Sudden sps dieoff

[Jake_the_reefer]

So I woke up this morning and did my daily scan of my tank and I notice this coral is half dead out of nowhere. I had a blenny jump last night as well which is weird. This coral has been in here for 1 month and has looked perfectly fine until this morning.
Salinity 1.025
Alk 8.5
Cal 400
Nitrate 1
Phos ~.01
Mag haven't checked in a while.

Only thing I have changed was I added peppermint shrimp a few days ago for aiptasia

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Temp 78 forgot to say

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

This is last night

 

[Auquanut]

WOW! That is a dramatic decline for just one night. I can't imagine that one peppermint shrimp would do that amount of damage that quickly, but I could be wrong. Have you noticed any damage to any other corals?

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

WOW! That is a dramatic decline for just one night. I can't imagine that one peppermint shrimp would do that amount of damage that quickly, but I could be wrong. Have you noticed any damage to any other corals?

No damage to other corals. Birdsnest, pocilipora, monticaps, encrusting monti is all perfectly fine. The nearest stinging coral is a torch but its way out of its range

 

[Zoajohn]

Entirely possible it was the pep if nothing else was affected. I had two peps in a 13g nano. One picked at ALL my LPS, the other only ate aptasia. Though the coral doesn’t look completely exposed in the struggling parts, I see what looks like some polyps are just retracted.

 

[hllb]

What fish? That does kind of look like it was eaten.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Entirely possible it was the pep if nothing else was affected. I had two peps in a 13g nano. One picked at ALL my LPS, the other only ate aptasia. Though the coral doesn’t look completely exposed in the struggling parts, I see what looks like some polyps are just retracted.

Its confusing because its spotty where the death is not like it's just stn. I added 2 pep shrimp and they ate all the aiptasia in 2 days. This is a more fed tank so they have food available

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

What fish? That does kind of look like it was eaten.

Scooter blenny, 2 clowns, 1 tailspot blenny (I'm pretty sure he jumped last night he is nowhere to be found)
Nassarius snails, hermit crabs, turbo snail and pep shrimps

 

[X-37B]

Sometimes corals just die. Sometimes out of nowhere. I have had the same happen a few times where everything else is fine and then bam one starts to die.
Have seen this happen in lfs display tank. Everything looks good and then death. No real explanations were ever found. Some times they grow back sometimes they dont.
I had a monti slowly wither away. Then it just came back and is twice as big as it was. Was not nudi's.
Lfs has a poci like yours that is over 3 years old and the size of a basketball. Last week all but a few tips were left.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Should I break it off the rock and prune the dead or wait it out and see if it recovers?

 

[X-37B]

I have fragged a few that loved and some just dont. Cant hurt to frag a piece and see what happens

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Sometimes corals just die. Sometimes out of nowhere. I have had the same happen a few times where everything else is fine and then bam one starts to die.
Have seen this happen in lfs display tank. Everything looks good and then death. No real explanations were ever found. Some times they grow back sometimes they dont.
I had a monti slowly wither away. Then it just came back and is twice as big as it was. Was not nudi's.
Lfs has a poci like yours that is over 3 years old and the size of a basketball. Last week all but a few tips were left.

Ew I didnt join the hobby to struggle and have corals die! I quit.
Not really. It's unfortunate when they die. And I understand colonies can just crash for no big reason.
I'm not too heartbroken because it's a 10$ frag but just making sure no one spotted anything that could put my other corals at risk

 

[spidercrab]

BJD?

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

BJD?

No signs of bjd and all other corals are perfectly fine

 

[artieg1]

I personally would just observe. If the other corals are doing great, I wouldn't make any adjustment to the system.

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

So I did some late recon after lights out on the tank. The first thing I notice is a peppermint shrimp on top of it.
Can they get a taste for sps? Or is it having random dieoff and it just so happens that the peppermint is chilling there picking off debris

 

[Jake_the_reefer]

Now my giant healthy pocilipora has random spots missing. I am removing the peppermint shrimp to see if that is the cause