Sick leptastrea

joeturbo

joeturbo

New member
Hello,

My leptastrea, along with a few other LPS have been losing tissue. I had low alk for a while, but brought it back up and the tissue loss has slowed, but still continues. Does this look like a disease of some sort? I've tried to research, but can't find much info on leptastreas.

Notice the buildup around the tissue loss.





Yes, I have a minor algae problem that I've been battling for a while. I recently started dosing N03P04x, but the tissue loss started before that.

Thanks for any input.
 
Personally I would carefully treat the algae on the margins by bushing it away with a tooth brush, and maybe a few drops of dilute hydrogen peroxide, keeping it off the tissue.

I'd also test location for lighting & flow somewhere on the rock structure. It's an encrusting coral and needs rock area to expand & grow. The sand bed isn't a good permanent location for this coral IMO, although it's fine temporarily & for acclimation. I've seen plenty of corals perk up & turn around when moved from the sand to the right location on the live rock. Good luck.
 
Just exactly are your water parameters? More tank info would be nice, size, how long it's been running, other inhabitants, and how are they doing. You say a few other LPS same thing. Pictures of them and if you don't mind where are they sitting in your system with water flow and light. What do you have for lights and how old is it?

I know a bunch of questions but they are necessary in trying to get you an answer.
 
Thanks for the replies.

The tank is a 55g glass tank with hob overflow and about a 5 gallon sump. I run an Urchin Pro skimmer and a homemade (Gatorade bottle) carbon reactor. Lights are black box (mars aqua) "full spectrum" LEDs. I run them about 50% white/75% blue. Blues go for 12 hours and whites for 8.

I use Reef Crystals and do 20% wc every two weeks. I've tried vodka dosing, phosguard, and most recently NO3:PO4-X to try and combat the algae. I've stopped dosing for the time being until I can figure this out. Flow is provided by a single Jabeo WP-25 on else mode.

Livestock consists of various soft, LPS, and SPS corals, a yellow tang, yellow tail damsel, a pajama cardinal, 2 clownfish, a pistol shrimp, and various cuc. Most of the corals have been in the tank for at least 3-6 months and I thought they were doing great until recently. I'm leaning towards either alk swings, or lack of nutrients from the dosing that's causing this crash.

I got the tank off of craigslist in November of last year. It looked like this when I picked it up.



Here are some TERRIBLE pics I took earlier. I'll try to get better pics tomorrow.

FTS


FTS with lights so you can see proximity to water


Frogspawn that lost one head several weeks ago


Hammer coral that seems perfectly happy


Acan that can't decide if it's happy or not


Favia that lost a little tissue (it was partially buried for a day or two where the tissue was lost)


Trumpet coral that was doing great until it started losing tissue last week


Duncan that lost a couple of heads and has a few more on the way out


I'll try to test water in the morning and report back.
 
Thanks for the replies.

The tank is a 55g glass tank with hob overflow and about a 5 gallon sump. I run an Urchin Pro skimmer and a homemade (Gatorade bottle) carbon reactor. Lights are black box (mars aqua) "full spectrum" LEDs. I run them about 50% white/75% blue. Blues go for 12 hours and whites for 8.

I use Reef Crystals and do 20% wc every two weeks. I've tried vodka dosing, phosguard, and most recently NO3:PO4-X to try and combat the algae. I've stopped dosing for the time being until I can figure this out. Flow is provided by a single Jabeo WP-25 on else mode.

Livestock consists of various soft, LPS, and SPS corals, a yellow tang, yellow tail damsel, a pajama cardinal, 2 clownfish, a scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp, 2 BTAs, and various CUC. Most of the corals have been in the tank for at least 3-6 months and I thought they were doing great until recently. I'm leaning towards either alk swings, or lack of nutrients from the dosing that's causing this crash.

I got the tank off of craigslist in November of last year. It looked like this when I picked it up.



Here are some TERRIBLE pics I took earlier. I'll try to get better pics tomorrow.

FTS


FTS with lights so you can see proximity to water


Frogspawn that lost one head several weeks ago


Hammer coral that seems perfectly happy


Acan that can't decide if it's happy or not


Favia that lost a little tissue (it was partially buried for a day or two where the tissue was lost)


Trumpet coral that was doing great until it started losing tissue last week


Duncan that lost a couple of heads and has a few more on the way out


I'll try to test water in the morning and report back.
 
Tweaked said:
Did you use the previous owners rock? Could be leaching all kinds of junk including copper.
Click to expand...

Yes, all of the original rock and sand is still in the tank. I'm moving this week and plan to replace the sand bed during the move. I'm not sure what to do about the rock. Do you think I should try taking half of the rock out and "cooking" it for a month or two?
 
I know guys that will practically redo the silicon if they thought the previous owner had used copper in any way.
 
looks like there are bigger problems, but I found that my leptastrea likes it low in the tank. Lower current, lower light with occasional feeding.
 
Thanks for the input. Almost done moving, then will come back with updates. My other Leptastrea likes it low flow/light also and is doing great.
 
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