Safe to buy corals again?

[Katepete722]

Hello reef friends!

Looking for some advise about whether it is advisable to purchase some more corals after a brown jelly outbreak. Here's a summary:

Tank is a 29 biocube mixed reef.
We took a family vacation in the middle of August and my tank sitter accidentally turned off the auto top off. Salinity spiked and when I got back I lowered the salinity too quickly. Whoops. Corals were reasonably PO'd. In the following week the tank faced an alkalinity spike (to 10.5 from 8.9), I believe because the corals stopped growing and the continued kalk drip send the alkalinity up. I got things stable again but shortly after began seeing signs of brown jelly on a few of my LPS. Unfortunately it got pretty out of control and wiped out my couple of SPS frags and most of my LPS frags. After some repeated iodine dips I believe I have saved my acans, duncan, alveopora and a monti, and they are looking fat and happy and eating again. I have a few more LPS barely hanging on to life chilling on the frag rack. The brown jelly doesn't appear to have touched my zoas or mushrooms at all.

Sooo fast forward to this weekend and there is a local fragtoberfest as well as the WWC fragtoberfest and my tank is looking a bit Spartan. I'm wondering if it would be safe to pick up some zoas and mushrooms. I'm definitely planning to avoid LPS and SPS for the time being.

Tank stats
29 biocube
Nitrate: 1
Phosphate: .02
Calcium: 400
Alkalinity:8.9-9.2 Stable since the spike about 7 weeks ago

All thoughts and comments appreciated.

 

[ihavecrabs]

Hmm never heard of BJD attacking SPS. Do you have any pictures of the offender by chance? I'm wondering if you didn't have a combo of that and dinos or something along those lines. It is very possible the Alkalinity spike itself was enough for the SPS to succumb.

As for the LPS, if you do not see any BJD remaining, I would gander it is safe to introduce a new test specimen.

 

[Katepete722]

Well now that you mention it, two of the SPS went down hill during/immediately after vacation. My pocillorpora took a bit longer. The pocillopora and most of theLPS seemed to show the brown stringy stuff on bare skeleton rather than their actual flesh. So perhaps it wasn't BJD at all? Honestly I never even considered dinos.

I attached a picture of the pocilopora about a day after the last polyps bailed and my cosmic platy. Sorry the quality sucks.

 

[ihavecrabs]

Do you have it on any other surfaces? Sand/Rock/Glass etc?

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I just went through a very similar experience thinking cyano. Turned out to be Dino. Even attached to my GsP as seen here. I was able to beat it though. It was a rough road, I’ll see if I can find the thread here to link. I ended up going the bleach dosing method as it was out of hand and last resort due to my improper treating for the wrong problem. I ended up losing all my fish except a pair of clowns, but the Dino scourge is gone. I support the bleach method 100%, I just think my math on rock displacement was inaccurate. So error on my end, not the method

 

[Reeferguy365]

First pic just looks like algae growing all over the dead skeleton the second picture looks like cyano. Is the .02 a recent phosphate test?

 

[Katepete722]

Do you have it on any other surfaces? Sand/Rock/Glass etc?

Yes. I've got a patch of red slime on a portion of sand in front. Certainly looks like cyanobacteria. No bubbles and it's definitely not brown. I blast it daily with a baster and added a couple hermits to the clean up crew to clear it up.

First pic just looks like algae growing all over the dead skeleton the second picture looks like cyano. Is the .02 a recent phosphate test?

.02 is last weeks phosphate test. I test weekly. I will admit that the phosphate test kit is second hand and a couple years old, so should get my hands on a new test kit.

So maybe the whole issue is water quality and cyanobacteria?

 

[Reeferguy365]

Yeah if you're blasting it off your sand daily you definitely have cyano. You should get some erythromycin it's only $10 API makes it the Box will come with 10 packets you should only need one maybe two I forget the dosage but you will put that in your tank and then two days later do a big water change. The cyano will be gone within the week no more blowing off your sand

 

[ihavecrabs]

I do not think it is dinos then if it is only over the dead skeleton.

I would chalk this up to instability causing the coral death. The salinity spike definitely got em and then the subsequent alkalinity spike due to the decreased uptake after the salimity spike likely got em too.

I would think you are OK to move ahead with your coral purchases if stability is back.

 

[Reeferguy365]

you should be fine with getting a few Frags but definitely need to do something about the cyano. Try to make sure you blow off the corals you see the cyano of growing over like the Coral in the second picture definitely blow that thing off

 

[Katepete722]

Thanks for all your advice guys! Think I'll pick a few up this weekend and work on getting the cyano beat.