Scolys dying, I am desperate for help

[WaheedNaidoo]

Hi Guys, I really need your help please, I have a few scolys that are dropping like flys, something is going on in my tank, it’s 7 months old right now and I started noticing the issue around Mid December 2019 with my Double head scoly of the tissue receding and a gaping mouth, over a few weeks the coral got worse over time, mouth continued to gap and tissue just kept on receding, funny thing is that it took very long actually for the tissue to reced, I did low light low flow multiple dips and unfortunately 4 months later the coral died , fast track to 2 weeks ago my Superman scoly I noticed was a bit funny and kept his mouth open, the next morning it started receding and FAST!!, I again moved it to low flow low light area and multiple dips but not making any difference, at the same time I noticed my master scoly was doing the same, however the master started to reced in weird way, by the tissue along the outer rim on the skeleton started peeling off and kinda making holes, so I called a fellow reefer to help me out and take the scolys and put it in his QT tank, no improvement in his tank on both the Superman and master scoly. On Saturday I noticed my war paint isn’t to happy, it started to reced in chunks and the again burning holes, what’s interest is there are white squiggly stringy poop almost coming out of the area of wounds, kinda like how people say my clown fish pooped white strings, i dipped the coral and put it back into my display but the next day more receding and more white squiggly stringy poop, so I found this article and decided I am going to give it a shot, I set up a small QT 15l or 5 gallons with a hang on the back filter with bio balls from my main display, FYI I found a dead copepod in my media bag however it was red, it went down the sink before I could take a pic of it, I put in an egg crate and heater, display tank water was added to the QT, I found a article on Ultimate reef about a potential LPS disease, it talks about adding Milbemax dewormer which has a Milbemycin interceptor as well as praziquantel, essentially it kills parasites, please see the link https://www.ultimatereef.net/threads/potential-new-lps-disease.677915/page-6 . I put 1/12 of the Milbemax for dogs, the big tablet and dissolved it in a little tank water, I added the scoly in and now me typing this is about 18 hours later, the receding is still happening on my war paint, my fellow reefer has also purchased the meds and added it to his tank and has said the scolys are still getting worse, I don’t know what else to do, I have over 13 scolys and this is the 5th on going through the same thing, all my other corals, euphyllia, acans, GSP, Chalice, clam, Monte etc are all doing good. My water parameters are 9.5dkh, 425 cal, 1410mag, 2ppm nitrate, 0.04phosphate. My feeding is target feeding reef roids twice a week and it phytogold twice a week. I beg of you all to please can someone help me out, I am destroyed from all of this.

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

Any ideas from anyone please?

 

[William Mumford]

Do you feed them? And what are your parameters? Do you have any idea what PAR they are under?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I had similar over a year ago and everything appeared to be on track even salinity,,,,,, that is, with 3 different instruments told me salt was good.
I decided to take water to trusted LFS and end up finding out the salinity was 1.031 !!
Take your water in and have it rechecked,,,, also alk and ph.
Scoly does best with moderate light and water flow at temp of 78-79 deg, ph 8.1-8.2 and mag 1300 . Ca at 420 and 2 feedings weekly. I keep them at lower third of tank

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

P

Do you feed them? And what are your parameters? Do you have any idea what PAR they are under?

Par is between 150 and 100

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

I had similar over a year ago and everything appeared to be on track even salinity,,,,,, that is, with 3 different instruments told me salt was good.
I decided to take water to trusted LFS and end up finding out the salinity was 1.031 !!
Take your water in and have it rechecked,,,, also alk and ph.
Scoly does best with moderate light and water flow at temp of 78-79 deg, ph 8.1-8.2 and mag 1300 . Ca at 420 and 2 feedings weekly. I keep them at lower third of tank

ICP shows all my parameters as in order nothing low or high

 

[rogersb]

I don't see any fish in your pics. It's been my experience that these flashier lps need to be fed meatier pieces or have plenty of fish where they can get waste from the fish.

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

I don't see any fish in your pics. It's been my experience that these flashier lps need to be fed meatier pieces or have plenty of fish where they can get waste from the fish.

coral is in a QT tank that i setup on Sunday, with media from my main display and water. i have not fed the corals for almost a week now for it will stress out even further, also it does not want to accept food

 

[Katie M]

What's your temp at? I know someone posted 78-79 is great for scolys, but they actually prefer 73-74 range. One of the owners at work has an EXTENSIVE scoly collection (look up New Wave Aquaria if you're interested in seeing it). Beyond that, seems like your other parameters and par are good. They take a long time to recover, but hope you can get them on the upswing!

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

What's your temp at? I know someone posted 78-79 is great for scolys, but they actually prefer 73-74 range. One of the owners at work has an EXTENSIVE scoly collection (look up New Wave Aquaria if you're interested in seeing it). Beyond that, seems like your other parameters and par are good. They take a long time to recover, but hope you can get them on the upswing!

my tank fluctuates between 74 and 75 throughout the day and night

 

[vetteguy53081]

ICP shows all my parameters as in order nothing low or high

They don't do Salinity. . . The very item I recommend to verify

 

[Silverfish]

So sorry. This is what gets me so down on this hobby. Everything seems great then die off! Makes me want to throw up! I really hope you can straighten this out. Know that you are not alone.

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

They don't do Salinity. . . The very item I recommend to verify

I checked with refractometer as well as the hanna salinity checker and they both reading 1.025

 

[Albertan22]

Over the years I’ve grown clams, sps, you name it, but I have never had luck with scoly’s. They never seem to last more than a few months.

 

[Shirak]

I have a couple mini ones. I try to feed them every other night a piece of mysis or lps pellet or something similar. I see a very noticeable difference in mine if they are not feed 3-4 times a week.

 

[Shirak]

coral is in a QT tank that i setup on Sunday, with media from my main display and water. i have not fed the corals for almost a week now for it will stress out even further, also it does not want to accept food

Not seeing any feeder tentacles out late night? Try dripping a little liquid in the tank from a mysis cube and give it 15min or so. I had one that was touch and go and I would turn the almost all the pumps off and rest a little piece of mysis near it's mouth. Eventually it would eat it. I really think getting some food into them would help tremendously.

 

[VJM 21]

Not seeing any feeder tentacles out late night? Try dripping a little liquid in the tank from a mysis cube and give it 15min or so. I had one that was touch and go and I would turn the almost all the pumps off and rest a little piece of mysis near it's mouth. Eventually it would eat it. I really think getting some food into them would help tremendously.

In the first picture you posted, it looks like the torches next to the scoly are in some seriously strong flow (maybe it’s just the picture). I just sold a scoly that I had in three different tanks over three years. IME, they thrive in low flow environments, but really struggle with too much flow.
I also agree that it needs some nutrients in the water to thrive, even if you don’t feed it directly.

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

Update, I did a second dose of Milbemax Praziquantel and it seems like no effect on the coral, it’s still receding almost to a point of no return now anyone have any other ideas of what this could be, all 4 scolys are suffering from this, symptoms are necrosis, gapping mouth with very little movement at all and not responding to food in the water column or target feeding and tissue very lose and not sticking to the skeleton in heavy or gentle to no flow??

 

[Magellan]

As stated above, meatier foods! Turn the flow off and target feed mysis and/or coral pellets. I target feed my 2 headed scoly every other night with Coral Frenzy 1mm pellets. Goes nuts for it. It gets some mysis every now and then as well.

 

[WaheedNaidoo]

As stated above, meatier foods! Turn the flow off and target feed mysis and/or coral pellets. I target feed my 2 headed scoly every other night with Coral Frenzy 1mm pellets. Goes nuts for it. It gets some mysis every now and then as well.

thanks for your response, ive been feeding meaty foods to all my scolys since ive had them, i feed reef roids twice a week as well as mysis and rotifers twice a week to all my scolys, both target feeding and broadcast feeding. all the scolys that are infected right now have been with me for about 4 months now and were all happy and eating on this schedule for that time up until 3 weeks ago, i have double checked all my foods if they are expired and none of them are. i feel like this is some sort of parasite or infection and i just dont know what else to do, ive dipped them in a few dips recommended such as tropic marin, brightwell coral MD, Polyp lab Primer etc and nothing seems to be working. All the scoly as mentioned do not want accept for, the mouth continues to be gapping, the dont even attempt to try and take the food it i put it on the body.