Purple Stylo Rapid Death

Ehunforfun · Apr 3, 2018

Hey guys, soooo I think I know what happened but I'm not certain...I had a softball sized purple stylo and 2 frags of it in a 60gal cube under an xr15w Gen 4 Pro(with diffuser) that completely died over the course of about 6 days, one of the frags died overnight after the colony and the last frag is also dying now. Flow was supplied by a core20 and an MP10.

The way it died: Skin slowly peeled off from the base up every branch and QUICK. chunks of skin were just flipping in the current as more and more came off.

Tank Params at time of death:
SG 1.025
PH 7.8 - 8.1 over a 24 hr period
Temp 76.5-78 over 24 hrs.
Alk 9.1
Calc 420
Mag 1210
Nitrate 0.0
Phos 0.0

I'm running this tank with an algae scrubber only and live rock and I do constant water changes of about 10% per week, and feed about a cube a day and a 1/2 TSP of reef roids daily. My theory is that the coral died due to lack of nutrients (its previous home hand nitrates around 5ppm and phosphates never got below .036ish.)

I didn't have the time to get good pictures all my other SPS seem to be doing fine.

Triggreef · Apr 3, 2018

In my experience with stylo's only a sharp alk drop will cause that. But if your alk is stable at what you list, my next suspicion would be the lack of nutrients.

29bonsaireef · Apr 3, 2018

Definitely not from lack of nutrients. Would never cause a coral to RTN or have the flesh peel off. Something else went bad with your parameters to cause that to happen.

Triggreef · Apr 3, 2018

29bonsaireef said:
Definitely not from lack of nutrients. Would never cause a coral to RTN or have the flesh peel off. Something else went bad with your parameters to cause that to happen.

I disagree about lack of nutrients, but I agree there was probably a parameter swing (perhaps unknown) to cause the tissue flaking.

Ehunforfun · Apr 4, 2018

Interesting...that it seems to be the only coral affected. I partially suspect my RO/DI water then as the last DI resin changed color reallllly quickly(like 3 weeks).

The only other thing...I laser zapped about 3 big aiptasia near the base, I’m 99% sure I didn’t hit the coral but I wonder if lasering those things released toxins into the water.

markalot · Apr 4, 2018

Purple stylo is very rugged, something must be in the water in my opinion. I've had a lot of dieback, from an Alk spike and a rapid PO4 drop, but I've never lost mine.

Laser zapped?

29bonsaireef · Apr 4, 2018

Triggreef said:
I disagree about lack of nutrients, but I agree there was probably a parameter swing (perhaps unknown) to cause the tissue flaking.

I'm without a doubt, positive. Lack of nutrients wouldn't cause a coral to die in this manner. Especially a stylo, one of the hardiest SPS. If the OP is feeding a cube, and 1/2 TSP of Roids daily his tank is not stripped of nutrients. If all other parameters are in check and stable. Then death from lack of nutrients would be a slow process.

I'd suspect unstable alk, lighting or flow. Could be a mixture of all three, especially if you moved this coral recently from another tank. The stress along with new environment and unable parameters can cause RTN. Would double check your RO/DI if you think there's an issue there. That can lead to problems as well.

jda · Apr 4, 2018

This screams of point-source shadowing death combined with a swing. Colonies are hard-to-impossible under a XR15 since they lead to too many dark spots and not enough reflection... even the healthiest frags turn into so-so colonies as they grow. Even with a diffuser, this is why people add T5s to these as their tanks mature. The frags are confusing... if there were fresh or fresher, then maybe.

However, shadowing usually only causes STN. There was probably some sort of swing that enabled this, as well.

Low nutrients are no issue. Ultra-low can be. If you have undetectable N and P by natural means, then you are totally OK. If you were using organic carbon, GFO, LC, Al Oxide, etc. then it is possible that you could have driven them too low. Usually, this means bleaching and not death, though. You have to be using a lot of organic carbon for this to result in death... and it is nearly impossible with GFO, IME. An algae scrubber and water changes are not likely the cause here.

Did you just move this coral? If so, then this is the issue... the move. Everybody loses one every once in a while, so do not sweat this.

chipmunkofdoom2 · Apr 4, 2018

What @markalot said. I've had a stylophora that's been with me since the beginning. It's not the fastest grower, but it's been absolutely bullet-proof. It's been through countless mistakes I've made with the tank. It's never showed any signs of stress, no matter the alk swing, nutrient deficiency, or subpar light. For a while, I was keeping the poor guy in under 100 PAR. I only realized this after other corals started dying. If I had to estimate, the stylphora frag was getting around 75 PAR. The stylo was always happy.

How long have you had these corals? Did you have them for months and then all of a sudden they started dying? Or did you just get them 6 days ago and they started dying right away?

DanConnor · Apr 4, 2018

I have a nice paperweight I got exactly the same way. Tissue lifted off like a sheet from a pink stylo. Unfortunately it was a couple decades ago so I can't remember much more about it.

Som1else · Apr 5, 2018

I had this happen in the past, I fragged the dead section away but also well into the unaffected area and managed to save most of it. In my case it was probably alk swings / low alk.