euromomtx
New member
I can't figure out what's been happening with my LPS but my theory is I have some kind of disease in my system that flares up when conditions are favorable for it.
Here's the history:
a couple of years ago a friend of mine was tearing down his tank. He'd had some issues that he couldn't get under control and he wanted to start over.
Out of that tank I got a beautiful solid red blastomussa.
When I received it it had just lost a few heads.
Luckily it seemed to adjust well to my tank and with some target feeding it quickly turned around, grew and thrived.
Then the LPS in that tank seemed to decline for no apparent reason. Several acan's peeled seemingly overnight. The blasto did poorly. The acans died but the blasto survived.
That 125 gallon tank burst one night at the corner seam (great fun I'd rather not experience again) and I upgraded to a 215 gallon tank.
The blasto moved in the 215g tank. Everything was fine for several months.
I added a couple of small brain corals which seemed to do really well, feeding and extending.
Then from one day to the next one of the brains peeled completely off. I checked on the blasto and it too was losing a head. Then the second brain corals was starting to peel and within two days peeled completely off.
During the first day it appeared one half of it was still feeding while the other half was peeling!
As before the red blasto now seems to be recovering. The brains of course are a total loss.
The only thing that preceeded this is that I fed frozen algae paste a little more heavily than before and nitrates had gone up in the tank.
Some of the smaller polyped LPS appeared a little less enthusiastic but no tissue loss. The other corals: gorgonians and softies seemed completely unaffected by it.
Now I am scared to get any more LPS for fear that regardless of how well they are doing they will jsut die overnight half a year from now.
So what do you think is going on?
Some kind of disease? If so is there a way to eliminate it from a running system?
Or am I fooling myself and it really is husbandry issues? Would the elevated nitrates from a little overfeeding frozen phyto cause sudden LPS peeling?
Here's the history:
a couple of years ago a friend of mine was tearing down his tank. He'd had some issues that he couldn't get under control and he wanted to start over.
Out of that tank I got a beautiful solid red blastomussa.
When I received it it had just lost a few heads.
Luckily it seemed to adjust well to my tank and with some target feeding it quickly turned around, grew and thrived.
Then the LPS in that tank seemed to decline for no apparent reason. Several acan's peeled seemingly overnight. The blasto did poorly. The acans died but the blasto survived.
That 125 gallon tank burst one night at the corner seam (great fun I'd rather not experience again) and I upgraded to a 215 gallon tank.
The blasto moved in the 215g tank. Everything was fine for several months.
I added a couple of small brain corals which seemed to do really well, feeding and extending.
Then from one day to the next one of the brains peeled completely off. I checked on the blasto and it too was losing a head. Then the second brain corals was starting to peel and within two days peeled completely off.
During the first day it appeared one half of it was still feeding while the other half was peeling!
As before the red blasto now seems to be recovering. The brains of course are a total loss.
The only thing that preceeded this is that I fed frozen algae paste a little more heavily than before and nitrates had gone up in the tank.
Some of the smaller polyped LPS appeared a little less enthusiastic but no tissue loss. The other corals: gorgonians and softies seemed completely unaffected by it.
Now I am scared to get any more LPS for fear that regardless of how well they are doing they will jsut die overnight half a year from now.
So what do you think is going on?
Some kind of disease? If so is there a way to eliminate it from a running system?
Or am I fooling myself and it really is husbandry issues? Would the elevated nitrates from a little overfeeding frozen phyto cause sudden LPS peeling?
