Well its been 8 years since this thread was started but ive been searching for an answer to this exact same problem and have not found a cause or fix. Ive lost one coral already and there are about three other colonies showing the beginning stages of slimy stringy tips and tissue recession. Has anyone found a solution?
reoccuring issue with sps tips burning and receding whats the deal please help
- Thread starter murphreef
- Start date
Here is a link to another thread that has good pics of the same symptoms:http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1978250&highlight=stringy+tips
Have you tested your Iodine by chance? I have seen low iodine mentioned in relation to tip burn in multiple threads and that increasing it to 0.06 can protect SPS from tip burn in high light and/or Alk.
I had 1 tip on an SPS frag going white with the stringy filament as well, though in the last day or 2 it seems to be colouring back up. Because it was the only white tip on the frag, I was pretty sure it was not just growth.
Although many experts discount the importance of iodine for corals, in my tank I have found that it directly impacts my SPS and LPS because of a mushroom plague that I have going on. For me it is a bit of catch 22. When my iodine is depleted my SPS frags are unhappy, but the mushrooms are also held in check. When I raise it, things improve for my frags, but the mushrooms start multiplying. :facepalm:
So if you have not looked at iodine, I would consider testing it, especially if you have any amount of soft corals in the tank that could be depleting it and/or you are seeing white tips that lead to recession.
Dennis
I had 1 tip on an SPS frag going white with the stringy filament as well, though in the last day or 2 it seems to be colouring back up. Because it was the only white tip on the frag, I was pretty sure it was not just growth.
Although many experts discount the importance of iodine for corals, in my tank I have found that it directly impacts my SPS and LPS because of a mushroom plague that I have going on. For me it is a bit of catch 22. When my iodine is depleted my SPS frags are unhappy, but the mushrooms are also held in check. When I raise it, things improve for my frags, but the mushrooms start multiplying. :facepalm:
So if you have not looked at iodine, I would consider testing it, especially if you have any amount of soft corals in the tank that could be depleting it and/or you are seeing white tips that lead to recession.
Dennis
I tested iodine this morning but came up with 0, the test kit is old though and when i used the reference test it also came up zero so the kit is probably bad. I do have a considerable amount of softies in the tank including a whole wall covered in GSP along with shrooms and palys zoa's and a few other softies.
I have noticed that my mushrooms have not been growing and spreading like normal lately so perhaps iodine is low.
I did do a 50Gal water change and things seem stable this morning. I will plan on doing this once a week to see if at the very least things just stabilize with a halt in the tips burning/receding. If water changes help then it may just be a deficiency of some kind.
I had gone 3-4 months without any water changes so this could be an issue for sure.
One other thing to note is that my phosphates had gotten quite crazy up to .45. I started up my GFO reactor and it did drop it to .07 but it seems to fluctuate back and forth even after changing the media weekly. I will note that the the tip recession issue preceded the drop in po4. So its not the fact that i dropped the po4 too fast to cause the issue in the first place.
Initially i thought that i had found the problem to be extremely high po4 but unfortunately it has continued even after starting to drop the phosphates.
You might want to try Triton-US
You might want to try Triton-US
You know, we are fortunate to now have the ability to do an actual full chemistry test of our aquariums from our friends in Germany. The service is now available to us in the US. The website is www.triton-us.com.
You send them a sample and they do a full chemical analysis of your water. The cost is $40-50 and then there is no more guessing. To me, it is a small price to pay for our investment we make.
I don't have a tank now nor have I ever used the service. I just know that years ago when I was very involved, the guessing was one of the things that drove me nuts. Trying this or that to figure it out was risky and I was always adverse to risks. They sell a full aquarium maintenance program, but at the very least doing the test will tell you where you are now with great scientific detail and accuracy. Whether you choose to do your own supplements vs. their system is up for review/discussion, but having a known starting point is immensely valuable.
BTW, I live in Simi too...perhaps we can chat some time
.
Scott
You might want to try Triton-US
You know, we are fortunate to now have the ability to do an actual full chemistry test of our aquariums from our friends in Germany. The service is now available to us in the US. The website is www.triton-us.com.
You send them a sample and they do a full chemical analysis of your water. The cost is $40-50 and then there is no more guessing. To me, it is a small price to pay for our investment we make.
I don't have a tank now nor have I ever used the service. I just know that years ago when I was very involved, the guessing was one of the things that drove me nuts. Trying this or that to figure it out was risky and I was always adverse to risks. They sell a full aquarium maintenance program, but at the very least doing the test will tell you where you are now with great scientific detail and accuracy. Whether you choose to do your own supplements vs. their system is up for review/discussion, but having a known starting point is immensely valuable.
BTW, I live in Simi too...perhaps we can chat some time
.Scott
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I had been dosing Kent Tech I off an on over the last year or so, but did not see a difference, so I stopped dosing it.
When I decided to try the Red Sea Reef Care program, I dosed the Colour A portion (which contains Iodine) and the change was dramatic. On the positive side, my SPS frags had polyp extension where they had none for months (in some cases reversing base STN), and on the negative side (if like me you are drowning in mushrooms) the carpet of blue discomas started propagating again and a 18" x 14" rock of electric green Palys opened for the first time in months (they are a runner up to the mushrooms for plague status).
I do a 1% daily water change, but even with that, the softies appear to be able to deplete the Iodine.
Over the last year, I have had some unexplained losses while my water parameters were decent.When the (indestructible) electric green palys stopped opening, I knew something was out of line, but I was at a loss to explain it. I now suspect that depleted Iodine was likely a contributing factor.
Dennis
When I decided to try the Red Sea Reef Care program, I dosed the Colour A portion (which contains Iodine) and the change was dramatic. On the positive side, my SPS frags had polyp extension where they had none for months (in some cases reversing base STN), and on the negative side (if like me you are drowning in mushrooms) the carpet of blue discomas started propagating again and a 18" x 14" rock of electric green Palys opened for the first time in months (they are a runner up to the mushrooms for plague status).
I do a 1% daily water change, but even with that, the softies appear to be able to deplete the Iodine.
Over the last year, I have had some unexplained losses while my water parameters were decent.When the (indestructible) electric green palys stopped opening, I knew something was out of line, but I was at a loss to explain it. I now suspect that depleted Iodine was likely a contributing factor.
Dennis
watchguy123
New member
If your nitrates and phosphate are undetectable, your corals may be starving. And the growing tips, would likely go first as seen. Got to fatten those sps up, with some, nitrates and phosphates. You should think about feeding more and encourage your fish to poop,all over the tank
d3hree
New member
I agree this is an iodine issue...I had the exact same problems and it took me months to figure out it was iodine. It gets depleted very quickly under strong lighting and corals use it for uv protection. If your salt is low in i2 or you aren't doing regular, weekly changes you'll start to notice corals losing tips.
watchguy123
New member
What in the world would make you think it is iodine. Dosing iodine has been around for a
Long time but not sure why anyone would since iodine tests are ???
Don't understand the logic behind this but open tomboy assuming some information to suggest or prove it
Long time but not sure why anyone would since iodine tests are ???
Don't understand the logic behind this but open tomboy assuming some information to suggest or prove it
Here is a much needed update...
In my case I went into survival mode and decided to give some frags to a local reefer in case it was a water quality issue. At the rate things were progressing I was bound to lose more colonies since 3 more were beginning to get the sliming tips with receding tissue. Luckily the reefer I was working with said that he had seen this exact same issue in two other tanks in the San Diego area and in both cases they were chasing high phosphates as the culprit. However in both cases these other individuals both had what can only be described as White Bugs. Very similar to Red bugs but completely white and probably 1/2 to 1/4 the size.
In my tank I cut off 2-3 of the affected tips and took them under a microscope with high magnification and bright bright light. What I was finally able to observe was the little White Bugs! They were zooming in and out of the coralites and all through the sliming tips.
I would NEVER have seen them until I put the frags under the scope. They are crazy small. There is literally no information on these white bugs out there, except perhaps for a few mentions of them here and there, none of which tell the story of the sliming and receding tips that eventually lead to the collapse of the entire colony.
The good news is that they can be totally wiped out using the same treatment for red bugs, interceptor. I have dosed my tank 3 times and I can absolutely say that the recession has begun reversing. The damaged tips are all re-encrusting, Polyp Extension is improving dramatically and best of all my colors are beginning to pop again.
I hope anyone who is experiencing these particular symptoms stumbles upon this thread.
In my case I went into survival mode and decided to give some frags to a local reefer in case it was a water quality issue. At the rate things were progressing I was bound to lose more colonies since 3 more were beginning to get the sliming tips with receding tissue. Luckily the reefer I was working with said that he had seen this exact same issue in two other tanks in the San Diego area and in both cases they were chasing high phosphates as the culprit. However in both cases these other individuals both had what can only be described as White Bugs. Very similar to Red bugs but completely white and probably 1/2 to 1/4 the size.
In my tank I cut off 2-3 of the affected tips and took them under a microscope with high magnification and bright bright light. What I was finally able to observe was the little White Bugs! They were zooming in and out of the coralites and all through the sliming tips.
I would NEVER have seen them until I put the frags under the scope. They are crazy small. There is literally no information on these white bugs out there, except perhaps for a few mentions of them here and there, none of which tell the story of the sliming and receding tips that eventually lead to the collapse of the entire colony.
The good news is that they can be totally wiped out using the same treatment for red bugs, interceptor. I have dosed my tank 3 times and I can absolutely say that the recession has begun reversing. The damaged tips are all re-encrusting, Polyp Extension is improving dramatically and best of all my colors are beginning to pop again.
I hope anyone who is experiencing these particular symptoms stumbles upon this thread.
