LPS Recession issue

[pascal32]

One of my fovorite pieces is receding. all palys, zoas, torches & assorted euphilas, and SPS are doing well.

affected pieces:
<not sure what it is> - orange centers
Meteor Shower / Cyphastrea
one chalice (others fine)

the only changes lately -

* got behind and missed a weekly water change - will post up water parameters shortly
* increased daytime lighting over LPS from 4xT5 to 6xT5 probably 2 weeks ago (normally the outer two are dusk/dawn, and the 4 center only for daylight - I increased the lighting to keep the dusk/dawn on during the daylight cycle. this was based on an 80 PAR reading without them and 100 PAR with)
*I've been working around the clock and haven't been able to check in on things, not sure how long this has been going on.

There are three affected pieces. The chalice could very likely be due to warfare with a war coral (go figure).

I would really like to identify the piece with orange centers so that I can get it into the correct lighting. it is currently under T5s - I can give it more or less light, just not sure which way to go.

my baby:

meteor shower:

Note that the other piece of this which is in lower lighting is doing just fine.

Chalice:
I believe this might have been warfare from a war coral which was about 1.5" away

and another chalice which looks perfectly fine:

 

[titoav15]

this is all happening in the lps tank only right?

 

[titoav15]

I have been reading up on this problem in another thread and one of the first things to check is the magnesium level in the system, lps freak out if mag levels out of whack.

 

[pascal32]

Lps frag tank which is connected to the display. 175 gallon total over 3 tanks with different lighting.

Almost done with water tests.

 

[iamwrasseman]

Pascal ,you may want to dip them in some interceptor in order to identify if its a pest issue .have you tried dipping in any iodine based dips at all ? any new fish that could be picking on them ,but it doesn't look that way to me .

 

[pascal32]

PH - 8.35 (probe)
temp 78.5 (probe)
sal - 35ppt (calibrated refractometer)
KH - 8.8 - salifert
CA - 450 (Salifert)
Mg - 1440 (Salifert)
PO4 - 0 (ultra low range hanna photometer) <-- this drives me nuts, i WANT a reading of 1
NO3 - between 0.5 and 1 (salifert)

could be the salfin tang in the LPS frag tank, I can tell you the hermit crabs are cleaning up the dead tissue.

Haven't dipped - unfortunately I ran out and forgot to grab some today, guess that is another trip to ABC (darn!)

any thoughts?

 

[iamwrasseman]

i would definitely dip with an iodine based dip in order to stop the bacteria that would be generated from any die off and the interceptor wont hurt either . i would not dip a wounded coral with two different dips in the same day but i think i would try the iodine type first then wait a day and just shave off a touch of interceptor into a container and mix it well before a dip . if you can keep temp stable i would dip in interceptor for an hour or two .

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

the first coral appears to be (off of the top of my head!) Leptastrea...
both Lepto and the second coral (Cyphastrea) thrive in lower light.

I agree that the next coral appears to be damaged from warfare.

 

[pascal32]

thanks for the quick feedback. I'm going to dip the Leptastrea and move to lower lighting.

should i frag the Leptastrea to get the dead tissue out?

 

[pascal32]

I managed to get a couple drops of remaining dip out of the bottle. Moved to a lower light location and went back to the original lighting scheme.

Thanks again for the help, you guys rock!

 

[iamwrasseman]

good luck sir !

 

[5380]

Looks similar to what my sailfin did to my leptoastrea and acans.