SPS Experts- What's wrong with my tort?!

[Dooly]

So I've had this ora cali tort for about 2 years and it has always had great polyp extension and growth.. but for the past few weeks there has been no pe; and the underside of the coral started to look "faded" and blotches of color pigments started to dissapear.

I suspected AEFW and dipped on two seperate occasions, both times used Coral Revive and I also tried Lugols Plus. I saw some pods come off the rock that the coral is mounted onto and only a single flatworm showed (my eyes are very good, and I don't know that it came off the coral, but I suspect it did)

I haven't really added anything to my tank recently, and whatever I have added I dipped first and always treat for 6-8 hours in a bucket with interceptor before adding to tank. I have also treated with interceptor twice in the past year because I saw a few redbugs on a lokani I had a while back.

No other coral show any similar symptoms and I am stumped; here are my parameters:

salt: d&d h2ocean
cal 400
alk 8 (I am slowing raising it to 9)
mag 1360
phosphates less than 0.04
nitrates undetectable
no stray current, I run an atb protein skimmer, and have plenty of flow in the tank.
lit up by 8x54w t5's 9 hours a day..

Here are some pics:

top of coral looks okay

couple pics of the underside- you'll notice the blotches of color loss

shots of my other coral

 

[pwoller]

I'd go with AEFW's. Dip it, take a macro shot with a camera and zoom on in and report back what you see?

 

[Reefer577]

I'll second that.

 

[Dooly]

i dipped it twice, first time nothing but some pods; second time one flatworm that was a bit less than 2mm long.. I don't have anything but a simple point and shoot camera, but I really didn't see flatworms except the single one. I dipped it for 20 mins each time with a stronger than normal dosage of revive. Followed by a 15 minute lugols iodine dip..

I did re-arrange my rockwork a month or so back as well as my sandbed and nitrates/phosphates spiked for a couple days.. do you think that could be the culprit?

 

[borcu]

isnt it normal, cant get light under. no need to get stress by dipping.

 

[dvanacker]

I think the zoo-x in the tort is just going through a spell. A jump in parameters or nutrients probably. Just keep things stable and stop bugging the coral and I bet it will turn around. My thoughts anyway.

 

[sanababit]

What these 2 people said ^

sana

 

[Allmost]

well I recently switched to ZEo.

the no3 before was 1 PPM and po4 undetectable.

after I started Zeo, all algae went away so I assume a big shift in No3, and its reading now at most 0.2 PPM.

same thing happened to some of my SPS ! so I wouldnt say any pests. Or hopefully no pests

also, I noticed, when my P.H. (MP40) gets dirty, it pushes less water, and the underside of the SPS which dont get as much light, start to loose polyps and color. now my colonies got big, and I think I need another MP40 :S

 

[seminolecpa]

Take a close look at the middle branch of the underside shot. Tough to see in your picture but those could very well be AEFW eggs.

Again I am speculating because I can't see it clearly but sure looks like something.

 

[returnofsid]

Take a close look at the middle branch of the underside shot. Tough to see in your picture but those could very well be AEFW eggs.

Again I am speculating because I can't see it clearly but sure looks like something.

As far as I know, and I could be mistaken, Flatworms don't lay eggs.

 

[borcu]

unfortunately aefw lays.

 

[Dooly]

thanks for all the input guys; there are no visible flatworms nor flatworm eggs on the coral.

I just realized that I deviated from my regular routine d&d water change and used tropic marin regular for about 1 month and so far that is the only change/addition to my tank and now this.. I've actually noticed that my scolymia started to tighten up showing skeleton every time I changed water with the TM salt; could have been a bad batch perhaps..

I am back on d&d and just changed out the rowaphos in a reactor, and hoping for the best. I will do one more dip later this evening to see if anything falls off of it..

 

[seminolecpa]

As far as I know, and I could be mistaken, Flatworms don't lay eggs.

100% certain they do. I am unfortunately very familiar.

 

[stryker]

Dooly, try to increase flow on this piece. I had the same thing happen to my large colony of tort a few years back and the only thing that slowed it down was higher flow and light. All my torts started to stn, but none of the other sps were effected. I still think it was some type of bacterial infection. Do you have any other torts in the tank?

 

[Dooly]

hey terry, I will point more flow at the coral to see if that helps.. I do have an oregon tort near by this piece, you can see it in the last picture; never had really great PE with that piece, but good color and the usual slow growth..

 

[Logzor]

I agree with increasing the flow and inspecting for AEFW egg. Don't bother dipping - just search for the eggs.

The damage doesn't look bad but torts are very resistant towards aefw (in my experience).

 

[Dejavu]

To me it just looks like the bottom side is not get enough light or flow. This has happen to me with my tort too. What I do is rotate it every week or so. I would bet if nothing came off in the dips it not AEFW's. IME milli's seem to be the first effect by AEFW's and both your milli's look good.

 

[Dooly]

yeah, no flatworms in sight but the tort is still looking worse and worse.. my oregon tort actually doesnt look too good either and its not even near this colony..

I read that AEFW love validas/milles more than anything and I have a garf bonsai literally 1.5" away from the affected tort that is absolutely 100%..

For those of you who have had this happen to their torts before.. does it ever come back with higher flow? I mean. it's getting plenty of light no doubt.. but not as much flow as I used to have on it..

 

[scrapz]

may have been param shock from switching salts. I lost a few corals using 40g mix of another salt mix when I ran out of DD.

Could also check for stray voltage