I fear the end is close - help!

[rick_farr]

I have / had a lovely lobo which was thriving.

Nothing has changed in my tank for the past 3 months. Everything else looks healthy and both low and sps growth is good ... apart from this poor chap.

RTN - over the space of 1 week. I came down and overnight the first part of the strip started. I have dipped several times but it’s rapidly increasing.

At this rate in less than a week it will be all gone.
I don’t have a band saw, but do have a dremel - do I just cut out in half!?!

Help!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

What are your tank parameters like? What is your lighting and where do you have it in the tank? Have you tried dipping it in anything?

 

[rick_farr]

Tank parameters are:
KH: 8.0
ph: 8.1
Phosphates: 0.08
Nitrates: 1
Ca: 400
Mg: 1350

Lighting: Radion xr30w gen 2

Parameters have been steady like this for at least 6 mths.

Run full Triton on system. No new additions ( in fact lobo was the last addition 3 months ago! ). Tried Coral Rx dip & iodine - done 3 times & not slowing it down.

The end is nigh! Eekkkk!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Tank parameters are:
KH: 8.0
ph: 8.1
Phosphates: 0.08
Nitrates: 1
Ca: 400
Mg: 1350

Lighting: Radion xr30w gen 2

Parameters have been steady like this for at least 6 mths.

Run full Triton on system. No new additions ( in fact lobo was the last addition 3 months ago! ). Tried Coral Rx dip & iodine - done 3 times & not slowing it down.

The end is nigh! Eekkkk!

Maybe try leaving it alone and taking a deep breath It's obviously not happy but moving/dipping it every chance you get is definitely not helping. You usually only need to dip once, place it in a suitable area of the tank with the proper lighting for that type of coral and just wait and see what happens. If things don't improve, then it's a lighting or water issue and not the coral itself.

You're calling it RTN but take it from me, if it was truly RTN it would already be gone, I had RTN with an acro and it was gone within an hour of me figuring it out. What you're dealing with is STN since it's only lost that much tissue over the course of a week, so I would leave it be for a day or so and if things don't improve I would be making slight adjustments to the lighting (if that's what you think it is) or figuring out what is in the water making it upset.

Are any of your other corals upset, if so, what type of corals are they?

 

[dutch27]

IMO, give it a consistent place to stay in the tank, stop dipping it/messing with it, and hope for the best. Sometimes these things die back but will stabilize and come back from the smallest amount of remaining tissue.

 

[rick_farr]

Maybe try leaving it alone and taking a deep breath It's obviously not happy but moving/dipping it every chance you get is definitely not helping. You usually only need to dip once, place it in a suitable area of the tank with the proper lighting for that type of coral and just wait and see what happens. If things don't improve, then it's a lighting or water issue and not the coral itself.

You're calling it RTN but take it from me, if it was truly RTN it would already be gone, I had RTN with an acro and it was gone within an hour of me figuring it out. What you're dealing with is STN since it's only lost that much tissue over the course of a week, so I would leave it be for a day or so and if things don't improve I would be making slight adjustments to the lighting (if that's what you think it is) or figuring out what is in the water making it upset.

Are any of your other corals upset, if so, what type of corals are they?

Everything else has been fine. About 4 months ago a brain Coral has a very small amount of recession, however 1 dip and it all stopped.
I only dipped this 3 times as my LFS told me to dip it several times of recession was visible on a daily basis.

It’s not a happy ‘bunny’. Willing to wait, but the images are 3 days apart... hence contemplating cutting out dead skeleton -again another suggestion from LFS.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Everything else has been fine. About 4 months ago a brain Coral has a very small amount of recession, however 1 dip and it all stopped.
I only dipped this 3 times as my LFS told me to dip it several times of recession was visible on a daily basis.

It’s not a happy ‘bunny’. Willing to wait, but the images are 3 days apart... hence contemplating cutting out dead skeleton -again another suggestion from LFS.

I would leave it alone for a couple of days, some corals can be messed with as often as your LFS is suggesting, from my experience Lobophyllia are not one of those corals.

 

[rick_farr]

Looks like consensus is to leave it. I’ll ignore my LFS and give it a go. Shame as it was a nice specimen. Fingers crossed it goes no further.
Thanks for everyone’s input so far [emoji3]

 

[Jimbo662]

What are your lights set at. Could be that it's not liking those and it's just taken this long for it to finally get to a point of showing these signs.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Looks like consensus is to leave it. I’ll ignore my LFS and give it a go. Shame as it was a nice specimen. Fingers crossed it goes no further.
Thanks for everyone’s input so far [emoji3]

It'll grow back if it turns around

 

[rick_farr]

What are your lights set at. Could be that it's not liking those and it's just taken this long for it to finally get to a point of showing these signs.

Lights are set at 60% with a preset from coral Lab - point taken though.
I purposely put it on sand bed towards the side so not to blast it with light.

I bought after almost 5 years I had a handle on reef keeping - once again time to learn lol

 

[Jimbo662]

Lights are set at 60% with a preset from coral Lab - point taken though.
I purposely put it on sand bed towards the side so not to blast it with light.

I bought after almost 5 years I had a handle on reef keeping - once again time to learn lol

60% seems like a reasonable intensity. How deep is the tank?

 

[Matthew Dambra]

In my experience i had a lobo that was slowly dying almost completely gone, a bit hard to tell from this picture but you can see its more skeleton than lobo in the first picture. With solid parameters and low lighting conditions the only thing a lobo needs is good target feeding, you can see a simple method to achieve this in my second picture and just look how much better this coral is now.

 

[Reefboy1]

Looking at it. I would think that something is snacking on it and it is not something that is living on it (so dip is not going to work). I would say this because the other side of is still healthy. If it were me I would set up a video for when your lights are off or I would sit and wait to see if something comes out. If you have had your system up for a couple of years a lot critters that hide in rocks or sand get bigger and so do their appetites. Also you always get a hitch hiker or two when you add live rock or corals that are attached to live rock. Dips do not kill everything.

 

[Reefboy1]

also how long have you had it and is that live rock in the picture attached to it??

 

[rick_farr]

60% seems like a reasonable intensity. How deep is the tank?

Tank is 17’ ( 43cm ) & lights are 9’ (23cm) from water

 

[rick_farr]

Looking at it. I would think that something is snacking on it and it is not something that is living on it (so dip is not going to work). I would say this because the other side of is still healthy. If it were me I would set up a video for when your lights are off or I would sit and wait to see if something comes out. If you have had your system up for a couple of years a lot critters that hide in rocks or sand get bigger and so do their appetites. Also you always get a hitch hiker or two when you add live rock or corals that are attached to live rock. Dips do not kill everything.

Good idea! I’ve had no new live rock since the system was step up and the only additions in he start were frags, which are now established colonies.
I will be setting something up tonight though - thank you for the tip!

 

[rick_farr]

also how long have you had it and is that live rock in the picture attached to it??

Had the lobo for 3 months.
The live rock was a random piece I had in the tank since setup. It was originally used to prop it up... in fact over the past 3 months it has grown onto it!

 

[rick_farr]

Looking at it. I would think that something is snacking on it and it is not something that is living on it (so dip is not going to work). I would say this because the other side of is still healthy. If it were me I would set up a video for when your lights are off or I would sit and wait to see if something comes out. If you have had your system up for a couple of years a lot critters that hide in rocks or sand get bigger and so do their appetites. Also you always get a hitch hiker or two when you add live rock or corals that are attached to live rock. Dips do not kill everything.

? Would covering the lobo over help ?
It would stop flow however... might stop a nighttime hitchhiker having a picnic!

 

[Reefboy1]

? Would covering the lobo over help ?
It would stop flow however... might stop a nighttime hitchhiker having a picnic!

no but you could use or make something to keep it out of reach like this (off the bed) do you have another tank or a quarantine tank?

If it were me and I had the time I would try leaving it and look to see if something is eating it because if something is then you can try to catch it and hope that there are no others. If you just move it you will never know until your next meaty coral starts to look the same.