New Predator? (pics)

[jwedehase]

I decided to remove a "Chips Acro" tonight. For the last couple of months, it's been bleaching, losing color, deceasing polyp extension, and has had thick mesenteries waving on occasion.

I haven't had personal experience with AEFW, but have had close exposure to them. This seems different. I really think it could be algal, honestly, or bacteria. I was able to baste bubbles and what looks like cyano (sort of) from the bottom side of this coral daily.

The wound is about 3/8" around, and about 1/16" deep. Around the perimeter of the wound is the appearance of "peeling back" flesh. You can see this in the close shot, especially at the top. It looks as if the top layer of coral was peeled back and rolled out of the way, except it's hard.

Any ideas? Here are three shots. One of the whole coral, to give you a sense of scale, and the wound specifically. The wound wraps around a branch, along the underside. Am I reading too much into this, or does it appear, in the last photo, that the "infection/attacker" is actually working its way UNDER the flesh at the top side?

 

[spankey]

WOW, as I don't have an explanation for your acro, I can relate. I too had this happen to me, but not isolated to only acro's! I have had this same exact looking thing happen to a digi of mine. Very scary.... I will follow this closely to see what others suggest!!!

Good luck!
Spankey

 

[DarkXerox]

Brown band disease maybe?

From the color though, I would assume some sort of algal or cyanobacterial invasion. This is strange though, I hope someone here can figure it out.

 

[fijiblue]

It's bacterial or fungul. Cyano couldn't live under the tissue like that without a fresh co2 source. I would try a melafix dosing in a QT tank for a week and see how it reacts. If that doesn't work, try another fungul treatment. Please keep us posted on this one and the outcome.

 

[wrassie86]

Hmm, i wonder if that could be acro boring algea ive read about a few times.Algea that only attacks and feeds off acros.altho i thought it to be rare in the aquarium.

 

[jwedehase]

Unfortunately, there won't be any updates on the coral's health. The photos were taken as I removed the coral from the tank, permanently. I've debated removal for weeks, but was finally persuaded the lesser evil would be to sacrifice one coral than to infect the entire tank.

The coral came from another tank that definitely had some sort algae that grew right INTO the corals, just as mentioned. That tank ended up crashing, with so many coral losses. That was several months ago, and this coral had grown significantly in my tank. Corals were also growing significantly in the other tank before the crash.

I'll look into both brown band disaease and acro boring algae, as I'd not yet heard of them. And I'm also open to more ideas. Now that the coral is dry, I may shoot some more macros to see if I see anything new, as well.

 

[badbones]

That's to bad that you got rid of it. I too have a chips and the same thing happened to mine. I believe mine occurred for stinging of another sps that fell into it a couple times. It then had these dead spots that algae grew. Eventually the coral grew over them and is fine now. my frag, now a colony bigger than yours is perfectly fine. Also it seems to be a sensitive sps to changing light and fraging.

I do a lot of frags and the mortality of this coral for me is like 75%, dead. No idea why when I am 99% successful with everything else.

 

[Lunchbucket]

we sure it wasn't an area that got damaged and then some algae set in and the coral just tried growing around it??

also you could have cut the infected spot out and superglued over it

Lunchbucket

 

[epon]

ouch, I'd have fragged out the infected area and watched it for a while. If it was still delining or the infected area came back then it would have went, to each their own.

 

[jwedehase]

The entire coral was bleaching, browning and losing polyp extension, and had the mesenteries, as mentioned. I'd watched this very behavior happen in other corals in its previous tank, so I wasn't going to watch this spread to all my corals, as well. It may have been a mistake to take this coral on at all, and I'll be watching my tank much more closely over the next few months.

It wasn't a burn or dead area where algae set in. Whatever that stuff is (algae or whatever), it set itself into clean healthy tissue. In time, the coral tried to grow around it, like a typical encrusting.

 

[jwedehase]

Here are dry shots, as promised, so you can get a better idea of what the stony structure was doing. One shot is the same as one already posted, just dry. The other is yet another damage area, that shows the "peeled back" look much more clearly. Almost like an open cavity.

 

[trueblackpercula]

thats amazing ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i would have done the same thing removed it But would have fraged the good parts and saved what was left.

 

[DarkXerox]

Is the area around the wound soft tissue or did it manage to curl back some of the Calcium Carbonate skeleton?

 

[jwedehase]

It's all hard tissue. I'm assuming it wasn't actually peeled back, but somehow influenced that sort of growth. Everything in those last two shots are completely bone dry and hard.

 

[Travis]

I had the exact same thing happen to an A. formosa. It happened on the underside of one of the branches and occurred in the middle of that branch. The area of infection wa about 1 inch long by 1/2 inch wide. The affected area was dead skeleton and the perimeter around that area was coral tissue that had formed a "ridge" just like in your pictures. It seemed that the coral did not want to grow tissue back over the affected area so it was going to actually grow a calcium carbonate ridge around it. I ended up removing the coral and filling in the affected area with superglue gel and then mounting the coral in a different place in the tank. After about 2 months, the coral completely healed over the affected portion.

I'm not sure what caused the damage in the first place. Could have been AEFW's as I used to have them in the tank. Could have also been caused by lack of light or flow as it only occurred on the underside of the coral. Could have been bacterial, fungal, or algal too.

 

[gflat65]

I had something similar pop up on an A. tenius. It looked like a blister (about the same size, too), and eventually burst and algae started to grow in just that spot (skeleton was curled around the hole). It seemed to have exploded out like an alien from Aliens...