What's wrong with my Green Staghorn

Reef Able · Oct 22, 2017

Hey guys so I am a bit inquisitive to know what is going on in my tank. I have a 150G mixed reef mostly SPS. Lately I have seen my green staghorn coral tips skin was cleaned out completely. I thought it's new growth tips. Well that wasn't the case. Apparently after couple of days It wasn't looking healthy and some brown stuff started growing on it. I have another frag of Bali green staghorn and it's also going through the same thing. Today I gave both of them a revive dip. I have attached couple of pics of the Bali frag where u can see the skin of the coral is wiped out to clean white and the stuff that came out after dip.. All my other sps are you great except green staghorn. have a look and let me know what can cause this.

Dilan Patel · Oct 22, 2017

looks like a nudibranch from the photo.

Macdaddynick1 · Oct 22, 2017

If that’s an acro eating nudibranch Acro dudes are going to have a major panic attack.

Reef Able · Oct 22, 2017

Strange never heard of an acro eating nudi but what surprises me is nothing else is bothered and look happier than ever.

Dilan Patel · Oct 23, 2017

not me neither but it could be something new?

Coralfuture · Oct 23, 2017

Is that like an after dip pic? I mean to me it looks like some RTN and the skins just peeling off. The last pic looks like pieces of said dead flesh. Now it's moving and fighting to stay alive on your acro then yeah I have no idea what it is. Causes of RTN that I've experienced and seen are....dipped too long, alk swings, salinity swings, lighting blast, temp swings, it feels like it just wants to die and does so.

Reef Able · Oct 23, 2017

Dilan Patel said:
not me neither but it could be something new?

Apparently the culprit seems to be high nutrients. I made some changes(stopped dosing Nopox, more feeding and new fishes and less water changes) within past month which seems to cause this. The reason I made those changes is to increase nutrients because my No3 constantly showed at 0 and Po4 just under 0.02 however what I did not realise is you can only test what's in the water not what your Refugium and skimmer is taking out. Over past month I saw chaeto growing crazy and I also started to get cyano in my Refugium. This point towards high nutrients. Sudden changes into my regimen caused STN in my green staghorn though the others are ok. I have started to dose Nopox again and get back to my regular maintenance and see how this goes. Will keep you guys updated. Just shows we have so much to learn in this hobby [emoji6]

Dilan Patel · Oct 23, 2017

glad you found the culprit

Reef Able · Oct 23, 2017

Dilan Patel said:
glad you found the culprit

Hopefully

Reef Able · Oct 23, 2017

Coralfuture said:
Is that like an after dip pic? I mean to me it looks like some RTN and the skins just peeling off. The last pic looks like pieces of said dead flesh. Now it's moving and fighting to stay alive on your acro then yeah I have no idea what it is. Causes of RTN that I've experienced and seen are....dipped too long, alk swings, salinity swings, lighting blast, temp swings, it feels like it just wants to die and does so.

It definitely is STN I have cut those pieces off. And went back doing my regular maintenance let's see.

Reef Able · Oct 25, 2017

so to update further i lost a colony of my ora birdsnest yesterday to RTN it spread very quickly. Luckily i was able to frag the healthy pieces and hope to regrow it. This is happening because i think i recently switched from Randy's 2 part to Bionic 2 part. I am keeping a close eye on my parameters seems like Alk swing from 9dKH to 7.31dKH in 4 days gruadually. I am not going to mess too much with the system for now other than adding the Bionic and let it settle down on its own..