I've got a problem and need advice

[medic29]

Hello all....

I got a problem with my soft corals and I'm not sure what is going on. I had gotten some tonga branch from a fellow reefer that had a soft coral on it that I believed to be a colt or leather. It thrived in my tank for a few months, then about a month or so ago it began showing signs that it wasn't doing well. I switched to MH lighting back in November. I didn't get real worried about the coral on the Tonga branch because I was going to remove it anyway. I really didn't want it to die off, but it was a hitch hiker and honestly I wasn't real concerned.

Here is how it looks now.

The coral enclosed in the circle is another piece, above it is a soft coral that is very similar that I purchased at my LFS a long while ago and it is still doing okay. Its base rock is sitting on the branch. I'm not sure what happened to this coral, but it has all basically died off and comes off the branch fairly easily and there is a lot of "dust" that comes off and into the water column whenever I mess with a piece of the tissue.

 

[medic29]

continued

continued

Now, this piece of coral was doing very well and was sitting by the tonga branch for a long time and I moved it a couple of months or so to the other corner of the tank to make some room. In the last 2-3 weeks it has not opened up like it usually does and has been looking extremely "mad" as I call it. Here are some pics.

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This coral had been lying over (forward); after speaking with the owner of my LFS to get some suggestions he suggested supplying more flow to it to see if that would help blow some of the dead tissue off and help it sluff some tissue if that is what it needed. I pointed one of the return lines at the front glass and am bouncing some flow off the glass down and towards the coral, which has pushed it up and exposed an area of concern which was hidden when it was lying down. I have tried to circle the area in a couple of the pics. This morning there is a whitish tissue in this area and I haven't figured out what that is yet.

In the last couple of days I've noticed my older Kenya trees are not happy, but the sprout next to it is. Here are a couple of pics.

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22 This is a side shot and like I said the sprout looks fine.

 

[medic29]

Contnued more

Contnued more

This is another Kenya tree piece that came on a piece of live rock I've had for a while and it looks fine.

In the same general area I have this finger leather and it looks okay.

I have some other hard corals, frogspan, hammer, gogorians (sp?), some of these have been recently added to the tank.

The LFS also suggested running some carbon, which I put a small amount in my sump last evening. I need to get some more. I haven't run any carbon for a few months.

Any ideas? If you have questions, please let me know and I will answer them as quickly as I can. I really don't want to loose any of the corals that are appearing stressed. I liked how my tank looked, but now my some of my soft corals are appearing very stressed.

Any help would be appreciated!!!

Rick

 

[medic29]

..

 

[wantsalotta]

Possible chemical warfare with the newly added lps.

 

[medic29]

I wondered about that....would carbon help that??