What happened to my acan? with pics

[ryanuuy]

I posted earlier about one of my acans losing a head and as it turns out, it lost a whole bunch of others and they seem to have disintegrated from the inside but the skin covering is still there so it wasnt that obvious till i got a pippete and flushed a bit of water through it and all the guts came spilling out. What could have happened here? None of my other acans are getting affected and even the SPS in my tank are still doing great.

I checked water parameters, nitrate, calcium, alk, ph, salinity but nothing seems to be wrong.

The pictures below were taken after i flushed a bit of water through the open holes and its just this one acan with the problem. sorry for the bad quality pics, i used my iphone. haha

 

[Reefman29]

Was this one new to the tank? If none of your other acans or corals are sick than it could be just a bad coral.

 

[ryanuuy]

no its not. i was one of the first acans i had and it was actually healthiest. i have 5 other acans in the tank and not a single one shows any sign of damage. i inspected each and everyone of them and it really is only just that and it only happened around 2 days ago!

i hope its not some sort of acan parasite that eats it from the inside! does such a thing exist?

 

[Reefman29]

Have you made any changes to the tank? Especially lighting?

 

[ryanuuy]

lighting has been the same. recently the only change i did was that i improved the flow from the return pipe but the acan is still located in a low flow area and i dont think was greatly affected by the increase in water turnover.

 

[Reefman29]

Perhaps a parasite? I really don't know what to tell you. That is very odd for only 1 healthy coral to suddenly die like that.

 

[Mmckibben]

Rtn?

 

[ryanuuy]

parasite is what i was thinking also but what kind of parasite eats acans like that? just in case i removed the acan and its in isolation now.

whats rtn?

 

[Reefman29]

Rapid tissue necrosis. Tissue just dies. Although I really don't see a cause for it, like too much lighting or fish picking at it or something. Not sure on acan eating parasite, might be best to dip other corals just in case. Your call on that one though

 

[ryanuuy]

damn... i really hope this doesnt spread because for now its just that one has it. im gonna do a water change when i get home and ill see what else i can do from there!

i sure hope its not RTN!

 

[getzvillereefer]

Thats crazy. Anything I've ever lost as died outside and the inside has been the last thing remaining.. never seen anything like that before. Hopefully it doesnt affect the others!

 

[Canadian Reefer]

I would QT it. It does sound like RTN to me also. QT the coral and hope for the best

 

[TwistedEnvy]

How is your temperature? Have you been having huge fluctuations? Mine was going from 78 to 83 or so and I was seeing acan problems. I steadied it to 78-80 and it is fine now.

 

[Mmckibben]

RTN effects sps the most, but there have been reports of rtn in lps and soft corals.

 

[ryanuuy]

update! it is in QT now and so far its not getting worse. i dipped it in lugols for a few minutes and i fragged a small healthy looking part and thats back in the tank and as of yesterday, that small frag was feeding again.

My temp is pretty stable. It stays from 25-27 deg C. And i have other acans and they all seem fine as well so far.

has anyone ever seen anything like this in LPS?

 

[kevinpratt823]

I have seen it and although have nothing to point the finger at, I lean toward a bacterial infection.
FWIW, RTN isn't a specific condition, it's more of a description of a phenomenon. Nobody knows exactly what causes it, as there could be many different reasons.

 

[nUgZ]

If you can, get some Revive and dip it in that.

 

[bradhass87]

I know what you are going through. I am having the same thing in my tank. I love acans and in the last three months have lost 5 colonies. I have dipped mine in Lugols, but it did not help. The odd thing is that it seems to only effect on coral at a time. Everytime I remove the one that is dieing another one starts to have problems. On a side note I have also lost 2 monti caps in the same amount of time. All the parameters are good. I'm at a loss.

 

[bradhass87]

do you have a cleaner shrimp in tank?

 

[ryanuuy]

@bradhass87

youre acans had the exact same thing? its like they were getting eaten from the inside out? so far all of my other acans are doing fine and hopefully it stays that way! haha

yes i have 3 cleaner shrimp in my tank and they dont usually bother anything until its dying.