Scoly help!

Lilnoelle80 · Feb 5, 2021

I have a scoly that began retracting last week after I had moved it to my display tank. I thought maybe the flow was too strong in my tank so I moved it to a quarantine tank that it had been located in for the prior month. It has continued to retract further. I’m not sure what else I should do for it. I am doing a large water change and decreasing the flow further in the QT tank. Any other ideas? First pic was early on, second and third pic were taken today.

P-Dub · Feb 5, 2021

So sorry to hear about your coral.
Without knowing everything there is to know about your QT and display tank, we are not going to be of much help. Need all parameters, equipment running, what other corals and their conditions, how you acclimated it and treated prophylactically when you got it, etc...

Lilnoelle80 · Feb 5, 2021

It’s currently in a 20g qt tank. Salinity 36. It’s got fresh saltwater in it now with just a sponge filter running.

It was in a 210 lit with coral blue ATI T5s. I drip acclimated it after quarantining it for a month and used Coral Rx dip to pretreat. It did fine in my QT tank prior to transfer with a hydor powerhead in addition to the sponge tank. I had it in the sand at the bottom of the tank when it was in the display tank, spaced out with a couple other scolys (they seem to be fine). The only livestock in the tank is crabs, shrimp, snails, and a couple starfish as my fish are in a 75g getting treated for ich for the last 2 months.
Current parameters in my display tank aren’t exactly what they were a week ago as I’ve adjusted them a bit but this is what they currently are. I didn’t check an ammonia, nitrates, etc as I didn’t have much for livestock. I had just done a 40g water change before moving it. I have a GFO, a protein skimmer, apex system.

P-Dub · Feb 6, 2021

Lilnoelle80 said:
It’s currently in a 20g qt tank. Salinity 36. It’s got fresh saltwater in it now with just a sponge filter running.

It was in a 210 lit with coral blue ATI T5s. I drip acclimated it after quarantining it for a month and used Coral Rx dip to pretreat. It did fine in my QT tank prior to transfer with a hydor powerhead in addition to the sponge tank. I had it in the sand at the bottom of the tank when it was in the display tank, spaced out with a couple other scolys (they seem to be fine). The only livestock in the tank is crabs, shrimp, snails, and a couple starfish as my fish are in a 75g getting treated for ich for the last 2 months.
Current parameters in my display tank aren’t exactly what they were a week ago as I’ve adjusted them a bit but this is what they currently are. I didn’t check an ammonia, nitrates, etc as I didn’t have much for livestock. I had just done a 40g water change before moving it. I have a GFO, a protein skimmer, apex system.

So, basically, you have no idea what any of your testable parameters are other than salinity and pH. We are still too much in the dark to help. It could be a bacterial infection and the only thing I might suggest is to dip in Coral Rx or similar. It looks pretty far gone but corals continually amaze me at their resilience and at their inexplicable demises.

I suggest testing your Alk, Ca, Mag somewhat regularly. I test Alk often, Ca once a week, and Mag once a month or two.

Lilnoelle80 · Feb 6, 2021

Oh, I’m testing them all daily. I just didn’t test ammonia and nitrate. I haven’t hooked up DOS yet, but I have it. My calcium and mag stay pretty high, I haven’t had to dose them yet, but alk is getting dosed about weekly. I did dose alk when I returned home from my trip. You can see it here. I think I overshot it a bit. Was trying to hit 10.2 using a calculator. Here’s the charts from apex.
I’m not entirely sure why the variance in pH, calcium, mag as I haven’t changed anything or dosed anything other than did a water change on 31st. That’s when I moved the coral to the QT tank as well.

Lilnoelle80 · Feb 6, 2021

Now that I’m thinking about it, I need to change the media in my CO2 and GFO. Won’t do anything for my sick scoly, but will help parameters. Need to just go ahead and get DOS hooked up too.

P-Dub · Feb 6, 2021

Ah, ok. I didn't even see the Alk, Ca, Mag at the bottom. Akl might be a bit high. Don't know if that would affect the scoly alone but might be a contributing factor if something else is affecting it and clearly something else is. I would dip and hope. MediCoral has worked well for me sometimes. Keep us posted.