Oh no! Acro sluffing off tissue?

[tgunn]

Here's a couple pics I just took of one of my newer acro frags I got off a local reefer around Jan 15....

Notice the right top corner of the frag has a white area; it looks as if the tissue is sluffing off in those areas..

Also, the polyps are noticably retracted from usual.
I noticed that a few days ago but didn't think anything of it..

Here's how extended the polyps were up until about 4 days ago:

What should I do about this? Should I frag it and retain the healthy portions as new colonies?

Tank params last I checked were:
0 Ammonia
0 Nitritre
0 Nitrate
0 Phosphate
1.025 sg
Temp 79F

Lights are 2 x 14k 250w coralvue halides with T5 actinic supplementation.

All my other acros have all their polyps extended as usual and look fine.

Should I worry about this "spreading"?

Thanks!
Tyler

 

[sps_addict]

Whats your alk, calcium, and magnesium at?

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6651856#post6651856 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sps_addict
Whats your alk, calcium, and magnesium at?

I'll give 'em a retest; but as of last night Ca was 420ppm, Alk was 12.2 dKH, and Magnesium 975 (slowly bringing that up with magneisum hepta/hexa sulfate mixture)..

Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Okay, I retested EVEYTHING...
Ammonia < 02.5ppm
Nitritres 0
Nitrates 0
Phosphate 0
Ca 400ppm
KH 9.6dKH
Mg 1110 ppm
pH 8.3

So everthing "seems" to be where it should be so far...

 

[clkwrk]

Ammonia shouldn't show . But yes that's what rtn looks like . I would frag well below that branch and chuck it .

How stable is your temp and PH?

Going form 12.2 DKH last night to 9.6 DKH today isn't a healthy drop. I keep my alk around 8 dkh. Never leting it drop more than .5 dkh a day . Also a rise in mg of 135 ppm in 24hrs is alot IMO

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6652790#post6652790 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by clkwrk
Ammonia shouldn't show . But yes that's what rtn looks like . I would frag well below that branch and chuck it .

How stable is your temp and PH?

Going form 12.2 DKH last night to 9.6 DKH today isn't a healthy drop. I keep my alk around 8 dkh. Never leting it drop more than .5 dkh a day . Also a rise in mg of 135 ppm in 24hrs is alot IMO

My temp and pH don't seem to change at all. Temp is 79F day and night; occasionally goes up to 80F, but rarely.

Sorry, I goofed with my readings.

Jan 31, 2005 was:
Ca 440ppm
KH 11.2 dKH
Mg 975ppm

Feb 2, 2005 is:
Ca 400ppm
KH 9.6 dKH
Mg 1110 ppm

I wrote the wrong readings down....

The KH was just the natural drop from things using it up in the tank over the past couple of days. I usually dose 1/2 cup each of Randy's 2 part recipe every couple of days by putting it into a small container with a pin hole to let it slowly drip in over the course of a few hours.

Perhaps I'll switch to dosing 1/4 cup of each per day to stablize the swings a bit. And Mg I'm gradually bringing up through slow supplementation.

Okay, now to pull the acro and frag..
Thanks,
Tyler

 

[clkwrk]

I would try an stabilize the alk a bit more keeping below 10 IMO. I have ran it high and low with no noticeable difference except it is harder to keep things balanced.

 

[Bigred]

Just a heads up go to the thread "AEFWs in a bowl time to test" I had a corals simular to that and it did the same and when I pulled it out shake it in a bowl of tank water and see if any flat worms come off. Also look for the eggs

Not trying to scare you but just a heads up.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6652958#post6652958 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by clkwrk
I would try an stabilize the alk a bit more keeping below 10 IMO. I have ran it high and low with no noticeable difference except it is harder to keep things balanced.

Thanks for the tip. I will try letting the alk drop down on it's own a bit and stabilize it there. I think another thing that may have contributed to the big difference was the fact I did the last reading using the "high resolution" of my salifert test and the next one using the low resolution reading. In all fairness when I was using the Hagen kit it was stable at around 8.24 and would drop by about .25 each day.

I will try running the alk a bit lower though; I can't argue with past experience of someone with a tank as amazing as yours!

BTW, I've fragged the acro and removed all the dead portions and tossed it.. Of course the acro shattered instead of breaking where I wanted it to so I now have 10 mini frags in the sump under the T5s and 2 larger ones upstairs now. Oh well.

Thanks again,
Tyler

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6653110#post6653110 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Bigred
Just a heads up go to the thread "AEFWs in a bowl time to test" I had a corals simular to that and it did the same and when I pulled it out shake it in a bowl of tank water and see if any flat worms come off. Also look for the eggs

Not trying to scare you but just a heads up.

Thanks for the heads up Steve; off to the search engine for me now! Too bad I read that AFTER I fragged. Lol. I'll give my frags a few days to stabilize and stop sliming and I'll try that out and see if I notice anything. I'm always look at things with my magnifying glass and haven't noticed anything crawling on it, but that test is worth a shot.

Later,
Tyler

 

[LittleBlueGT]

I have had corals do that slowly, I don't know why, but eventually it changed. Any fish picking on it?

BTW RTN is rapid, like gone in a few hours.

 

[tgunn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6679980#post6679980 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LittleBlueGT
I have had corals do that slowly, I don't know why, but eventually it changed. Any fish picking on it?

BTW RTN is rapid, like gone in a few hours.

Hmm, interesting. This was certainly not rapid. It did occur over night and progressed in a scale observable over days.

I hadn't noticed any fish picking at the coral... It seemed to retract it's polyps considerably for a few day, and then just whither away.

The two tiny little frag pieces I had glued down that broke off when I originally got the frag from you are still doing fine and growing well..

Even after fragging the coral all of the frags developed the same problem over night. So I'm down to the two teeny-tiny little frags. :lol: I'm not supposed to be getting net negative growth!

Oh well, these things happen I guess..

Thanks,
Tyler

 

[tgunn]

Well, that's strange.

When I got this large frag originally, two tiny pieces broke off and I mounted them.

One of those RTNed today:

I shoot it out in a container and found some of these snails:

The shell looks as pictured and there's 2 little antennae sticking out. These are just benign snails, right?

Thanks,
Tyler