Mystery coral die off

[jsker]

My reef tank went from Fabulous to failure in about a years time.

I have tried everything to figure out what was going on from testing to treating with no luck.

I was a the Macna show 2019 and someone mentioned that it could be a bacteria and that got me thinking. Battered By Bleaching, Florida;s Coral Reefs Now Face Mysterious Disease Did my system some how get the Florida Disease?

Anyone one else experience what I have been going through in the Florida area?

I am now treating with a broadcast treatment of metroplex and vitamin C for a week. I was reading that the corals of being treated with an antibiotic. I am going to treat for one more week to see what happens.

 

[erk]

I'm following along. I am wondering if this is what I'm dealing with. I have gorgonians from Florida, so it is possible that I got whatever it is that is attacking the hard corals in Florida. Only hard corals seem to be affected in my tank. Soft corals and some LPS are fine(hopefully I don't jinx myself). I've just been keeping things stable, hoping that I will see a turnaround and nothing has changed. All SPS die a very slow death taking weeks to months to eventually die. SPS will appear happy with good color and PE, then randomly I'll see a small spot of tissue necrosis. They don't bleach, just very slow recession. The ones I have that are still alive have PE, but a lot of necrosis spots all over. At this point I've become more or less resigned to just keep soft coral and forgo all hard coral.

 

[EmdeReef]

Sorry for your problems

What salt do you use? There was a thread about issues with fritz.

I doubt you would have the disease described in the article unless you added anything from the affected areas. Even then it seems that it’s follows certain environmental triggers.

Is it possible a contaminant got in your tank? Have you sent an icp?

 

[Waters]

I am starting to think this is almost inevitable.... maybe we don't know as much about keeping coral as we thought. There are so many threads dedicated to strange SPS die off.....even from experienced people. I am sure there is always a reason.......but more often than not it is never explained.

 

[jsker]

I'm following along. I am wondering if this is what I'm dealing with. I have gorgonians from Florida, so it is possible that I got whatever it is that is attacking the hard corals in Florida. Only hard corals seem to be affected in my tank. Soft corals and some LPS are fine(hopefully I don't jinx myself). I've just been keeping things stable, hoping that I will see a turnaround and nothing has changed. All SPS die a very slow death taking weeks to months to eventually die. SPS will appear happy with good color and PE, then randomly I'll see a small spot of tissue necrosis. They don't bleach, just very slow recession. The ones I have that are still alive have PE, but a lot of necrosis spots all over. At this point I've become more or less resigned to just keep soft coral and forgo all hard coral.

Mine was a slow death also, and one point I was thinking old tank syndrome.

I do experiment and I am guilty of minor mistakes with my system, but I have tried everything.

Somewhere I read what antibiotic they are treating the corals with success. The antibiotic is prescription.

 

[BestMomEver]

I’m so sorry. That stinks. I live in south Alabama and all my rock came out of south Florida waters. So far, everything in my tank is thriving. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the antibiotics work. Keep us updated.

 

[jsker]

What salt do you use? There was a thread about issues with fritz.

Not Fritz salt but a different brand that I have had great success with.

I doubt you would have the disease described in the article unless you added anything from the affected areas. Even then it seems that it’s follows certain environmental triggers.

The wind blows in from the coast with the seabrease most afternoons. My system uses fresh are from outside. This could be the possible source of cross-contamination.

No I did not do a ICP test since nothing changed in my regular testing.

 

[jsker]

I am starting to think this is almost inevitable.... maybe we don't know as much about keeping coral as we thought. There are so many threads dedicated to strange SPS die off.....even from experienced people. I am sure there is always a reason.......but more often than not it is never explained.

Kind of why I am throwing my my wild thought out there for discussion. I have good through my system and looked at every aspect from steady parameters to possible issues with toxic metals being introduced into the system from plumbing fittings.

 

[brandon429]

No I strongly believe sight unseen no bacteria or disease is the case, that's a guess going off thousands of post thread patterns. In my opinion all reefs in distress can be brought back with standard reef tank cpr

there can be certain invaders/ agreed/ but if acro eating bugs/nudis are excluded then as far as system params or bacteria issues those are least likely in my opinion.


things we use to regenerate stressed nano reefs:
no filthy sandbed
massive feedings, spot feedings with effort not taken to this detail yet
massive weekly water changes, evacuating that extra feed you've been doing a few weeks

work, cost, labor, not automation or adsorbents or things that uptake waste or dosers that dose in missing items. water changes. the old fashioned way always works and it works for large tanks. the quest to be automated less work hands off is the likely culprit/some kind of imbalance followed. post pics

this is purely a syndrome of large tanks, we have certain ways to make it not occur in nano reefs for the above mentioned reasons, that alone is important to consider. I wish I knew a less work way, I don't. this is why my reef is one gallon, that's the max effort I'm willing to expend forcing compliance lol

 

[jsker]

I’m so sorry. That stinks. I live in south Alabama and all my rock came out of south Florida waters. So far, everything in my tank is thriving. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the antibiotics work. Keep us updated.

It might be like a common cold, once the immune system of the system get a little down, the corals are effective.

One other comment I will make, is I have to be very carful of some much and how long I treat. In cases of humans using antibiotic for long period of time. Humans become immune two antibiotics, and this could happened to our systems too.

 

[Retro Reefer]

My tank is only a little over a year old but I have lots of stuff collected from around Florida including my rock form the Keys, Knock on wood everything is doing good so far.

 

[BestMomEver]

“I am starting to think this is almost inevitable.... maybe we don't know as much about keeping coral as we thought. There are so many threads dedicated to strange SPS die off.....even from experienced people. I am sure there is always a reason.......but more often than not it is never explained. “

I don’t see why this has to be. Natural reefs (when not destroyed or influenced by man) can and will continue to grow. They are kept in check by the creatures that thrive there. There are quite a few people I know who have had their reef tanks set up for a looooong time. If you can get past the newbie stage (maybe 3-4 years) and you have figured out the slight nuances of reef keeping, your corals should live and grow for many years.

 

[jsker]

No I strongly believe sight unseen no bacteria or disease is the case, that's a guess going off thousands of post thread patterns. In my opinion all reefs in distress can be brought back with standard reef tank cpr

no filthy sandbed
massive feedings, spot feedings with effort not taken to this detail yet
massive water changes, work, cost, labor, not automation or adsorbents or things that uptake waste or dosers that dose in missing items. water changes. the old fashioned way always works and it works for large tanks. the quest to be automated less work hands off is the likely culprit/some kind of imbalance followed. post pics

this is purely a syndrome of large tanks, we have certain ways to make it not occur in nano reefs for the above mentioned reasons, that alone can regenerate the sys I bet

I agree, and have tried all of this.

I am a treat you system naturally and very really will us anything synthetic to treatment my system.

 

[brandon429]

I would agree with an ICP test to rule out chem issues or contams. that's prudent for large tank assessment agreed

 

[brandon429]

I think a neat troubleshooting angle for your tank is this:

you can take any section of it, a huge chunk of live rock and corals attached but in distress, and lift them on over to a 20 gallon nano system and the whole issue will stop for what fits in the tank and is ran under the manual feed/export method. irony that downsizing implements control in reefing. its a fallback system to consider, doesn't have to be permanent in your tank. run the hard work method sustained for 3 mos, add coral mass, then go back to more automation options/less actual manual work.

 

[Retro Reefer]

Have you ran poly filters to pull any potential contaminates out of your system? Checked for rusting components? I had a tank steadily go down hill and I was pulling my hair out, checked and rechecked everything multiple times over a couple months.. one day I pulled the wet side of my glass cleaner out of the tank and dark brown water poured out of it, unknown to me it had cracked, filled with water and was leaching contaminates into my tank.. within a few days of removing it my tank looked 100% better and after a few weeks it was mostly back to normal.

 

[jsker]

My tank is only a little over a year old but I have lots of stuff collected from around Florida including my rock form the Keys, Knock on wood everything is doing good so far.

I just added a couple of new corals after 6+ months without adding anything (kind of a QT) and the same thing.

 

[redfishbluefish]

It amazes me how our tanks are constantly challenging us with new and unique problems to solve. I hope this treatment is a cure for this most recent issue, and will be following for sure.

As far as the linked article...a good read...and the last line sparked my little brain..."corals raised in the lab have shown resistance to the mystery disease..." And the question I ask is why would lab raised corals have greater resistance to this disease? What I'm thinking is that something in the water...pollution, silt, temperature, etc...is impacting the immune system allowing the disease to take hold. Just a thought. I also wonder if those coral farms (Ken Nedimyer and Coral Restoration Foundation) that raise their corals in open water have experienced this?

However, I do have a question.....out of ignorance of antibiotics, will treating your DT with these drugs impact the nitrifying bacteria?

 

[jsker]

I think a neat troubleshooting angle for your tank is this:

you can take any section of it, a huge chunk of live rock and corals attached but in distress, and lift them on over to a 20 gallon nano system and the whole issue will stop for what fits in the tank and is ran under the manual feed/export method. irony that downsizing implements control in reefing. its a fallback system to consider, doesn't have to be permanent in your tank. run the hard work method sustained for 3 mos, add coral mass, then go back to more automation options/less actual manual work.

I do not keep a spare tank around for QT, I am old school in my ways;Hilarious I just let the tank die off and decided I would not do a break down the system and let things take there corse. I went away from all the automation and basically copied what I was doing before the system took a turn.

 

[jsker]

Have you ran poly filters to pull any potential contaminates out of your system?

Yes

Checked for rusting components?

Yes

The system is the cleanest it has been in a long time except the glass. ;Hilarious;Hilarious