SPS Coral Peeling

[Bryan Mitchell]

Tank Parameters: 81 F, 8.5-8.58 pH, 0.25 Ammonia, 0 mg/L Nitrite, 5 mg/L Nitrate, 0.02 PPM Phosphate, 5.7 KH, 1320 PPM Mg, 365 mg/mL Ca


Hi all, this is my first saltwater tank and it has been up for 1 year. I have worked very slowly on this tank and have not done any dosing and I perform a 10-15% water change weekly.I noticed this problem 2 weeks ago, but unfortunately had to go out of town for a week before I could address anything. Some of my SPS are turning white from the bottom up and even peeling. The middle one below practically pealed all over in a single day. The low alkalinity is the first thing that stands out to me. I have BRS Soda ash from when I bought my tank, but understand I can't use it for a big one time correction because it will spike my pH. If anyone has any advice I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

 

[Maggie321]

Doesn't look good to me. Are they getting worse? Is there any thing that could be stinging them? Have you added anything new lately?

 

[Bryan Mitchell]

Yes it appears to be progressing quickly. The most recent addition was a yellow Tang and sand sifting starfish two months ago.

 

[Bryan Mitchell]

Yes it appears to be getting worse. I got a yellow Tang and sand sifting starfish two months ago.

 

[Maggie321]

#reefsquad

 

[Crabs McJones]

Your alk is very low. Calcium is low bit not dangerously low. I would suggest either some large water changes to bring them back up, or dose to bring them back up. 1dkh a day should be fine.

 

[lolmatt]

Yeah alk below 7dkh will cause problems in almost any system. Those corals now have rapid tissue necrosis (rtn) and likely won't recover. Try to keep your alk around 8.5 and stable, stuff will do better overall.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

0.25 ammonia?

 

[Flippers4pups]

RTN. It's a stab in the dark of which bacteria is causing this. Gram negative or gram positive, but at this point it's not going to matter.

Get some metroplex by seachem and remove the corals and dip them in a solution of it and saltwater for 10 mins.
One scoop of metroplex to a glass of saltwater. Rinse the coral after in saltwater.

If this doesn't stop the RTN, try a dip in iodine.

Last ditch effort is to frag above the dead tissue, rinse well with saltwater and place back in the DT.

Good luck.

 

[Anirban]

First thing.... you can not have detectable ammonia in the tank after a year and second the Alk is too low.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Here's a white paper brief on RTN.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083779/

Use of ampicillin has good results as well, instead of metroplex if you can find it.

Amoxicillin, ampicillin are within the family of Penicillin. Though ampicillin has been used in studies, amoxicillin may, and I say may have similar results.

Oh and yes, your alkalinity is low. Raise it by dosing baking soda in solution not by more than 1 DKH per day. Use this calculator:

http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

Use Randy's recipe #2 for alkalinity to make up a gallon of alkalinity solution.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php

 

[reefwiser]

Dead coral if this is your first reef tank I would concentrate of zoas soft corals and LPS for a while till you get a better understanding of reef tank husbandry and chemistry.
It will be less stressful for you and you will enjoy the aquarium more. SPS are a different level of care and even in the best aquarist control things go south.

 

[Bryan Mitchell]

There's some great feedback in this thread, thank you to everyone. I received these frags for very cheap from a local hobbyist and things have been going so smoothly that I had not been properly monitoring my chemistry. I will work to get my alkalinity and calcium under control. I suspect I have detectable ammonia due to leaving sea weed clipped in my tank. I've been struggling to get my yellow tang to come out to eat and he will only eat when I back away.

 

[Instigate]

What ammonia test kit are you using?