Plate Coral Losing Tissue overnight

MadTownFess · Mar 23, 2022

I am very puzzled....I have a 3.5 year old tank. Very established and stable. Have 50+ corals growing and very happy, both LPS and SPS. Woke up yesterday and small triangle chunk of tissue was missing from my orange plate coral. When the lights came on, the coral still looked great, was puffy and happy despite the missing tissue. Now this morning I wake up and there's an even larger chunk missing.

The coral has been very happy, showing absolutely no signs of stress. In fact I could argue that prior to this happening, it looked as good as it ever did.

I dont really have anything that would eat it. The only thing that may annoy it are my peppermint shrimp walking all over at night.

I thought maybe it was getting stung by something so I moved it yesterday, but the fact it had an even larger chunk missing today rules out that it was getting stung. To be honest I am clueless.

8.5 alk, 420 cal, 1350 mag, 5 nitrate, .05 phosphate (all been stable for along time)

Any thoughts what could be going on?

blaxsun · Mar 23, 2022

It looks like something's possibly been grazing on it. What kind of fish do you have in your tank?

MadTownFess · Mar 23, 2022

blaxsun said:
It looks like something's possibly been grazing on it. What kind of fish do you have in your tank?

Two clownfish, sixline wrasse, midas blenny and a royal gramma.

blaxsun · Mar 23, 2022

MadTownFess said:
Two clownfish, sixline wrasse, midas blenny and a royal gramma.

I doubt any inverts would be taking a poke at it and there aren't any heavy hitters in that fish list. I mean, it's possibly it got stung over a wider area than you first realized and it's finally recessing back to that area.

I'd leave it where it is for now and see if it gets any worse. Do you supplement with any aminos or things like Reef Roids?

mrtallbear86 · Mar 23, 2022

This happened to me. I had some stray voltage in my tank causing polyp bailout. It looked the exact same way

MadTownFess · Mar 23, 2022

blaxsun said:
I doubt any inverts would be taking a poke at it and there aren't any heavy hitters in that fish list. I mean, it's possibly it got stung over a wider area than you first realized and it's finally recessing back to that area.

I'd leave it where it is for now and see if it gets any worse. Do you supplement with any aminos or things like Reef Roids?

I usually feed RedSea AB+ and BRS Reef Chili once a week, but havn't in a few weeks. I will start doing that again in hopes it aids in the recovery.