SPS Peeling After Starting Cipro Treatment

[RSNJReef]

Hey All,

So after 10 years I’m finally starting to get into SPS, and, for the last few years my standard quarantine protocol is to do a one day monitoring of the coral to make sure it’s ok, then do a 6-7 day medicated cipro bath at 0.3mg/l with 100% water changes every day. I have used this on every lps I have, as well as multiple monitopora species, and green humillis with success and all corals have thrived after.

I purchased a large piece of orange humilis this past weekend, and, it looked a bit stressed (no polyp extension), but generally looked ok. I kept it overnight in clean water the first night, polyps never extended but it still looked ok, then started my cipro treatment. After 24 hours of the first cipro treatment, the coral flesh began to peel off. Trying to stay the course, and in case what I’m seeing is my first encounter with RTN, I continued the cipro treatment. I am now on the third day of treatment and around 80% of the flesh has peeled off.

To be clear, I take full responsibility for any of my actions, and do not blame any fish store for this, this is part of my learning journey, but, as I’m new to the SPS world, has anyone had a situation where they saw rapid flesh peeling from SPS when starting with Cipro? I could really use some help here in on this.

And, for reference, the flesh is peeling off cleanly, just falling off like peeling an orange.

Has this happened to anyone before?


Thanks,
Rishi

 

[Jason_MrFrags]

Was the piece shipped to you? Is it from the base or tips?
What is your tank alk at?

 

[RSNJReef]

This all has been happening in a QT, so freshly mixed saltwater with nitrate added to 5ppm and phosphates added to 0.03 to 0.05 ppm. Not 100% sure but the alk should be around 8dkh. I will test the alk in a bit, all of the peeling is happening from the bottom up, fro the very base at the frag plug and rising up.

Oh, and I picked it up from an LFS in my area, so not shipped.

 

[coral reeftank]

An immediate antibiotic treatment is never what I would recommend. Antibiotics should not be used prophylactically in my opinion. For Acropora, it is best have a constantly operational observation/QT system. This is because Acropora are so dependent on environmental stability for their survival

You also mentioned that you used freshly mixed saltwater, did you add any biomedia? If not, it could be a possibility that you induced an ammonia spike which killed off the coral. By placing a sps coral in a sterile environment with no biological filtration/stable microbiome, then proceeding with an antibiotic treatment that would successively lead to more die off, you can see how ammonia could potentially be an issue.

In the future, I would not used freshly mixed saltwater, and I would introduce the coral to a cycled qt system. This should help prevent further losses. Many acropora are much more sensitive than lps and montiporas, so extra care must be taken to transition them through QT.

 

[KrisReef]

I have experienced many rapid peeling incidents with fresh SPS. Sometimes the coral(s) were stressed before I got them and moving them into a new system was the final insult.

I would stop all treatment, maybe frag a tip or two and hope for the best. If the coral survives and starts to grow, then I might do the dip treatments if that was my tank biosecurity protocol, but I would be careful. Perhaps this coral is sensitive to Cipro?

 

[RSNJReef]

An immediate antibiotic treatment is never what I would recommend. Antibiotics should not be used prophylactically in my opinion. For Acropora, it is best have a constantly operational observation/QT system. This is because Acropora are so dependent on environmental stability for their survival

You also mentioned that you used freshly mixed saltwater, did you add any biomedia? If not, it could be a possibility that you induced an ammonia spike which killed off the coral. By placing a sps coral in a sterile environment with no biological filtration/stable microbiome, then proceeding with an antibiotic treatment that would successively lead to more die off, you can see how ammonia could potentially be an issue.

In the future, I would not used freshly mixed saltwater, and I would introduce the coral to a cycled qt system. This should help prevent further losses. Many acropora are much more sensitive than lps and montiporas, so extra care must be taken to transition them through QT.

This does make sense. I guess in retrospect is waited until the coral was looking ok before starting the medicating. Honestly after I had lost over $4000 in coral due to Brown Jelly about 5 years ago(tossed the tank, all coral, and all fish went into a 60 day quarantine before I set up my current tank), so the medication is simply a part of my paranoia abatement, after all this time my tanks are clean after getting my aquabiomics tests back, so just keeping with the path to try and keep things clean. I do fully acknowledge that I will loose corals all by the way because of this, and, I take full responsibility for my actions. This coral is dying because of something I screwed up, and won’t deny it.

I will fully admit I’m blundering through my entry into SPS, and I do like the idea of a cycled qt tank and to watch the corals for a while before medicating anything. This is really good advise and I think what I’m gonna need to do is set up a dedicated QT system. I really like the idea of that. This is really good advice CR. Thank you!!

 

[RSNJReef]

I have experienced many rapid peeling incidents with fresh SPS. Sometimes the coral(s) were stressed before I got them and moving them into a new system was the final insult.

I would stop all treatment, maybe frag a tip or two and hope for the best. If the coral survives and starts to grow, then I might do the dip treatments if that was my tank biosecurity protocol, but I would be careful. Perhaps this coral is sensitive to Cipro?

This is good advice Kris. I’ll stop the cipro tonight. I think I’m gonna loose the entire colony but will try and see what I can salvage. Thank you!!