coralville
Member
Thought I would start a thread in the hopes of helping other reefers who may be experiencing a mysterious decline in some of their acros but not others....I have a tricolor valida and a blue stag that were declining and I couldn't figure out why. Tip recession, lots o' slime and no pe but never saw any pests and my parameters were fine and hadn't changed. Finally I saw tiny (as in I could barely see) white bugs on the tips of the blue stag. I only saw a *few* bugs and *never* saw them on the valida, even though I examined it extensively. I also dipped the valida in coral rx to check for aefw - did not see any.
I treated the tank with sentinel spectrum 3x and am now finally seeing pe return. Hopefully the affected corals will recover completely, we'll see.
A few things - the bugs did not affect my green Slimer. At all. I have read in other posts that tricolor valida is sort if a "canary in the coal mine" for pests and I observed that to be true in my case. It was the worst affected and is still struggling to recover. Again, I never saw any bugs on it.
I have read this before but I will reiterate- some of our mysterious acro losses may be due to parasitic copepods that you may not be able to see. Maybe getting a valida in your tank and keeping a watchful eye on it would help....if it suddenly stops displaying pe that would be a heads up you have a problem.
Ok, I hope that helps someone.
I treated the tank with sentinel spectrum 3x and am now finally seeing pe return. Hopefully the affected corals will recover completely, we'll see.
A few things - the bugs did not affect my green Slimer. At all. I have read in other posts that tricolor valida is sort if a "canary in the coal mine" for pests and I observed that to be true in my case. It was the worst affected and is still struggling to recover. Again, I never saw any bugs on it.
I have read this before but I will reiterate- some of our mysterious acro losses may be due to parasitic copepods that you may not be able to see. Maybe getting a valida in your tank and keeping a watchful eye on it would help....if it suddenly stops displaying pe that would be a heads up you have a problem.
Ok, I hope that helps someone.
