sps concern

[JRF]

Hi
Attached are some pics of a few of my sps corals that I am getting concerned about. Picture 7 and 9 are the same coral, a blue acro stag. You can see the white patch in the middle of the stag, and also at the bottom. I do not notice any bite marks, or red bugs, just a white patch. This has shown up in just the last few days.
PIcture 5 is another large stag and you can see the different coloration in the middle of the coral about the same size as the blue stag has...although not as pronounced and doesnt look as bad. Im not sure how long this area has been there and if it is normal...
Picture 6 is a bad picture, but you can see a brown dot on the tip of the white branch. I actually saw this spot moving ( crawling )....Some sort of flatworm? On the rock just below this coral are a bunch of the same flatworms so Im not sure if it is AEFW..do AEFW hang out on rocks? Or could it just be standard red planaria flatworm?
With all these corals, Im not sure if it is a pest, or just STN/RTN...
My params: Temp stable 80F, Alk last week was about 7.5Dkh, today was 6.5 - 7 Dkh , Calc 400ppm , Mag 1250ish, PO4 .008, NO3 -0

Thanks for any advise

 

[blakers82]

Sorry to hear about your stags. This could be a tissue necrosis issue. Now, as far as potential worms go, I wouldn't freak out on that notion, but it sounds like a possibility.

As far as params go, many would say it couldn't hurt to push your Alk a bit more, maybe mag...and just be consistent. (That's a detailed PO4 reading there. :reading: ) Have you been getting good growth/colors from your other SPS? Any recent regimen changes or things to note about your setup? And only the stags are bothered?


I'm not sure we could decipher what kind of worms you may have from the pics, (if you have them) but I don't like the look of pic #2. I'm sure AEFW could be on rocks. They can be very small though, where as the red planaria can normally be seen with the human eye. It sounds like you already know that red planaria can definitely hang on rocks.

I don't remember seeing AEFW on rocks, but if you are feeling like you are seeing worms in your tank you should really inspect your corals. You could take a powerhead and put some current on the potentially worm infested areas to see if anything blows off there. I would be looking for the AEFW eggs themselves at this point.

Also, I'll say MORE pics might help.

 

[JRF]

Thanks for the reply Blakers, the only change that has been made to the tank is a change out in the 65 watt actinic bulbs....the day after the bulb change, I noticed my golden pipe organ coral had bleached, which I thought was kind of odd, but it still has great polyp extension. I normally use screening over the top of the tank with bulb change-outs for a week or so but I forgot to do so this time...i am surprised to see that an actinic bulb could cause a coral bleaching issue, but the bulb is noticeably brighter. It is around this time that I noticed the white patch on the blue stag above. I really dont know if that has anything to so with the stag issue, thats why I didnt mention the new bulb in the first post.
I run my Alk on the lower end because I run NeoZeo method ( for a year now ) but I use vodka for the carbon source. I may bump the Alk up to 8 Dkh and see what happens, if anything.
All the other sps are doing great, birdsnests, hydnophora, tables, ect are growing and great color, even the stags have been growing, but something is obviously happening to the blue stag for sure. Maybe its just "one of those things".....but its very frustrating to watch it happen and really have no control over why or how....

 

[anthony27]

I am in the same area with this and I would say it might be the tank is just to clean

 

[blakers82]

Good to know you are on Zeo. Knowing that, then I wouldn't alter your parameters if you have been getting good growth/colors on other SPS and you've been on it for a year. Have you added any corals to the aquarium the last few months/weeks? If so, quarantine/dip?

You are right though. Sometimes corals just die. We still don't know enough about many of these creatures to decipher why they might have an early passing in our closed systems. I've been perplexed many times over myself. I know a number of great, experienced reefers that have cared for seemingly every popular acro/monti you can find in the trade, in large (500-600gal) stable systems. Colonies that have grown out can just STN/RTN for unknown reasons, whereas their neighbor carries on flourishing.

Your recent light output bump sounds like it immediately affected your pipe organ in a rather big way for 1 day. You might throw your screen back on top of the tank for a bit and keep an eye on things. I'd be less worried about pests with the new info, but if you are that worried (about pests) and able, I'd just take the stag(s) in question out and have a good look at them.


The good news is it's only the stag.

 

[JRF]

Yeah, I threw the screen up on top...pipe organ alive and well just lost its color..Im going to spot feed it to help it gets its color back. So far only the stag is a goner, I fragged off the one branch in hopes that that portion will live on....I have not added any new corals for a while now. One change that I am going to make is the way I dise for Alk. I had been doing 2 fairly large doses each day, one at 12pm and another at 2am....My timer will allow up to 6 programs per day, so I divided the ml's of Alk dose by 6, and now I dose 6 smaller amounts every 4 hours...So if the issue was possibly due to Alk swings, now this should make things a bit more stable in that area. Thanks for all the info!