Aussie Acan Lord is Dieing - HELP

[Bofa]

I recently purchased a Aussie Acan. After a fews days one head at a time started dieing. I am not sure why this is happening but can someone help me before the whole colony dies. I only have 13 heads left and 5 have died


90 gallon tank
30 gallon sump
5 gallon refuge
Cal reactor
Phos reactor
Lights: 2- 250 watt Hamelton MH 14k - 2 VHO's

Water:
Calcium: 500
KH: 8
PH: 8
Salinity: .023
Temp: 79

All my other levels are fine

I dose once a week:
Iodine
Magnesium
Striumlim and Molypoly

Please help

 

[neyugn0w01]

Is it peeling, brown jelly, not opening, etc...?

 

[Bofa]

No, there is no gooy stuff coming from it and it's not stressing in any way. At night the little tenticles are all out but in the morning there is one less head. The colony looks fine. Could something be eating it?

It is also at the bottom of my tank.

 

[cardgenius]

Sounds like something is eating it.

 

[Bofa]

Anybody know what can eat these Aussie Acans?

 

[Bebo77]

whats your Mg level? also your Ca is a little high... .. and why are you dosing those other products... never dose if you cant test...

whats your daily swing for your levels? how often are you testing your water?

what i would do is frag the acan so that all the dead tissue is gone, slightly go into the live tissue by .25" thats the only way to get ahead of the "death"

 

[neyugn0w01]

What would cause an acan lord to peel?

 

[Hypertek99]

Is it melting away??? I say frag is in 2 just in case so you will have 1 frag if the other dies.

 

[Bofa]

I am not sure of the Magnesium or Iodine levels. I heard that these are the most important to dose with. I will buy a test kit tonight and see where my levels are at. I test my water once a week. Should I test it more? I will frag it into 2 tonight also. Anything else I should keep in mind?

 

[Bofa]

Also if I dipped them would that help?

 

[Tyke]

Do you have other corals? How are they doing? Check it a lot at night with a flashlight, you might see something going on. If you have a lot of larger pods swarming over it at night, move it to an eggcrate shelf for a while until it stabilizes. They can irritate fresh cut or poorly shipped frags to death. I wouldn't stress them with a dip unless you're sure it's an infection or parasites Good luck.

 

[Bofa]

All my other corals are doing great. I did check it last night and there were hundreds of pods everywhere but not that many on the coral itself. I might move it to my frag tank but I don't want to stress it out anymore. What do you think? What about putting a powerhead right on it. I heard this works?

 

[greystreet41]

I would recommend fragging it back far enough to where you can see no visible signs of distress and hope for the best. I think there is still a lot to be learned about LPS diseases that we just don't know how to ID or combat...good luck.

 

[RandyO]

I've noticed that a lot of these Aussie Acans have boring worms inside the colonies. I kept finding these as I chopped up a bunch of colonies. One colony that I chopped up had some black substance in the middle that was staining my hands black. I figured it was something that died and was rotting in the center of the coral.

One colony I got seemed to have some internal die off. The bottom, where there was just rock had a little bit of white crust forming, kind of like when a sponge dies on live rock. I decided not to frag this one right away. A little over a week after I got it, one of the center polyps flesh was flapping off the skeleton. I fragged it right away. There ended up being a few polyps with very loose flesh that just blew off. It was not brown rotten flesh. It still had it's full color, but just tearing off the skeleton. I fragged all the peeling area, which left me with 4 corners of the colony. All are looking good over a week later.

I think if I didn't frag it I would have lost the entire colony.


Here's a colony I got that has some worms at the surface. These guys are all over these colonies.

 

[Bebo77]

thats a sponge that died off.. that will cause the coral to "rot' from the inside out.. if thats the case you have to frag your acan and get the dead sponge out or it will kill it...

 

[zeppelin]

I did some digging with an aquaintance in Australia that is keeping these corals successfully, and got the following information. Posted up on zoosrus, but thought I'd share here also.

"They are a temperate coral. In the wild temps range from 18c to 26c.
My system is running at 23c in winter up to 27c in summer. Salinity 1.023 - 1.025. Ph 8.2 - 8.4. Depths in the wild vary from 8m to 14m with the majority 10m to 12m."

So the aussie acans in nature generally see temps from 64F-78F, and are generally collected at 33-39 feet deep. Cooler water and a bit less light may be the key.

The worms are definitely an issue also Randy. I've seen them in allot of the colonies I have gotten.

 

[greystreet41]

randyo, yes it's almost like uncured live rock with alot of the dying organisms on/in them.

 

[fishdoc11]

Those fiding boring worms, have you dipped the colonies and still find worms?
thanks, Chris

 

[chrisstie]

For the original poster have you been able to use something like TMPCC for th etime being to do a dip in hopes of stopping the peeling?

 

[Duce]

I am trying to treat one of my Aussie Acan that is not 'doing well'.
Is repeated dip (1 to 2 days between dip) recommened?