Orange Digitata has patches of polyps not opening? Please help

[easterly81]

I have three colonies all doing the same thing. This started a few days ago and i have tested my water, everything seems normal. All of my other corals are going great. Its strange i have had the digitata for years and though it has almost indestructible.

 

[AndyReefGdl]

There is no fish or the internal flow that he cannot stand
Regards!

 

[easterly81]

What?

 

[bigal20874]

Add any new fish recently? I added a bicolor blenny and he ate half of my digit and the empty spot just looked exactly like yours in the picture. The digit recover nicely after I removed the blenny.

 

[sahin]

There is no fish or the internal flow that he cannot stand
Regards!

That doesnt make sense to me either. But what he may have tried to say is: maybe the flesh has been stripped off or that the flow from a pump may be too much for the coral.

Did you have any alk swings? I had had 4 frags die due to an alk swing when I was vodka dosing a few months back. These were a monti cap, monti digi and a couple of millis, all my other frags were fine. I managed to save the montis by fragging them, but the rest of the frag colony died.

 

[easterly81]

No new fish or inhabitants, did have a little alk swing from about 8 to 6.5 but fixed it. Moved house about 3 months ago. i thought everything had clamed down, ie nit and phos under control and found my new balance of alk and cal dosing. The digi last week was growing like a weed. Oh yes i do dose vodka, after the move i started over dosing from scratch.

 

[sahin]

I really do now think it is becuase of the Vodka dosing. With vodka dosing I lost some frags as mentioned above. Vodka dosing causes alk spikes and my monti pora digita frag has the same dead patches/bald areas. These areas died, but I fragged the frag and the tiny frag is still growing. The main frag with the dead areas managed to survive, and is growing still but the dead areas are dead. I just took the frag off and turned it around so that the fleshy areas are in view and exposed to the light.

With Vodka dosing if you add a bit more than usual then it can cause a spike in the alkalinity and cause the situation you have. I have stopped dosing Vodka as my nitrates are now 0ppm and my phosphates cannot be measured by the test kit. I now run GFO to keep phosphate under control.

If I were you I'd stop dosing for a few days and keep a close eye on the Alk. If you decide to resume, then go half your usual dose of even lower - and carry out Alk tests at least twice a day to see for yourself how Vodka dosing affects Alkalinity.

Please update as to your tanks progress.

 

[easterly81]

I did start cutting back last night, its strange because i have been dosing for almost a year with no problems, so i have a hard time believing its the vodka dosing. At this point it couldn't hurt to try though. I would like to try the biopellets, aka solid vodka dosing.

here is a thread about it: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1694529

 

[easterly81]

OK starting to think it is a parasite i found what liked like a little cotton ball looking thing on the damaged part last night. Here is a terrible picture...

And this is a picture of the damage to a main colony...

This is so strange because everything in the tank is doing great, but all my orange digi which i have had for years is all doing this..I have three frags of it and two large colonies.

 

[josee1013]

that's probably a parasite of some sort... I truly dont know..
my digi colony have not extended polyps but they are not like yours at all, I can see the polyps inside the squeleton.

 

[sahin]

Seeing it now, makes me think its probably a parasite - the tissue is missing in random patches etc, with alk burn and STN/RTN, I've found that whole areas go in one swoop, this is too patchy and random kind of thing.

 

[easterly81]

I look every night and cannot find any parsites its strange. I have a green digi which is fine as well as all my other sps. I think its a parsite too but i cannot id it. getting ready to toss the coral.

 

[easterly81]

bump

 

[easterly81]

???? Still happening i though it was getting better for a bit now, its happening again. Still the digi is the only coral with this problem. These pictures are taken at night, that's the only time the white fuzzy patched are there, still cannot find any parasite.

 

[robsnnny]

monti bugs

monti bugs

Monti eating nudi branches

 

[ganjero]

Monti eating nudi branches

+1 that's what you got my friend. Almost impossible to get rid of. I was lucky to get a 6 line wrasse that has a taste for those bastards and that's how I got rid of them, but most people don't have my luck.

You need to start fragging and throwing away most of the coral. Dip the frags in revive and put them in a quarantine tank and monitor for nudis. Other than that let them eat all your montis and wait a few months before starting montis again.

 

[KMB]

ok is it just me or is that some sort of worm in that picture....looks like yellow worm with legs

 

[easterly81]

Thats my brittle star... I have several different types of monti but the orange digi is the only thing affected (5 different colonies of it). I have a green digi and it fine... weird, I think i would have seen them by now. Not doubting just baffled. Would they do after my monti cap?

 

[MechEng99]

If they are monti-eating nudibranchs, they will eventually go after other corals once that food source runs out (or before...they may already be on the other corals.) They're only about 1-3mm long, so they're very hard to see.

 

[ganjero]

If they are monti-eating nudibranchs, they will eventually go after other corals once that food source runs out (or before...they may already be on the other corals.) They're only about 1-3mm long, so they're very hard to see.

Not entirely true. They will go after other montiporas, they won't touch anything else. They love caps, and your cap it's probably already infested underneath.