Anyone else having Acan issues?

Travis1787

Travis1787

Active member
I have noticed over the past 3 months alot of my acans slowly start to die back .... Slowly the tissue fades away from the outter edges in. Until they fully die... I had a ton of acans doing great for a year ... I was acan heavy and then 3 months ago they started declining one by one. Lost 1 large colony , 3 medium and prob 4 tiny ones .... With more still declining.

Nothing changed in the system during the time of this issue. I feel like some Kind of bacteria or pest came in on one and spread to others? Lighting isnt at all i run leds very low and just 2 hours of t5 supplement. I could feed them more but i feed them no different then i did when they were thriving.

Wondering if its just me ? I feel like i have seen acans for sale alot lately with the same unhappy or receding look i see in mine.

Any one else dealing with these issues?
 
Same issue for the last 2 years with about 90% of lps in both tanks.
Mind if I ask what salt you are using and what led's?
 
Reef crystals salt and reef breeders on leds like i said same stuff the first year was fine and i run my leds super low
 
What are your current parameters, other livestock, etc? How old are your t5 bulbs?

Any filter media? Dosing regimine? Feeding for low and tank in general?
 
Again ive been checkin parameters and they have been through good this whole process. I have done the same things the first year and a half when the acans were thriving.

Temp sits around 79. Salt is at 1.025. Cal 460. Alk 9DKH. Po4 usually kept at 0 ... No3 5ppm and it was also always kept at 0 when the acans were thriving. After the acans declined i moved rocks around and replaced some and had a nitrate swing. And i know people say acans perfer dirty water but i kept my po4 and no3 untraceable and things were fine for over a year. I just fed to keep them Happy.

I use gfo,bio pellets and i have always dosed vodka daily in all my tanks for 5 years with no issues....

No livestock is bothering things .... Clowns, scopas tang, blue throat trigger , squirrel fish, hoevans wrasse, beta , flame hawk, 3 lyretail anthias.

Tank is a 210 with also 40 in sump and 15 in frag tank all one system.

Id say in March acans started dying always with other lps a couple chalice and a cyphstrea but other chalices and cyphstrea showed no signs. Acans took the biggest hit they were as fat and happy as ever and then one by ine started receding ... All sps have been fine as well as anemones duncans tyre toadstool most my euphyllias have been fine as well... Zoas mushrooms rics too ..

T5s were added after the issue started ...prob 2-3 months ago
 
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Did I miss how often u r doing water changes and amount water changed now and how often u were doing them the first year?
 
Also I have tried doing iodine dips on the infected colonies on others I tried dipping in Bayers to see if they had any pests.

None of it stopped or helps the dying turn around maybe it slowed it down on some of them. I also tried the Interceptor treatment but I only did one dose and I know people usually do 3 but I also wasn't fighting red bugs it was just an idea in case there was some unknown pests in my acans.

I just feel like lately I've been dealing with it and I've also been seeing it in other people's tanks and in the stores I'm just curious if it's just me or if something is currently going wrong with acans that are coming in or something.
 
Yeah I don't think it's nutrients or lights or flow or anything like that. It appears to be happening to more and more people. I have had thriving lps that are growing like crazy and the next day heads just eject from euphylias and a full acan colony that was fat and happy be completely gone in a week. Starvation is a much slower death.
Even my candy cane that looked amazing and grew from 3 or 4 heads to over 20 in a short period of time just up and died in a few days.
My thought is viral or bacterial.
From people I have seen first hand and talked to which are people I would call professionals because they have been doing this so long with great success have been having the same issues. They all use different salts from ESV to Instant ocean and even salts that are not released to the public yet.
It is frustrating to say the least.
 
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Hey Rodger thanks for chiming in.

When I first started this tank up almost 2 years ago I had crazy high nitrates it was a changeover from my 110 so I used the old rock with some extra new rock and all new sand. So at first I was doing huge water changes like crazy but there really wasn't any Livestock in the tank at the time. Eventually I got the nitrates to go away and for a good year all my Coral was great my acans were at their best and I had a ton. During that time I was not too crazy with water changes I probably would do my 15 gallon frag tank weekly or every other week.

And then after the acans already started receding I had to take some rocks out and redid some things so I had nitrates again and had to do a bunch of big water changes to get it down.
 
And Rob for me my things have a pretty long slow death. I may have had 1 or 2 that were gone outta nowhere quick but most of mine are slow painful deaths.
 
Here are some acans that have been dying ... The first one is a large fist size colony that has slowly died for. Months.



Some others. First one was a super nice one and last one is one that is more recently starting to die







 
Same thing is happening to my acans. Tank has been running for 2 years now with everything doing fine until a few months ago when the acans started receding. At first I thought maybe it was my CBB that I added around the same time this started happening. He has taken care of some aptasia I had, but I haven't seen him nip at any corals and he's well fed and eats like a pig so I ruled that out. I have a 85g total mixed reef and this is the only coral it's happening to.
My parameters are in check and pretty stable, tested on 7/1:
Temp. 77-79
Sg 1.025
Mg 1380
Ca 440
Alk 9
No3 5
Po4 .06 (will bring down some, usually around .02-.03)
 
The top left one over the top of the Lobo is the one you see very dead in my first picture of dying ones and then the one underneath the Lobo with green rim and orange Center is the one you see in the second picture I posted of dying acans
 
Just an out of the box idea. Check when your area converted from Chloramine to Chlorine. In my area they did at the begining of June and regardless of the RODI filters I used in the past, this always messed things up for me.

Link

Sorry for the double post.
 
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Good point. I recall that my LPS, specifically the Hammers and Frogs, didn't like it when it got hot. Just a couple of degrees was enough to bother them, but it doesn't look like that would be your problem. I know you have been doing this for a while, so that would be among the first things to check.

This is weird. Hopefully you will find the issue soon.
 
Yeah I'll definitely look into the water treatment schedule but I'm always on top of changing out my RO filters and Di resin. And also like someone else said I feel like something bad in the water would affect all corals especially SPS being that it's harder to keep but this is specifically hurting my acans primarily and then also some chalices
 
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