Possible Bacterial Infection?

[NanaReefer]

My Royal Gramma has become a pita. In that he/she just loves digging and then spitting the sand out on my corals. 3 have gotten it the worst. Leaving me for a while constantly blowing them clean using a turkey baster.
Whether from bacterial or blowing to hard or to close I'm not sure, but the 3 have all got bleached areas on them now. And it's not going away.
I'm planning on a dip in CoralRX. Any other advice would be much appreciated. Thank you

 

[NanaReefer]

Bump!!

 

[Catra2030]

Obviously try to avoid letting sand get on it or anything else that would agitate it. I've seen this happen to my Favias and I've done the following: check your alk, make sure it's in line and stable based on past readings. You could move it to an area of lower flow and lower light, decreasing any stress it might be under. Dip in coral rx will help but could also cause further stress. Lastly, feed it, feed the heck out of it. Feed it once a day after lights out for a couple days and see if there's improvment. Favias love food! Good luck

 

[Catra2030]

I forgot to add, if it was bacterial, and this is based on my last experiences, it would present it's self as a uniform what band or mucous around the base of the coral, moving inward revealing the skeleton as the flesh receeded.

 

[NanaReefer]

Thank you for the reply! The finest food I have available is Reef Roids. Other then that it's Rods Complete. Good enough? I do have to say, it's beginning to look much better just by moving it to a lower light area.
My ALK/Ca/Mag are all very stable.

 

[Catra2030]

Reef roids is perfect. That's what I feed my corals after lights are out. I replied over on saltynovice's thread regarding what he is seeing regarding his favia. I don't think what you are seeing is the same as what is happening to his favia, but rather probably a reaction caused by stress. I have a ton of favias and while most days they are all puffed up and nice and fleshy, there are days here and there where they just look a little flat and skeletony which is more than likely an indicator that they don't like something. Moving it to lower light and a low flow area will help it recover, and if it showing its feeders than by all means, feed it, it will only help. One thing to remember, if you have any hermits they will sniff out that food quickly which can cause more issues. So if you have hermits, maybe put something over the coral while you feed it, like a cut up soda bottle or something. Hope this helps and just give it some time to recover, might take a few days or so to look normal again.

 

[mrBananas]

I had a very similar problem with my xmas favia. I believe it was the sand which caused it to bleach and die back in my case. I made a little frag stand out of some PVC for it to keep it higher off the sand bed and that seemed to prevent further decline in health. But it didn't start thriving until I force fed it mysis every other day. I cut a small plastic bottle to use for spot feeding which kept the hermits off while it ate. And now it's a happy, glowing brain.

 

[Catra2030]

Well done with the recovery. Once you started feeding it, how long did it take to get to where it was in the 2nd to last picture and the last picture?

 

[NanaReefer]

Well she's healing up fine. With very little intervention from me. Just moved it to a lower light area is all.

 

[mrBananas]

Well done with the recovery. Once you started feeding it, how long did it take to get to where it was in the 2nd to last picture and the last picture?

I'd say that was about 1-2 months of consistent feeding.