What Happened to My Scoly?

[Charles4400]

dang he was one of my favorites.

Woke up this morning to find him like this... was he attacked or just all of a sudden not doing well?

Found him moved about an 1 1/2" towards the rocks than where he usually sits with the damaged area closer to the rocks. Have since moved him back. Current or predator? Did hermits do this?

Had him for about a week and he has seemed healthy the whole time and ate when I fed him. He was doing great!

All other Trachys and Scolys look fine and params are solid except for lower ph.

Dkh 9
Nitrates 0
Phosphate .02
Temp 79
PH AVG. 7.7 (I need a co2 scrubber)

What does this look like to you?

 

[sc50964]

What corals are around it?

 

[Charles4400]

There is a duncan above it and another scoly right next to it, nothing else nearby. Nothing touching it.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Looks like damage from coral, but if nothing around it, could have been torn and took time to actually further damage it. Poor guy. Is the mouth gone too? Sorry, he looks pretty gone.

 

[Charles4400]

I moved him back to original postion as shown here but when i found him he was posiioned close to the rocks with the damaged area facing the rocks.

 

[sc50964]

First guess was that it was zapped & melted by an aggressive Coral with sweeping tentacle. 2nd guess is eaten by a fish. Some corals can have 4” to 6” tentacles. Some fish are known to flip and become Coral eaters. What fish and other corals do you have?

 

[Charles4400]

Nothing nearby that would zap it, fish count is fairly low, clowns, mystery wrasse, flamehawk

 

[Charles4400]

Nothing nearby with stingers

 

[DeniseAndy]

None of those fish should bother it. Keep us updated if it recovers. If you notice any brown on it, take out and dip in lugols and maybe a gram neg antibiotic up to 4 hours.

 

[Charles4400]

Thanks I didn' notice any tear and he's been nice and plump the whole week. Will keep this updated.

 

[Charles4400]

Forgot have a sailfin blenny as well but he shouldnt have messed with it.

 

[sc50964]

No. None of your fish would do this. It’s truly odd that it lost so much tissues all of a sudden. Did this just happen over night? How was it yesterday? Did it eat?

 

[Charles4400]

It ate the day before yesterday, has been doing perfect the whole time I've had it. Was doimg fine yesterday, no signs of stress at all. Yes this just happened overnight. Very strange...and sad

 

[sc50964]

Sorry for your loss. They were my favorite in my days of Coral keeping, but I could never get them to live more than 1.5 years. I am in agreement with the school of thought that scolys aren’t meant to be kept in home aquarium due to low long term success rate.

 

[Charles4400]

Thanks, this one was super short term, I'd really like to find out what caused this though, if it were on a slow decline or showed signs of stress is one thing but literally overnight seems like something caused its damaged tissue.

Is it possible current moved it against the rocks and rocks rubbed it the wrong way?

 

[sc50964]

Thanks, this one was super short term, I'd really like to find out what caused this though, if it were on a slow decline or showed signs of stress is one thing but literally overnight seems like something caused its damaged tissue.

Is it possible current moved it against the rocks and rocks rubbed it the wrong way?

Judging by the scoly next to it and other bottom placed corals such as the trachy, I doubt you have high enough flow to rub the scoly against the rock in that matter.

 

[sc50964]

The other rare but possible scenario is your clown fish trying to host it last night and somehow got too rough with it. It’s a long shot but clowns do sometimes try to host odd things that it will never do in the wild.

 

[reef lover]

I think your Duncan reached out to say hello in a not so friendly way....probably got pushed too close by a snail..

 

[Charles4400]

It's pretty far for the duncan to reach it, and unless mine has sweepers, which I don't believe Duncan's do, I don' think it's that.

Clowns , maybe, but I've never seen them pay any attention to it, including today.

I'm pretty puzzled that it moved or was moved closer to the rocks. There is a good current going across the bottom but none that would have likely been so strong as to move it.... rogue current in the tank!?

Perhaps a mystery predator living in the rocks... I don't even have any shrimps (that I know of).

My long shot is that it miraculously pulls through, I don't see any skeletal structure poking through, hoping, just hoping for a recovery...

Here's a closeup from a few hours ago, looks the same now, no better no worse:

 

[reef lover]

I've never seen it either but...