What's wrong with my SSC?

[cnseekatz]

My Strawberry Shortcake is messed up. The colony is front and center in the tank, up in high light, and high (uni-directional) flow. One side of the coral (facing the flow) looks normal, but the other side (facing away from flow) looks like it's rotting. Something hard/white is growing in among the normally distinctive coralites, taking them over and coating the coral. Almost looks like a fungus, but it's hard.

I have a ton of acros in my tank and everything else is fine. Any thoughts?

 

[Sense of nature]

I would do a dip

 

[Maritimer]

How long has it been in a unidirectional flow?

Do you have any way to change it up, so that it's getting hit from several different directions?

~Bruce

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Looks kind of like the start of hyperplasia.

 

[Coronus]

I cant really tell. Take a better pic if possible.

 

[swnoob]

+1 for hyperplasia. What are your water parameters?

 

[Coronus]

Looks kind of like the start of hyperplasia.

What exactly do you mean by writting hyperplasia? Can you please explain?

 

[swnoob]

What exactly do you mean by writting hyperplasia? Can you please explain?

http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/coraldisease.html

 

[cnseekatz]

How long has it been in a unidirectional flow?

Do you have any way to change it up, so that it's getting hit from several different directions?

~Bruce

It's been in the same flow since it was introduced into the tank. It grew well for a while, then this. It's the exact same thing the last SSC did in my tank. I have a Gyre that provides 4 second pulses and then 4 second pauses. I don't have any good way to change the flow direction, but it would be odd that the flow would all of a sudden be an issue.

 

[cnseekatz]

+1 for hyperplasia. What are your water parameters?

SG: 1.027
kH: 11
Ca: 450
Mg: 1550
Temp: 79.5
Nitrate/Phos: Undetectable (not saying much with API kits, an active refugium and a bit of cyano)

My parameters are pretty stable, though I did have an incident where my Ca container ran dry, causing Ca to drop to 340 and Alk to spike to about 13. I burned a few tips on my acros, but they all recovered pretty quickly.

 

[swnoob]

SG: 1.027
kH: 11
Ca: 450
Mg: 1550
Temp: 79.5
Nitrate/Phos: Undetectable (not saying much with API kits, an active refugium and a bit of cyano)

My parameters are pretty stable, though I did have an incident where my Ca container ran dry, causing Ca to drop to 340 and Alk to spike to about 13. I burned a few tips on my acros, but they all recovered pretty quickly.

Some have linked hyperplasia to dosing unequal amounts of Alk and Ca. while others thought it was brought on by high magnesium.

In my case neither was the culprit. I had an ORA Hawkins that suffered from bubbling tissue (a form of hyperplasia) for several months. Also 10% of my other acros had a small amount of bubbling tissue while others weren't affected.

The hyperplasia started going away as soon as i raised my nutrients and growth increased overall. I previously kept my phosphate at <.02 and nitrate at <5 with an alk of 7. I now keep my phosphates at .08 and nitrates 20 with an alk of 8.5