Possible Emergency!!!

[mark fanara]

I got home from work tonight and two branches on one of my blue tort.s was engulfed in brown mucus...I slowley removed the coral and rinsed it thouroughly under tap water. I placed the coral back in the tank and the effected areas were pure white...I saw no more brown mucus...Does anyone have any suggestions, anything I should do or watch for? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[jimmer]

im not sure a tap water rinse was a good idea but already done.i would keep it in a good flow.if it starts losing more flesh i would frag it if possible.how does everything else look.

 

[mark fanara]

everyhting else looks fine

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I would check everything you can possibly test/check.
Make any changes (if necessary) SLOWLY.
Fragging the affected area of the coral well above the line of tissue necrosis is a good option. Don't let any of the dead coral tissue float around in the aquarium or it can spread the problem.

 

[RandyO]

I'd give the same advise Gary has. Make sure to check everything.

 

[mark fanara]

My alk has mysteriously dropped from 3.4 to 1.7...I have begun to correct this ....slowly.

 

[kmagyar]

I wonder why your alk dropped. How fast did that happen? What do you sup with? Reactor, B-ionic? What is your CA level? I would do large water changes. I know that goes against to go slow method, but thats just me. Let us know how things look today.

Keith

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

Before correcting for a sudden drop in alkalinity, double check ... no, triple check it with a reliable test. Why would alk drop so suddenly? Have you done anything new or different to your system?

 

[SkiFletch]

I have to agree. What little I know about water chemistry makes me question how the alk in your setup dropped so fast. It should take days or longer for it to be consumed by anything in your aquarium.

 

[LFS_worker]

keep an eye out for funny smells!

 

[mark fanara]

I think the brown mucus has stopped...I usually use the 2 part b-ionic daily, but I was having a problem with green cyano, so I stopped for a few days. This may have contributed to the drop in alk., I also noticed that 2 of my 4 powerheads were barely pushing any water. This lack of water flow may be the cause for the green cyano and consequently the decrease in b-ionic use and so on. The lack of water flow may have also been a factor for the coral problem as well. I did a 15 gallon water change sun. I will do another on tue. The alk is up to 2.3...I'm going to keep raisind this also. I have two new larger powerheads arriving tue. Hopefully this does the trick. I appreciate the help from everyone...times like these make me happy that a forum like this exists.

 

[mark fanara]

I also ended up fragging off the healthy parts of the blue tort. I managed to get about 8 healthy branches off of it. I glued them all to one peice of live rock rubble so it lokks like a shrunken version of its former self. I don't feel like I'm out of the woods yet though...I'm keeping a close eye on my tank