I'm at a loss...

Dowtish · Aug 5, 2012

All these symptoms are exactly what happened to the frags I got from you. I have been chalking it up to too much light, and a low nutrient system. but now I'm wondering if it is some sort of pest???

You never had these problems when most of these were in your 40B right? , maybe when you moved them, there was something in the 120 that was waiting to irritate them?

Dave3112 · Aug 5, 2012

_Alex_ said:
Where does zoa pox come from? Know one really knows I had zoas get it that I had for close to 2 years. Was just a thought.

I'm not saying it isn't an infection or something. I was just saying that I haven't added anything to my tank so it couldn't have been on something else. Did you add any corals or livestock during those 2 years you had the zoas that came down with pox?

Dave3112 · Aug 5, 2012

Dowtish said:
All these symptoms are exactly what happened to the frags I got from you. I have been chalking it up to too much light, and a low nutrient system. but now I'm wondering if it is some sort of pest???

You never had these problems when most of these were in your 40B right? , maybe when you moved them, there was something in the 120 that was waiting to irritate them?

You may be on to something, Chris. They were fine in my 40B and only started to decline when I put them in the 125. I'm going to drop the interceptor in in a few and see what happens. I have rounded up as many hermits as I can find so I don't accidentally kill too many of them. If my chalices come back I will make up those frags to you.

Dowtish · Aug 5, 2012

Dave, don't worry about that. I dont think they would do well anyways in my system. I still have the bubble gum doing pretty good. Maybe I'll dip them and see how that goes.

_Alex_ · Aug 5, 2012

Yes only been in hobby for 3 years so there was additions haha. But when I got it none of the new additions showed affect

Dave3112 · Aug 5, 2012

Well, I just dosed the tank with the interceptor. Got carbon ready for the reactor in the A.M. And water in the Brute for tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if it will help anything because I haven't seen any pests in the tank but who knows. Lol. I have enough for 3 more doses. Does anyone thing I should do another one in a week or so like I was treating for red bugs even though I don't see any pests in the tank? You know, just be sure I got it if it is anything?

SmyrnaReefer · Aug 14, 2012

any results?

caudill187 · Aug 14, 2012

Dave3112 said:
Well, I just dosed the tank with the interceptor. Got carbon ready for the reactor in the A.M. And water in the Brute for tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if it will help anything because I haven't seen any pests in the tank but who knows. Lol. I have enough for 3 more doses. Does anyone thing I should do another one in a week or so like I was treating for red bugs even though I don't see any pests in the tank? You know, just be sure I got it if it is anything?

I don't think interceptor would help without a visible arthropod pest, if anything stress the corals more. When I have had issues like that with my chalices in the past, alk spikes, even if small, or too much light seems to usually be the culprit. It could also be bacterial...and opportunistic species that had been dormant in your system for a while...even fish, hermits, snails can theoretically harbor bacteria that can become problematic at some point. Who knows man, it's often impossible to come up with an answer. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles.

I would certainly give them a dip in revive or coral rx, leaving them in the dip for close to the max suggested time and debriding them with a turkey baster. Revive seems to work particularly well for me with ailing chalices, for some reason. Low light, medium flow after that.

caudill187 · Aug 14, 2012

Afterthought....some obscure nutrient deficiency would also make sense.....you could dose a supplement once or twice just for good measure.

Dave3112 · Aug 15, 2012

Well it's been a little over a week since dosing the interceptor, and it may just be wishful thinking, but I swear things are looking better. Well the recession in the tissue has stopped anyway. The only thing besides that I have done is decrease my light cycle and only by an hour so I'm not sure if that really had any effect on it or not. Only time will tell if they are actually turning around.

And now that I am REALLY looking close at the tank and EVERYTHING in it , the corals with the biggest issues are the pink and red chalices but my red hornets are lighter than they should be too. What would cause the pink and reds to fade so bad? My mummy eye chalices seem unaffected in all of this BTW.

Degener8 · Aug 15, 2012

Sorry I am not familiar with your lighting setup. What lights are you running and what settings/cycle etc.? I first thought lighting but its pretty odd bleaching to be lighting. On the otherhand was it the interceptor or the lighting that helped. You certainly could check in a week or 2 if its still looking same as now try decreasing the output or screening the corals that are affected to decrease the light intensity to them only and see if that does anything for ya.

Dave3112 · Aug 15, 2012

I run a 12x39w Nova Extreme Pro fixture. 8 ATI blue+, 2 ATI purple+ an 2 ATI coral+ bulbs. 6 of the blue+ come on at 9am then the rest come on at 11am and go out at 6pm then the blue+ go out at 8pm. I'm not sure it is the lifting because even my chalices that were actually under my SPS and shaded were doing the same thing the ones out in the open were doing. And 95% of them are on the sand bed.

Before being in this tank they were in another tank I had lit by 3 250w halides (Phoenix 14k bulbs) and some were halfway up in the tank. So I'm not sure too much light is even the issue. I just changed that too from 12 hours a day to 11 so I thought I would mention it.