Urgent ! Scoly coral receeding

scubasteve020 · Jun 2, 2019

Hello ,

I have a war paint Scoly. Was perfectly healthy when I got it.
I did a dip and acclimated it. I placed it in the substrate. It started to recede a small amount.
My par meter came in a week ago. It was getting 150 to 200 par which was too much. I then moved
it and placed it under a rock shelf where it was receiving around 90 par. My alk is 9.4 my calcium 430
magnesium 1400. My nitrate is around 3.5 (i have a mixed reef tank). Phosphate 0.
I feed it every two to three days at night been giving it a mixture of mysis brine and reef roids.
The last few days i noticed the polyps aren't even extending out at night anymore. A small amount of the skeleton is showing now and the shape is not a perfect oval anymore.

here is more current picture, however i turned it to the side. If you see i have a spin stream nozzle. I was worried that maybe the water was bouncing off the glass and giving to much flow to the scolly.

any one have any suggestions

Scotty Buttons · Jun 2, 2019

Any fish or shrimps in the tank?

scubasteve020 · Jun 2, 2019

Scotty Buttons said:
Any fish or shrimps in the tank?

Nope no fish in the tank, currently i have them in quarintine for last three weeks had ich they are doing much better now won't put them back in dt for another three weeks. I have one blood fire shrimp. He only stays in one section on the other side of the tank. All my hermit crabs and snails never go on it. I did see peppermint shrimp could cause issues that's why i never got any of those.

Auto-pilot · Jun 2, 2019

+1 to being bothered also do not overfeed! If you feed every 2 or 3 days feed it very little. It can lead to gut rot. I believe that bacteria can cause what you are seeing. If it's getting the right amount of light, not being bothered by your tank inhabitants and not being overfed you might want to treat it with some sort of antibiotic. They work slow but I've had really good success with treating LPS corals recently. My own tank and friends. They can be slow to take effect but I've seen it work. I personally had a large meat coral that got what I believe to be gut rot, looked bad and wouldn't inflate and its mouth was always open for two weeks and started bleaching. Three days after treating it it puffed up and has looked good ever since. Also you preferably want to have some phosphate in your system

vetteguy53081 · Jun 2, 2019

It needs very little food, and good current (not blasting). The light seems a little low in intensity. 76% blue and 20% white should suffice. Keep it on sand but elevate it on a rock or such so that sand isn't landing on it and irritating it

scubasteve020 · Jun 2, 2019

Auto-pilot said:
+1 to being bothered also do not overfeed! If you feed every 2 or 3 days feed it very little. It can lead to gut rot. I believe that bacteria can cause what you are seeing. If it's getting the right amount of light, not being bothered by your tank inhabitants and not being overfed you might want to treat it with some sort of antibiotic. They work slow but I've had really good success with treating LPS corals recently. My own tank and friends. They can be slow to take effect but I've seen it work. I personally had a large meat coral that got what I believe to be gut rot, looked bad and wouldn't inflate and its mouth was always open for two weeks and started bleaching. Three days after treating it it puffed up and has looked good ever since. Also you preferably want to have some phosphate in your system

I talked to some chemical engineers that are in the hobby and they said it be better to have no phosphate instead of risking having more then .03ppm. Do you have any suggestions on antibiotics that I could look into ?

Scotty Buttons · Jun 2, 2019

You need to have some phosphates or the coral can starve. To much phosphate can slow growth or lead to a slow death.

JMM744 · Jun 2, 2019

My pho’s. is at 0.03 and nitrates at around 7. My soft corals look great. They can handle flow and more light then you think. Be patient, try iodine dip maybe and see how it does. That’s a real beauty.

Auto-pilot · Jun 2, 2019

scubasteve020 said:
I talked to some chemical engineers that are in the hobby and they said it be better to have no phosphate instead of risking having more then .03ppm. Do you have any suggestions on antibiotics that I could look into ?

I believe you got incorrect information with the phosphate. Phosphate is a building block and is required by coral to grow. In the ocean it is actually a inhibiting factor that slows reef growth due to a lack of phosphates in certain areas. You can however have to much and it will harm the corals in the tank. I run mine at .05 to .10 with no adverse effects

Purplelobst92 · Jun 2, 2019

check at like 2am to see if anything is munching on it, also put it back in the light, you should put some fish in the tank to keep the environment stable you need some biological activity in there, if the skeleton has any growth like algae around the outer edges try to remove it if you can, scolys are super hardy i had one get half melted by an echinata and it grew back in a month lol they are like near bulletproof.