Meat Coarl White Growth

[andy1990]

All looking for help identifying this white growth on my meat coral. I left for 2 weeks on vacation and everything else in my tank looks happy and actually growing but this meat coral is smaller and has some weird white growths. Any help identifying this stuff would be appreciated.

 

[MarineandReef Jaron]

The white is actually the skeleton of the coral. This coral is not doing well. There are lots of things that can cause the tissue recession so it is hard to know for sure what the cause is.

 

[Timfish]

It's not white growths. One guess is it's white pigmentation. It could also be bleaching but the reason I think it's white pigmentation is the pics it doesn't look translucent and showing white because of loss of zooxanthellae and coloring proteins. It could also be complete loss of tissue and you're looking at it's skeleton. Just hard to say from the pics.

 

[andy1990]

O if it is skeleton maybe it is in a too high of flow area? I can try to reduce the flow here. It isn’t a huge tank and it is close to the wave maker. Only a 24 gallon tank

 

[exnisstech]

Sorry to say that coral does not look healthy. Hard to say the cause or if it will recover.

 

[OrchidMiss]

The white projections are, infact, it's skeleton.
You said you were gone for 2 weeks? Did you have someone feeding the tank for you while you were gone? How long was it in the tank before you left?
The mouth does still look good, so i would feed the tank well (watch your no3 and po4) and target feed once a day as the lights ramp down - that's a personal choice for me as they seem to eat better in lower light.

 

[andy1990]

It is bumming me out, supposed to be one of the easiest corals I have in my tank and it is the only one not doing well.

 

[andy1990]

The white projections are, infact, it's skeleton.
You said you were gone for 2 weeks? Did you have someone feeding the tank for you while you were gone? How long was it in the tank before you left?
The mouth does still look good, so i would feed the tank well (watch your no3 and po4) and target feed once a day as the lights ramp down - that's a personal choice for me as they seem to eat better in lower light.

My NO3 are basically zero, I didn’t have someone spot feeding this coral while I was out specifically, but they were feeding the whole tank with nutrients. I’m wondering if the flow is just too high. I feed it when I got back and it did take the food from me. Thanks I’ll try feeding it at night. It was with me for about a week before I left, probably not the best time to pick up a coral I know, but I was told it was easy so didnt think it would be an issue

 

[OrchidMiss]

It is bumming me out, supposed to be one of the easiest corals I have in my tank and it is the only one not doing well.

Cynarina can be particular. Being on the sanded can be problematic. If sand gets between the skeleton and the flesh, it can irritate and kill the flesh. I would very gently turn it upside down by the base, and carefully shake out any sand thar may have gotten in there. Place it in a low flow area on a low rock and it should do better. Make sure you're keeping up on water quality through testing and water changes.

 

[OrchidMiss]

LPS like "dirty" water. So, if your no3 are down, bump the feedings up. Mine thrive with nitrates around 20

 

[exnisstech]

LPS like "dirty" water. So, if your no3 are down, bump the feedings up. Mine thrive with nitrates around 20

Agreed. This tank with a few of mine has nitrates at 18 and phos 0.5 (not 0.05)

 

[andy1990]

All my other LPS seem to be doing great and that was after 2 weeks levels were still that low. I cant any reading on a red sea test kit and I use to sit around 10-20 4 months ago. Would you suggest not changing water more than once a month? I’ve been doing every 2 weeks

 

[Kmst80]

Could be that the cynarina was damaged already. I lost a few of my Scolys the same way but my very first one is thriving. Sometimes it's just nothing we did or didn't do it's just the way it is.

 

[andy1990]

When I first put it in it looked like this

 

[OrchidMiss]

All my other LPS seem to be doing great and that was after 2 weeks levels were still that low. I cant any reading on a red sea test kit and I use to sit around 10-20 4 months ago. Would you suggest not changing water more than once a month? I’ve been doing every 2 weeks

If everything else is still happy, keep doing what you're doing with the WCs. If anything, just make sure it's eating. They're really neat to watch eat if you haven't watched before!