Still Losing Corals - Light or Nutrients?

[Patrick Cox]

I started a 75G tank back in January. In March I started adding corals and for a while I saw some good growth on most of my corals but they slowly started to lose color. Since I was running an ULNS, I assumed my corals were not getting the nutrition they needed so I slowly increased my fish load and started to feed more to the fish and I have also been feeding Reef Nutrition every other day or so. I also turned off my GFO and GAC reactors as my nitrates and phosphates were zero. Over the past month or so, I have noticed a bit more algae growth in my tank and my phosphates have gotten up to .03-.05 or so, Nitrates are around 1. I also just recently started dosing a small amount of Amino Acids.

Now, even though my nutrient levels are up some, I am still losing some corals so I am now wondering if my light is too high. I run an ATI 6x39s fixture with a combination of high par ATI bulbs. My par meter measures Par to be 350-400 but I have read that these meters may not measure the blue spectrum very accurately and I have 4 Blue Plus Bulbs in my fixture.

You will notice in the pictures below that some corals are doing well and some not so well. The Strawberry shortcake is in the same light as the ones that are dying and it is doing very well. I spoke with the LFS and they said the Strawberry Shortcake likes a lot of light so I am wondering if I have too much light for my other corals. I have been running at 100% for 8 hours per day with a 2 hour ramp up and down. My fixture is about 7" above the water line and most corals are about 9" below the water line.

Do these corals look like they are dying of too much light or does it look more like a Nutrient problem, or something else?

Thanks!

Dying Corals:

The spots on this coral look like eggs. I know my clowns have been laying eggs, other than that, not sure what they would be. I have not noticed any bugs crawling on the corals.

Healthy Corals:

Strawberry Shortcake

This coral has not been in the tank as long as the others

 

[Johnyman]

When you talking about these coral spots, are you meaning something like this:

If so, well you are in trouble, this are AEFW.

 

[jerpa]

Hate to say it but I see what look like flatworms on the second and third dying corals. Your story sounds like mine and my corals exhibited the same symptoms as well. I just started an 8 week isolation and dipping treatment after losing 75% of my acropora.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Here are closeups. Are these AEFW? I have dipped every coral I have put in my tank. Where would they have come from? I also noticed I have planaria flat worms, are they related?

So I guess I should remove the infected corals? What about my corals that look healthy? What should I do?

Thanks.

 

[jerpa]

Those look like the eggs to me. Dips won't kill the eggs and some don't kill the worm.

I've removed every acro, even the few healthy ones from my DT and moved them to my frag tank. I had to remove some rock and chip off the encrusted growth. I've begun weekly dipping in Bayer. I'm going to leave the DT fallow for 8-12 weeks and will dip weekly for the duration. I tried basting for awhile but after my six line wrasse jumped it went downhill and I lost most of them. I wish I hadn't waited.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Those look like the eggs to me. Dips won't kill the eggs and some don't kill the worm.

I've removed every acro, even the few healthy ones from my DT and moved them to my frag tank. I had to remove some rock and chip off the encrusted growth. I've begun weekly dipping in Bayer. I'm going to leave the DT fallow for 8-12 weeks and will dip weekly for the duration. I tried basting for awhile but after my six line wrasse jumped it went downhill and I lost most of them. I wish I hadn't waited.

So do they only infect Acros? Will they die off with no acros in the tank?

What about birds nest corals and Montis?

Thanks.

 

[jerpa]

So do they only infect Acros? Will they die off with no acros in the tank?

What about birds nest corals and Montis?

Thanks.

You can leave the other SPS. They will die without any acropora present. I've seen some timeframes as short as six weeks and as long as 12. The eggs can take as much as 25 days to hatch. The problem is because there has been so little research done on them what we "know" now is likely to change. They were only identified in the wild a few years ago.

During the dipping many people scrape the visible eggs off and some don't. Some people do a complete QT, others leave them in the DT, and some move them to a separate tank attached to the main system.

From what I've read it seems the key to completely eliminating them is being able to dip every polyp of acropora weekly until you've seen no sign of them for several weeks. That seems often enough to stop them from reproducing and any eggs that are present should hatch and be killed in the next dip. Any encrusting growth left on the rocks could harbor them. I found flatworms and eggs on 4 single polyps left from when I moved a frag. Once you have the corals easily accessible for dipping and the rocks clean it seems fairly easy to deal with.

 

[Patrick Cox]

Is this AEFW?

 

[jerpa]

I can't see anything but I'm on my phone. They are much harder to spot on healthy corals. As they feed on the coral they take on its color. They are a lot easier to spot on the dead areas unfortunately. You could baste the coral and see if any come off. I'd personally treat all to be safe.

 

[Johnyman]

Is this AEFW?

No, these are the polyps.

AFEW eggs are in the other picture, they are dificult to catch, normaly you can see them with a bath using some product like Rx.

 

[scottwhitson]

The fourth post is AEFW. Bayer seems to be the dip of choice now. There are a lot of different treatment protocols out there as no one seems to know the exact life span of these monsters. Good luck.