Acro SOS...

[TD13]

My blue mili that I've had for well over a year, and has been super healthy is receding. It's not RTN/STN and none of the other coral are experiencing anything similar. My params have not changed and the tank is stable. Can someone give me an idea what's going on?

 

[Kershaw]

You add any live stock recently? Like 3 months?

 

[TD13]

Couple of SPS frags. I dipped the plugs in peroxide.

 

[Kershaw]

Maybe a critter survived. You scope it out at night? After lights out

 

[TD13]

Not yet. Noticed it a few days ago, actually before the new additions. Thought it may be something small and silly. It started on one side and is now on both.

 

[Kershaw]

Really seems like something might be eating or irritating it. How fast is it recessing ?

 

[hatfielj]

I've had this happen before. In fact, I just had it happen to an entire acro colony in my tank. For me I think it was a combination of things that caused stress to the coral. Why only that one? I have no idea. In my tank my skimmer had stopped working for a short time while I was away on vacation. Then, when I got back my calcium pump stopped working and it dropped my Ca big time. All of my corals were stressed from that. Also I had a dinoflagellate bloom occur I think because of the skimmer issue and some snail and hermit crab die off. Things are getting better now (still fighting off the dino though) but this one acro colony didn't make it. Fortunately I was able to save a very large frag of it and I think I'll be able to keep it going.
This sort of thing can happen easily sometimes in this hobby. I would double check all of your parameters, do some water changes, check all your equipment, really look hard for a source of stress on the coral. It could be some sort of irritating critter or something stinging it, but in my experience that sort of recession is stress induced.

 

[TD13]

I'll dig into the equipment, and do some water changes to start I suppose. If it get too much worse I guess I'll have to frag what I can.

 

[eja99]

That looks like damage from a pest. Check your tank with the lights out and see if anything is eating the coral.

I'm not 100% sure it looks like something is hiding under the ledge in the first pic. Right under the damage it looks like a crab claw.

 

[hinovak]

I would tend to think pest as well, the rest of the acro looks too happy to suggest a prameter being off, also if all other acros are showing no signs of issues, I would have to think it would be a pest of some sort. Look at night for pests, as well as turkey baste the coral hard, if you find nothing at night.

 

[TD13]

I would tend to think pest as well, the rest of the acro looks too happy to suggest a prameter being off, also if all other acros are showing no signs of issues, I would have to think it would be a pest of some sort. Look at night for pests, as well as turkey baste the coral hard, if you find nothing at night.

Would using a baster risk spreading anything to other coral!?

 

[Tegridy Reef]

Whenever I have any problems with coral I frag works very well for me I save the piece and then evaluate the problem and fix it

 

[hinovak]

There is a possibility, but if you have had the milli for over a year, chances are if it has developed a pest from one of the newer frags you recently acquired.

 

[trido]

Sometimes SPS just die with no explanation. If that coral has been in that spot for one year, it is not super happy, unless you bought it as only a few polyps because it has not grown much at all. Blue milleporas can be some of the more difficult ones to grow. I wouldn't start tweaking much of anything in the tank over this.

 

[TD13]

The only thing I saw after taking a flashlight to the tank was a white shelled snail I've never seen before. Not sure if there are mili eating snails, but it was in a crevice right next to the coral. Pretty sure I killed it trying to dig it out. If that was the culprit, problem solved I guess. I'll have to keep an eye out.

 

[TD13]

Sometimes SPS just die with no explanation. If that coral has been in that spot for one year, it is not super happy, unless you bought it as only a few polyps because it has not grown much at all. Blue milleporas can be some of the more difficult ones to grow. I wouldn't start tweaking much of anything in the tank over this.

Looked like this almost a year ago. It's encrusted considerably, and vertically a little. It has great PE and is SUPER blue...

 

[TD13]

I managed to dig this guy out of my tank. Never seen it before and something is still chewing on my milli. Maybe someone can ID this as the potential culprit.