Cyphastrea, letpastrea acans dying off

[emm0909]

I've been having some issues with some of my LPS. It started with some acans and moved to the cyphastrea. The leptastrea got hit too. I had white euphillia bugs a while back and noticed today that they have come back on a frogspawn. I'm planning on hitting the tank with interceptor fairly soon but I'm not sure it's the same issue that I'm having with my encrusting LPS and acans. Take a look at the pictures.

Poor picture but you can see the small area dying off in the center. I don't see anything moving on these.

Leptastrea and cyphastrea dying off. It's not because of the pavona in front of it.

The acans in the front got hit hard. One polyp would slowly start to stay closed on one side. You can kind of see this in the red acan in the back on the lower left. I did a fresh water dip on the one in the front. It didn't like that but I can't tell if it's going to be what saves it in the end. The cyphastrea on the left was one of the first to start dying off. I fresh water dipped that too. it beat it up but it seems to be recovering.

I do a 30% water change every other week and never have to dose. Parameters are steady and cyphastrea is hard to kill. Any ideas?

 

[emm0909]

No one had any input huh?

Anyway, I crushed an Interceptor up Friday night and put it in the tank. The pill was for a 20-50lb dog. I left town until last night (4 days gone). When I came home the tank was looking killer. My acans had stretched back out like normal so whatever it was was taken care of by the interceptor. Awesome.

I definitely recommend getting a pill to keep around for the time that something like this happens to you. You can't avoid all problems. Interceptor goes on manufacture back order several times a year it seems and it really hurts when you cannot locate one.

 

[FY]

I've never heard of doing that. How many gallons is your system?

 

[FY]

Never mind I did quick search and have more than emough info.

 

[emm0909]

75 gallon tank with about 15 gallons in my sump.

You can get an Interceptor pill for a 50 pound and under dog, crush it up, mix into a little bit of water and dump directly into your system with no ill effects.

It will basically kill anything small with an exoskeleton. Your copepods and amphipods will be greatly affected however I have not had any issues with shrimp. My coral banded molted the day I dosed and is fine. Snails, cucumbers and all corals are fine. I do not have any crabs.

 

[MechEng99]

I just saw this post...and I would've done the exact same thing. Whenever I see corals missing tissue like that with the polyps still having extension...it's a pretty good sign that it's a pest. I remember reading (some study...can't find it right now) that there are something like 350+ pod-type pests for coral identified. It's pretty nuts...and several of them go after several different genus.

Glad you fixed the problem!! FWIW, I dip all my corals in Bayer Insecticide, and it seems to get all the pods.

 

[emm0909]

I dip all my corals in Bayer Insecticide, and it seems to get all the pods.

I'll have to look that one up. The sound of it makes it sound like poison.

 

[icu2]

Yup, it's poison.

 

[MechEng99]

So is Interceptor. Interceptor is a great in-tank treatment, but a lot of the bad pods aren't affected 100% or have developed a resistance to it. Bayer Advanced Insecticide will also kill the pods, and there doesn't seem to be as much resistance to it.