Possible Pathogen Based Acro Necrosis

if po4 was so limited that the acros werent getting any.. .wouldnt i see bleached corals... and wouldnt it affect the other species of coral in the tank as well. i have taken po4 to extremely low levels before with GFO and have seen those results.

vodka... hasnt been dosed in a long time in my home tank and intermittently at that

thanks for the ideas... maybe they will prove to be of significance
 
Hi Kip,

It looks like you definately thinned things out since Sept' 06. I like the look a lot better asthetically & for flow,health purposes.

Why are you mixing the salts? Why not just go back to full IO?
Seems like another change or variable that you don't need to deal with right now.

I agree with box. From my experiences, zero on the hanna results in shutdown, no growth, bleaching. Over time the corals will recede from the bottom up. The whole process happens over a few months & is a slow degradation. Mine have always looked best at .03
 
Bleaching is subjective in each reefer's eyes. To me the pastel light look is bleaching. Some corals don't bleach & some do with low po4 levels. My tort & yongei never bleached, but efflos & tri colors did.

My montis were never affected by low levels of p04.

If your po4 is that low I'd venture to guess your nitrates are at a a low level also. This can also be an issue & not something a test kit is going to pick up.
 
Kip-Like I said last night in talking with you-My frag tank is going seperate from my display but will still be kept running. I can swing by there if you want to see how things do in the frag tank. There won't be anything in there I don't mind losing.
 
i will run some fresh no3/po4 readings when i get home from work... or maybe at lunch if i can escape the office

i thought that if this was bacterial, a slime treatment may slow it down. so, 2wks ago i did this treatment and it may have freed up some organics.... i have done about 270g in water changes since then (mostly to calm the skimmer down) but there may be testable no3/po4 at this point

mixing of the salts... i havent been doing that for about a month now.... and on my 450gTSV system... i've done around a total of 400g or so of 90gallon water changes.... all with IO that newly tests within acceptable parameters (what i can actually test)
 
Bleaching is the result of high temperatures, wich the coral polyp can not handle, so it expells the zoox in atempt to reduce the effects of free radical damage. From increased O2 production of the zoox. Not low nutrients(Po4) Think of it as an ozonizer(the zoox) with a controller(the polyp).

Low Po4 causes the tissue to recess,to keep up with the growing skelton. So it auto immune diseases itself(kills tissue in attempt to fix itself)Believe it or not, but that algae living inside the coral actually need Po4 to survive. If they dont have food, the coral does not need them.Your corals are very colorfull, that also suggests Low Po4.The lighter the more they are grasping at light to grow. Light colors absorb more light, more nutrients. Dark colored corals(browned out) absorb less light, less nutrients. Its a survival mechansim. If your blue corals, or deep water ones recess first, thats because they adapted to higher nutrients than surface water corals have. We are talking 100 meters here. Due to higher light levels and scavenging phytoplankton the water is nutrient poor. Down below, where the water is colder, Less light, mostly blue light and more rich in nutrients. Theese very corals have adapted to live with nutrients near the sand. The sand fluxes Po4.The top corals have so much water flow, that the sand does not exist, or is washed away. Instead they rely on a short burst of upwelled water from below. The blue coral, is blue because down below the light is mostly blue, as blue light penetrates that far. So it reflects that color and absorbs more of the others. Surface corals have adapted to low nutrient periods.That your tank is experiencing. Maybee try turning off the skimmer for a bit? Nightly.

Ok im babbling too much. You get my idea :)

Good luck!

O yea, dont assume nothing! Check your alkalinity kit please :)
 
I've got what looks to be the same thing going on in my reef, it started around a month ago with the tips on my Blue Tenuis lightening up and then went down hill. At first it was only affecting a couple colonies and then it spread to all of them, acro, monti, it didn't seem to matter. On most of the corals it started on the tips and worked down, the flesh would just melt/peel off, the the coral would still have great polyp extension. At first I thought it was I had overdosed the mag flakes but after testing it was high but not enough to cause problems. I tested my Po4 on 2 different tests and it was .06 all other parameters were on par.

Unfortantly I do not have any pictures as I torn to tank down on Saturday and put all that are alive in a frag tank with new SW.

Now for things that seem to be the same as others. I started using Red Sea Pro salt a couple of weeks before this started and I also have the red turf algae on most of my rocks.

I'm hoping that I can save some of the corals in the frag tank but as this point it does not seem to have stopped spreading...
 
forgot to mention... this morning... there is a new recession spot on my yongei. the spot is on a side branch at mid height of the colony (roughly a foot tall). this coral has recession at the base due to maturity (reduced flow/light exposure)... there is no diseased/stressed looking recession at the bottom... the recession at the bottom looks like fossilized coral that builds rock

the tort... hasnt really shown any signs of further disease progression in the last 48hrs... but the spot on the yongei is brand new overnite

just more random, senseless observations

dkh check... how about everybody come to my house, bring your kits... and we will take about 100 readings... (just kidding.... but as gasman said... i've tested dkh until it makes my *** hurt)

box... appreciate the reading on po4 and its need ... i know/knew this... but maybe my level of understanding is what limited me from seeing those levels may be too low.... i will get some readings for yas tonite

ox.... thanks... its all up to you and how much headache you wanna put up with... i definitely dont want you spreading this to your existing stuff... even if in a seperate tank... say you use the same tools or dont wash your hands inb/w working with your existing system, etc. (if in fact it can even be spread this way... or.. .if there is in fact anything to spread)... its up to you

can you tell i am about to lose it? :(
 
i've run 0.00 po4 on my hanna and the tank always looked better at 0.00 than 0.03. after a while i could tell just by looking at the tank that the po4 had risen away from 0.00.
 
If it was zero PO4, it would definetly be showing issues in other corals. Considering he runs a sand bed and has fish, I seriously doubt he has a complete zero PO4. This is mainly seen in BB tanks.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9999304#post9999304 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JB NY
None taken. I would not recommend that one doses their aquarium normally. I've had many problems in my tank over the years, and I've never dosed the whole aquarium. I've only used doxy a few times, only as a last resort for corals I really felt were going to RTN on me pretty fast if something drastic was not done.

My only reason for posting that information is that kip seemed to be going down that route anyway, and was looking for information. If he is already planning on doing it, IMO, I might as well give him as much information as I can about my experience with it so that he has some understanding of what to expect.

Big E recommendation of daily water changes is one of the first things I do every time I have a major problem in my tank and it has always done well for me. I have recommended it to many people as well. So I agree that is a good course of action.

I would rather see kip have an understanding of all his options so he can make an informed choice is all.
Click to expand...

Good post....Hopefully he can resolve it before going down that route. Maybe you could share more info on what you did in case I ever have to go down that road one day.:)
 
there are a lot of good posts herein

this would be a good reference thread for those trying to narrow down problems with stonies in their tank
 
ran home (had to get a document to fax)... while i was there i snapped a few pics (didnt take the time to get those po4/no3 readings... will do that tonite)

here are some shots of the yongei that just started w/ problems overnite.... it was heavily fragged (almost butchered) about a month ago... all cuts points have healed and are sprouting new growth

YongeiColony.jpg
 
now... what is really getting scary is that this has all been limited to affecting acros only

then i notice this on the edge of my undata.... is it the beginning of recession on montis? ... or did a snail, urchin, etc just rub up against it .... no other monti showing problems

UndataStartingMaybe.jpg
 
that spot was 7 o'clock on the coral... this spot is 2'oclock on the coral and a good 6" away

UndataStartingMaybe2.jpg
 
and for those that havent looked at pics linked to my site.. i have them where you can see them directly now.... here is the undata colony 2 days ago

HealthyUndata.jpg
 
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