutes (five milliliter of Bayer per one cup of tank water)
4. Rinse in bowl of tank water
5. Mount on new frag plug
6. Place in display

It started losing tissue and bleaching quickly after. As of this morning, there is still a little tissue left, but I’m going to leave it in the tank to see if it can miraculously recover. Everything else, looks great. The other corals that I picked up include the following:

• GARF Bonsai Acropora
• Battlecorals Frankenberry Acropora
• ORA Bird of Paradise Seriatopora
• Green Acropora Millepora
• Red Acropora Millepora
• Pro Corals Rainbow Acropora
• German Blue-Polyp Montipora Digitata
• Bubblegum Montipora Digitata
• Tyree Rainbow Stylophora

For future reference, I have a few questions:

1. Would a different dip, such as Melafix, have been more gentle?
2. Was my dip too concentrated?
3. Did I dip for too long?

This is my first time having an SPS-only system, and I don’t want to cause other future corals to suffer the same fate.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have dipped about 17 sps frags in Bayer. I only lost 1. The 1 I lost is a smooth skin and is known to be difficult. I think it’s called red dragon. Sometimes you just lose them. Other people drip acclimate them.

I dip mine for 15 minutes so with your 5 min I would say it’s not a problem. Maybe others have a better opinion.

The one thing I see if you bought a Seriatopora sps. My thoughts are they grow very fast and they spawn all over the tank “over time” I took mine out 2 months ago and I see little ones starting in mutiple spots. Just a thought

Happy Reefing!

 

[Gareth elliott]

Smooth skins can take longer to acclimate to light. Sometimes you will see this effect without dipping. Where the light in your reef was a bit too much then what it was ready for yet.

 

[nickkohrn]

Thanks for the information! I suppose that I should move it down into a lower-light area when I get home. However, I have a feeling that it won't have much flesh left.

How long do you keep corals in your systems after they lose flesh? Do you keep them in there until all of the flesh is lost? Do you leave them in even after that to see if they are truly gone before you remove them?

 

[Gareth elliott]

I leave them till i see algae grow on them tbh, then i am certain theres no tissue remaining and its not just bleached.

 

[Gareth elliott]

What i use as a dip btw.
0.3ml per liter of water.

Edited to move decimal point

 

[MrObscura]

If it is a result of dipping, this is how I went about it with my first and only smooth skin(wwc king kiwi)... half the regular dose of coral rx for only a couple minutes. No harm done.

 

[nickkohrn]

If it is a result of dipping, this is how I went about it with my first and only smooth skin(wwc king kiwi)... half the regular dose of coral rx for only a couple minutes. No harm done.

I noticed it starting to bleach after the dip, so I presume that it was that process that caused the issues. Before that, it was a beautiful, dark green. I pulled it out after five minutes in the dip, and it was quite a light shade of green.

 

[SeaDweller]

You’d think Bayer is super harsh but I find it pretty gentle, although dangerous. I don’t think you dipped too long: I dip for 5-6 mins without issues. I don’t think you used too much, I just dump enough in to make the water milky, and that’s just eyeballing it. I think you just got unlucky with that piece and that’s about it.

I have Melafix too, I just guess it’s difficult to say if Melafix would have been “more successful” as it’s too late now. I really haven’t lost a frag to dipping with either solution. Was it beat up when you got it?

 

[rossco]

I’m thinking the coral was on its way out anyway. I routinely dip all corals in Bayer for 30 minutes at that strength, even dragon types with no issues.

 

[Reefltx]

The frog skin is a hardy one, grows like weed for me. I don’t consider them to be smooth skins like Hawkins though, they’re more like stag horns.

 

[Ken101Ward]

I feel your pain. I took home a bunch of Acro frags from the Buckeye Reef show yesterday. I ran to the tank this morning to check on everything. So far so good. Best luck to you and the rest of your frags.

 

[nickkohrn]

It appears that the tissue recession has halted. It may be difficult to see in the attached video, but the corallites that still have tissue contain extended polyps.

Should I leave the frag alone, or should I cut the healthy portion from the remaining skeleton?

I’m leaning toward leaving it alone since it’s already been through a great deal of stress.

Please excuse the explosion of diatoms. ;Meh

 

[SeaDweller]

It appears that the tissue recession has halted. It may be difficult to see in the attached video, but the corallites that still have tissue contain extended polyps.

Should I leave the frag alone, or should I cut the healthy portion from the remaining skeleton?

I’m leaning toward leaving it alone since it’s already been through a great deal of stress.

Please excuse the explosion of diatoms. ;Meh

It may or may not recover. IME, once the tissue necrosis occurs, seldom can I save it. I was successful recently with an Oregon tort, and managed to save a 1/2” frag of it. Also recently I tried fragging up a BC brain candy from therman that had plenty of healthy tissue left and it just didn’t make it. It lost tissue everyday for the next three days.

 

[erky]

frog skin to me is the one I just can't keep, I have had 3 different frags of it and they all RTN on me. I have done the same acclimation as you did but they always RTN, i really think it is just a very difficult acro to deal with.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

Before all the tissue is gone take some coral super glue and glue along the good tissue where it is rtn. Let it dry out of water then place it back. I have saved quite a few acros this way. Eventually it will grow back over and or start higher up where you can clip it. Just put it all the way around and try not to get too much super glue on the good tissue. Just enough to stop the rtn from moving up. It has worked 8-10 times in the past for me. Some that I thought were just gone survived with this. 2 that I thought would easy make it, went south still. Definitely dim your lights, to accilmate it more and work up. Frog skin will stress if they have have too little light or too high of light.