Tissue loss on my duncan
- Thread starter bdepp
- Start date
Josh72836G
New member
Following this thread and giving a free bump. I've seen this happen to various people on the board. The tissue being brown isn't a good sign...
Logzor
New member
This happened to mine out of the blue. I started with one head and began feeding it every day, even twice a day at some points.
Soon there were no less than 8 new heads growing out. A week later rapid tissue necrosis occurred and all of the skin peeled off.
Now, a month later, three small heads have come back alive! So it was not a total loss, just a matter of time.
I figured that the feeding dramatically increased demands of alk and calcium, which my tank did not have sufficient amounts at the time.
From my experience I have concluded that duncans grow fast and therefore have a lot of demands, more so if you target feed a lot. Therefore, a rapid drop and alk or calcium will prevent them from their growth spurt and the coral can no longer sustain itself.
During this incident I had no other coral losses (acros, caps, softies were all fine).
So, how much have you been feeding those things?
Sorry for your loss, those are beautiful corals. Here is mine from its glory to its death:
When it was awesome:
Days before the peeling you can see the skin puffing out, very strange:
Now it starts to peel and rapid decline:
I hope this helps out some!
I photolog pretty much everything with some other stuff at: http://logzor.deviantart.com/
Soon there were no less than 8 new heads growing out. A week later rapid tissue necrosis occurred and all of the skin peeled off.
Now, a month later, three small heads have come back alive! So it was not a total loss, just a matter of time.
I figured that the feeding dramatically increased demands of alk and calcium, which my tank did not have sufficient amounts at the time.
From my experience I have concluded that duncans grow fast and therefore have a lot of demands, more so if you target feed a lot. Therefore, a rapid drop and alk or calcium will prevent them from their growth spurt and the coral can no longer sustain itself.
During this incident I had no other coral losses (acros, caps, softies were all fine).
So, how much have you been feeding those things?
Sorry for your loss, those are beautiful corals. Here is mine from its glory to its death:
When it was awesome:
Days before the peeling you can see the skin puffing out, very strange:
Now it starts to peel and rapid decline:
I hope this helps out some!
I photolog pretty much everything with some other stuff at: http://logzor.deviantart.com/
Last edited:
bdepp
New member
Thanks Logzor.
I'm new the the salt water side, so diagnosing coral diseases is still fairly new to me. Unfortunately my torch coral looks like it's affected. It sure is rapid. one day it's out in all it's glory and then the next.. well...
I've been feeding all my corals every 2-3 days. nothing esle is affected as yet but i'm keeping a close eye on everything very closely.
is there anyway to cure? or prevent?
Thanks Again
Depp
I'm new the the salt water side, so diagnosing coral diseases is still fairly new to me. Unfortunately my torch coral looks like it's affected. It sure is rapid. one day it's out in all it's glory and then the next.. well...
I've been feeding all my corals every 2-3 days. nothing esle is affected as yet but i'm keeping a close eye on everything very closely.
is there anyway to cure? or prevent?
Thanks Again
Depp
Mental1
New member
I am not an expert .. but I feed mine twice a week sometimes only once. You may be overfeeding? I have three small colonies and one started to look funny so I moved it. Unfortunately where I moved it to provided access for one of my gorilla crabs that I have yet to catch and it ate a big chunk out of one of the heads. So I moved it to yet another spot and it is happy now. They don't HAVE to be fed and I think folks are getting a bit overzealous.While the heads grow quickly, the skeleton does not so you need to pace feeding so it can grow to support the heads.JMHO.
Mental1
New member
I just talked to a local fellow reefer and he also fed his daily -- they died.He said he suspected other reasons too but did not elaborate. At one point stuff I was reading said they had to be fed. Then it turned out that they can survive without being fed. Then I read about how slowly the skeleton grows even if your alk and ca are fine... I think it is finding the right balance and I do not think daily feeding is that balance. All of mine are growing new heads...again -- as usual in this hobby -- so much is opinion!
bdepp
New member
Thanks Guys,
Checked my alk and calcium last night again and all my levels were fine. i did my usual water change regardless. Sounds like RTN is a bit of a mistery still.
I feed my corals mainly every 3 days atm. Don't think i'll stop for the time being as they rest seem to be happy as larry and growing and looking great. i bought the corals infected with RTN at the same time, so maybe it was the fish store or maybe the acclamation period. who knows.
thanks everyone for your help
Depp
Checked my alk and calcium last night again and all my levels were fine. i did my usual water change regardless. Sounds like RTN is a bit of a mistery still.
I feed my corals mainly every 3 days atm. Don't think i'll stop for the time being as they rest seem to be happy as larry and growing and looking great. i bought the corals infected with RTN at the same time, so maybe it was the fish store or maybe the acclamation period. who knows.
thanks everyone for your help
Depp
stunreefer
Reef Hugger
IMO/IME, I have to agree. I have seen this happen before too. I believe that with an extremely high amount of food, you'll get the tissue to grow great and the coral will look awesome for a while. As time goes on, the tissue outgrows the skeleton obviously, which is not good. The tissue needs something to come out of- ie, the skeleton. If not the tissue tends to spread like an encrusting coral, over the rock or in between the larger polyps (as seen in pic above). The tissue may look gresat initially, and you think its "growing" great, but in fact its only the skin thats growing. Imagine this on a human. Over time the flow or something else will cause a small tear in the flesh, and the tissue has no skeleton to retract into (to heal or "re-arrange" itself). Thus leading to tissue recession. I have witnessed this in acanthastrea sp. before as well.
Imagine if the wild reefs' LPS got as much food as we tend to feed them some times. The same thing would probably occur, yet theres no way these corals receive that much food in nature, yet they still thrive and look just as, if not more gorgeous than they do in our tanks. Something to watch for as a sign of stress is visible in Logzors secong picture. The puffy skin should only look like that right after feeding, and probably a few hours after. Dont get me wrong, the corals deifinently "think" they like it, but it will eventually lead to their own demise. They dont know when to stop eating, kinda like my pug.
I've been seeing several threads on this now that a lot of reefers are getting their hands on these corals, here's what the deal seems to be. The symptoms are usually just as Logzor documented with his pictures.
The common factor has been frequent feeding of the coral, usually direct feeding. The general consensus seemed to be that the fleshy part of the coral will outgrow the skeleton causing a partial or full collapse of the coral.
For what it's worth, it seems it's something to be aware of.
The common factor has been frequent feeding of the coral, usually direct feeding. The general consensus seemed to be that the fleshy part of the coral will outgrow the skeleton causing a partial or full collapse of the coral.
For what it's worth, it seems it's something to be aware of.
