sps not looking good

[undertcontrolj]

Well i posted the other day that my calcium was a little high. And now what few pieces of SPS I do have are not looking very good. I started noticing a piece orange digi take a turn for the worse the other day and now c couple of the pieces are not looking to good. ona has what appears to be a white steak running up the side of it. This was not there yesterday so i am little worried. i just did a water change and tested and everything is at 0. Does anyone have any suggestions on what i should be doing in this situation. I can try later to get some pictures up put i dont think my camera can get in that close. Anyone live close to Hendersopnville that woudl not mind coming over and taking a look for me?

 

[undertcontrolj]

Well the one that had a white streak up it when i got home is now completely white. Any ideas?

 

[undertcontrolj]

So that is in less than an hour it went from a streak to white?

 

[cee]

Montis only?

 

[undertcontrolj]

no this was an acro that is almost gone now. I mean this thing was looking great I have had the two one inch frags for less than a month and they had already started spreading a good base and the polyps were amazing. So right now none of the SPS are looking good. Anyone have a tank i can bring to and maybe hold until i can figure out what and why?

 

[undertcontrolj]

It looks more like a white film taking it over than like it is going to a skeleton. I am not sure if that makes any sense at all.

 

[NeveSSL]

Wow... and this is right after a water change? That doesn't sound good. It sounds like there may have been something in your water, bro.

Brandon

 

[undertcontrolj]

yeah i dint know what could have been. On both of these pieces that i am losing i noticed a emerald crab picking at them. Think he could have caused something. At any rate i jut did a 10% water change to see if that helps the situation any.

 

[NeveSSL]

Are the polyps just retreated? I know that orange digi can look pretty white once the polyps go in. Maybe they just didn't like something in the new water or the emerald was bothering them?

Brandon

 

[undertcontrolj]

Well the polyps are really retreated on the orange but still there. So it does look really white. The acro though was red and green with yellow polyps. It is white not just polyps retreated. The ones on the orange i can still see they just don't seem to be moving like they were. I took it out and dipped it yesterday in revive coral cleaner. i really did not know what to do.

 

[commonstranger]

I would say the crab could tell it was dieing or dead and started eating. IMO wish I could give more advice to help you but not for sure at this point.

 

[undertcontrolj]

I hate this. When everything in the tank looks so good and growing great and then something just seems to creep in there and ruin it.

 

[Mikeyjer]

Justin,

You really have to give us specific levels of everything!!!

Salinity
PH
Alk
Ca
Temperature
Type of water your using?
How long do you mix everything before water change?
I know your using Red Sea Salt Mix from your posting before and I use IO for years now and never tried Red Sea before so I really can't help you in that department.

Do you have any frogspawn or any LPS that extends it's tentacles?

 

[undertcontrolj]

Temp 78-80 alk 3.4 not on the dkh scale cal 500 ph 8.2 ammonium 0 nitrates close to zero hard to tell on my test kit same with nitrates and nitrites mix my water a few hours before I need it and let it get up to temp us RO water

 

[poolkeeper1]

A few hours may not be enough for the salt to fully dissolve. If this Is the cause the Undissolved salt will Irritate SPS corals and may have stressed a fairly new addition to your system beyond It's ability to survive. I would let any new water run with a pump or airstone for 24hrs In the future b4 adding to your tank JMO.

 

[DMBillies]

It can't hurt to mix for longer.

It is also (unfortunately) not unusual for an acro to totally RTN within just a few hours of first seeing white skeleton... I'm sure it probably looked like it was struggling before that but sometimes that's hard to tell. Especially depending on what the stressor was.

I wouldn't blame the crab... probably just eating dead flesh... which is what they do.

How exactly did your Ca get high and exactly how high did it get (before the water change)? If it is 500 after the change (which I would still consider pretty far on the high side), then I am imagining something much higher before that. Would you suspect that you've had chronically high calcium? Or did you accidentally overdose it and cause a spike (which could be stressful in itself)?

The problem with an out of whack parameter is that sometimes correcting is very stressful because things may have adjusted to the parameter the way it was. For example, I killed a shrimp in my first reef tank (a rescue job) because the person I got it from had been replacing evap with saltwater. There was a clown and a peppermint shrimp living in water that was off the scale high on salinity. I tried to adjust it back downward, but I must have done it a little too fast for the poor shrimp...

 

[undertcontrolj]

Okay so i went to the LFS store and had my water checked by them just to make sure that everything was correct. And it was Nitrates and Nitrites at 0 PH 8.2 SG 1.025 so everything seems to be in line with what it should be. Maybe it was just the salt mix getting to them. Cause these last two batches have not been mixed longer than an hour before I put them in my tank. So I am going to be more diligent in that area. I mean I have always done weekly water changes whether it looked like I needed it or not. Everything seems to have leveled off to day as far as coral deterioration goes so maybe it has leveled off. I am still going to be monitoring this very closely. Tomorrow I should have a skimmer hooked up so maybe it can start working too.

 

[DMBillies]

Try spacing out your water changes a bit more then (in addition to mixing longer).

If your salt isn't mixing to the exact parameters you want (and most salts won't without adjustment) it is possible that your water changes are causing more problems than they are fixing. You'll just have to stay on top of supplementation...

FWIW, I started mixing Oceanic and Instant Ocean to balance out the alkalinity/calcium to closer to NSW. It will also help protect against getting a bad batch. If your mix water is coming out high Ca you might try mixing it with a salt that has a lower level.

That said, with a sudden bout of being busy and lazy, I started an experiment and I honestly haven't done a water change on either of my tanks in at least 2 months (probably closer to 3). I've just been adjusting frequently with supplements. Other than forgetting to supplement before a business trip weekend when things took a little turn for the worse, I've been on quite a good streak with my SPS growth. I was only a once a week water change kind of guy for a short time, but I always did them at least once every 2-3 weeks.

 

[undertcontrolj]

Thanks Brian and everyone else that has put forth advice in this thread and the last one. I did noitce today that the corals that are really being affected right now are all right in line with my line from my sump. So maybe the salt mix was aggravating them and stressing them out. At any rate the acro seems to still be alive. The top of it seems to be affected the most by whatever is going on. So really after all that being said I don't know what has happened. But i do have a question. If a piece of SPS starts dying can it come back? I have a piece of a stag coral that seems to be afffected but still has most of its color but i dont think it is doing very well just wondering if any of these can come back or if i am just going to end up losing this battle no matter what i do?

 

[Mikeyjer]

Depending on how badly damaged it is. They can come back from just a tiny small spot that's still alive. I've got several sps that have come back for me after certain incident...lol....One even falling into a torch coral and it bleached it right away. That piece managed to come back in a few months or so. Keep up with your water parameters you should be able to bring them back to health.