SOS! TISSUE NECROSIS!

Brandon McHenry · Feb 15, 2016

I woke up this morning to find a few of my acros showing tissue necrosis. Params are as follows:

Calcium- 440ppm
Alkalinity- 7dkh
Mg- 1350ppm
NO3- 1ppm
PO4- 0.006ppm
78F

There are no signs of pests and I have not added any new corals to the tank to introduce pests. Things have been stable for a while and I am looking for suggestions. Please excuse the poor iPhone pics I was in a hurry to post this.

tj w · Feb 15, 2016

Do u always run ur alk at 7?

djrice69 · Feb 15, 2016

You might have some acropora eating flat worms from the last picture. I'd cut what you have and try to save the rest

aaron23 · Feb 15, 2016

I'd try to frag and glue try to save the piece but do a big WC cause something is off balance

Brandon McHenry · Feb 15, 2016

tj w said:
Do u always run ur alk at 7?

Yes ever since I started trying a bacterial driven system two months ago.

djrice69 said:
You might have some acropora eating flat worms from the last picture. I'd cut what you have and try to save the rest

I don't know how I would have gotten them. I have never had them before. And I haven't added any new livestock in months to introduce them.

aaron23 said:
I'd try to frag and glue try to save the piece but do a big WC cause something is off balance

Im not sure how I will be able to frag them, they are all encrusted to the rock. And by big what percentage are you talking about?

favites · Feb 15, 2016

Brandon,

how is your 2 part dosing set up, and when was your last water change? Would check your ALK readings several times over next day or two, and that is a very perhaps the most common cause assuming no recent lighting/acclimation issues you haven't described...

AEFW always have too be considered as they can be present for many many months before detection, I would dip one of the colonies...

If the RTN progresses over the next few hours or day, I would frag some unaffected pieces in the interim while you are figuring out what happened, otherwise you may lose both colonies. Either cut off branches with coral cutters or break the colonies off the rock, sorry!! if this is really rapid tissue necrosis those pieces may be gone otherwise within 48 hours...

Mark

McMullen · Feb 15, 2016

I'm going with Alk too low for too long, it just finally caught up. I've had same issue with all swings.

Sabellafella · Feb 15, 2016

If they are getting progressively worse i would cut and dip them just to see, the bottom pic by the way the pattern looks, it looks to me a aefw. When i got them, ive must have tested and looked at everything. For soo long i wouldnt believe i had them because of the qt process and dipps i do before they go in my display but i chopped a colony down and sure enuff i had flatworms

Sabellafella · Feb 15, 2016

Also the top pic is deffinitly rtn. I agree with everyone that it might be an alk issue, gotta clip those branches

Brandon McHenry · Feb 15, 2016

My 2 part is set up on a dosing pump set for 60mL each of BRS CaCl and Soda Ash. My alkalinity is at 7-7.5 because of bacteria dosing. My last water change was Wednesday at 10%. To give you more information I am transitioning my system to Aquaforest which is similar to zeovit. I was doing this to try to get more color out of my corals. It was working quite well over the past few months, lowering my nutrients and increasing my growth. I did make a lighting change two weeks ago. I had a Hydra 52 T5 combo first and I got a hold of another T5 retrofit kit. I decided to see about trying entirely T5'sa so I took the LEDs offline and replaced them with the T5s. Some of my corals have browned out in the past two weeks but I actually think one or two look better. Im very confused as I have good bad and ugly all in the same tank now. I don't have coral clippers right now so i guess I will have to try to figure out a way to get one or two of them out. I can't see and pests but maybe Im not looking hard enough.

favites · Feb 15, 2016

thanks Brandon--you won't see the AEFW on the coral in the water, but if you have them, your jaw will drop with how well concealed they are until out of water or squirming in bayer...

how do you break up the dosing of the 60 ml?

the lighting change now of course is a possibility given the recent change...

the nutrient adjustments I can't comment on fully since I do not use them, but also could cause RTN as well depending how quickly they have been lowered..

At the end of the day, process of elimination-- 1) r/o pests 2) track ALK, don't change any other variables until you've addressed the first two IMO..

Brandon McHenry · Feb 15, 2016

favites said:
thanks Brandon--you won't see the AEFW on the coral in the water, but if you have them, your jaw will drop with how well concealed they are until out of water or squirming in bayer...

how do you break up the dosing of the 60 ml?

the lighting change now of course is a possibility given the recent change...

the nutrient adjustments I can't comment on fully since I do not use them, but also could cause RTN as well depending how quickly they have been lowered..

At the end of the day, process of elimination-- 1) r/o pests 2) track ALK, don't change any other variables until you've addressed the first two IMO..

The dosing is broken up into 24 doses per day for each supplement. So its done every hour basically.

Well I was hoping the lighting change would be beneficial and not detrimental.

The nutrient reduction was done slowly over a two month period.

Is the only way to rule out the pests to remove the coral and dip it?

favites · Feb 15, 2016

Dipping is the best way. But you could also blow a power head on the coral and see if anything blows off...

Greenstreet.1 · Feb 15, 2016

What test kit are you testing ALK with ? And do you have a backup test kit to make sure it's on point from pics it looks like an ALK issue.

Brandon McHenry · Feb 15, 2016

favites said:
Dipping is the best way. But you could also blow a power head on the coral and see if anything blows off...

If it is a pest wouldn't the powerhead just spread them around the tank?

Greenstreet.1 said:
What test kit are you testing ALK with ? And do you have a backup test kit to make sure it's on point from pics it looks like an ALK issue.

I am using a brand new Salifert test kit for Alk with Read Sea and API as backup.