What causes acans to "melt"?

[thewackyreefer]

Okay, so I'm looking for ANY advice at this point...my acans are melting. For the most part they still have their feeders out but I can see white slimy stuff moving from the outside inward on them and I can blow it off pretty easily.

I've tested all of my parameters (alk, cal, mag, nitrates, po4) and according to my tests they're all in normal ranges. Alk is around 10.5, cal 440, mag 1300 (going to raise to 1400), 0 nitrates and .04 po4. I haven't had any major parm swings. Also sending in a sample to aquariumwatertesting for testing to see if they come up with anything. I'm trying anything at this point.

Any suggestions or ideas would help!

 

[Tabasco1]

NO!!! Man, I'm sorry to hear. All your other stuff looks good right? Do you think your Water might be too clean??

Sounds kinda like some sort of infection, have you tried iodine dips? I was starting to have some issues w my fav acan, it was folding in and getting some slime coat and not inflating. Got to the point where I could see about 1/3 of the skeleton and thought for sure it was done. Gave it 3 iodine dips every other day and it has colored back up and almost completely healed. I still don't really know what happened but it rescued it for sure.

I have 4 other acans that did not experience anything during the same period.

Hth.

 

[thewackyreefer]

Yep, everything else looks just fine. Only 2 SPS at this point but my blastos, acan enchinatas, etc all look fine.

I did give them one iodine dip but I may do some more!

 

[Tabasco1]

If they are still eating, def feed them whenever they will take food. I have found it helps w recovery. I usually just feed mysis to recovering coral. Nothing to back it up, but just think its easier to process than pellets. Kinda like chicken soup.

 

[Tabasco1]

I didn't really notice any improvement until after the second one. I debated a 4th, but it was doing much better and I didnt want to stress.

I also VERY gently blew any film off that had settled 2x a day.

 

[kodiak]

Not good!!! Feel free to send a couple my way to see if they turn around. Could too much iodine be the culprit? Can you test iodine in your tank? Maybe try lots of water changes and carbon.

 

[thewackyreefer]

The place I'm sending a water sample to will be testing for iodine, so we shall see. I've changed a good 40 gallons over the course of 5 days in a 90g system, and I'm running new carbon.

 

[Nuocmam]

I've had acans melt completely and die sitting right next to health acans that were unaffected. Mystery to me. Sorry to hear about your troubles hopefully you figure it out or it stops altogether.

 

[dougers31]

Dip, run carbon, do extra water changes and move the affected acans to a fairly high flow area. It sounds a little bit like brown jelly disease which can be tough to eradicate. Optimum water quality and flow is key IMO.

 

[Tabasco1]

Is this affecting all of the acans or do some appear unaffected?

 

[H2O]

What's your ph and salnity ? What test kits u use and what kind of refractometer ?
Alk is on the high side 9-9.5 would be better
How much light and what kind of light they get ?
Any pictures would help pin the problem

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

look up BJD(brown jelly disease) what do they look like when they melt? do they turn brown jelly like? i had a 10 head acan get this and basically lost 3 heads b/c of this.

 

[Wesley42079]

Same thing happened to one of my acan colony.

It was sitting right next to 2 other acan colonys, but for sone reason, only 1 slowly melted.

I tried dipping it in Revive for 3 days straight, but I couldn't save it.

This mighr be an issue just like zoas. They just melt with no reason at all.

 

[thewackyreefer]

Salinity is at 1.025 checked with a calibrated refracto and a hydrometer.

pH is pretty low, around 8.05 during the day, 7.9 or so at night.

They do turn pretty slimey, although the slime is more white than brown.

I am running a T5 fixture with a max PAR of 95 on any of them.

 

[Pkunk35]

Sorry to hear!!

+1 on light Lugols dips especially if all acans are affected and you see slime. Test one and look for improvement.

 

[Me z]

IME white slime is usually from something physically damaging a coral, like when you frag a coral and it slimes up. You dont have a copperbanded butterfly or a hippo tang by chance? If you do just watch those fish and see if they are munching your acans those two I know can develop a taste for lps. I had a blue hippo turn on every lps in my tank and a friend who had a regal yellow belly blue hippo had one do the same thing. Not common but it does happen. That is just no fun I hope you get things turned around!

 

[thewackyreefer]

Thanks for all the support and advice guys, I really appreciate it.

I gave them a long dip in some lugols last night and I don't see anything looking any worse today. I just gave them a ton of mysis and they all ate like pigs. Going to do another dip tomorrow...

 

[Tabasco1]

I'd take not looking worse. Especially if they are eating. I'd feed 1x /day lightly if they will take it and that is awesome since it sounds like they will. It will help them have enough energy to help fight whatever is going on off.

I know it was suggested high flow, but I forgot to mention that when I saw the skeleton I turned off all my pumps except the return for 4-5 days. I am still running only one of 2 circulation pumps. The flesh is almost complete grown back over the skeleton now so I'll prob turn the other circ pump on this weekend. I don't know if it helped but it didn't hurt. I didn't want the good flesh irritated rubbing on the skeleton.

My slime was white. I'm now pretty sure it was some sort of worm in my case. So it was something agitating it as mentioned above.


Fingers crossed for you!!!

 

[Coral Pimp]

Man i lost like 4k in acans this summer. I say it might be the salinity swings or light combo switch, that whats happened to me. lost 40 colonies of some nice rainbow eye candy

 

[thewackyreefer]

So, I received my results back from aquariumwatertesting.com today. Somehow, my salinity is at 1.030! According to my refracto (calibrated before every use) and a hydrometer it's at 1.026.

Here are my results.
[TABLE="class: sc-results-table, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-header"]Parameter[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-header, align: center"]Test Summary[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-header, align: center"]Result[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Ammonia (NH3-4)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content"]Nitrite (NO2)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]0.004[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Nitrate (NO3)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]0.6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content"]Phosphate (PO4)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]0.05[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Silica (Sio2-3)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]0.4[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3"]Potassium (K)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3, align: center"]Low[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3, align: center"]183[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3"]Ionic Calcium (Ca)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3, align: center"]Low[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-yellow, bgcolor: #FEFFE3, align: center"]98[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content"]Molybdenum (Mo)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]0.1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Strontium (Sr)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-red, bgcolor: #FFDED2"]Magnesium (Mg)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-red, bgcolor: #FFDED2, align: center"]High[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-red, bgcolor: #FFDED2, align: center"]1513[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Iodine (I)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]0.06[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content"]Copper (Cu)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]0.02[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9"]Alkalinity (meq/L)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content-alternating, bgcolor: #F9F9F9, align: center"]2.9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: sc-results-content"]Total Calcium (Ca)[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]Good[/TD]
[TD="class: sc-results-content, align: center"]435[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]