Acros STN - Bacterial?

[CJO]

I had a similar issue when the impeller on my skimmer broke and it the foam it created wasn't as good. Funny thing was, I didn't really see much of an increase in algae (I've never had much) and didn't see that the skimmer wasn't functioning properly for a couple of months. It's been about 2 months since I put in a new impeller and my SPS are looking much better.

CJ

 

[FaviaFreak]

I had a similar issue when the impeller on my skimmer broke and it the foam it created wasn't as good. Funny thing was, I didn't really see much of an increase in algae (I've never had much) and didn't see that the skimmer wasn't functioning properly for a couple of months. It's been about 2 months since I put in a new impeller and my SPS are looking much better.

CJ

I am curious can you elaborate a bit more on the bad foam?

 

[ignatz]

Haha I have pretty good eyes still, I've spotted RB's from 14" away. LOL

I'll give direct treatment a shot with the next coral that shows problems. I'll trimmed and removed most of the unhealthy tissue thus far.

Will it actually kill the tissue that it touches (H202)?

Hard to say... I don't think it kills healthy flesh right away but if the tissue is necrotic or borderline, it appears to remove some flesh. Once it's gone though, if the coral is healthy... I see new growth very quickly. In my mind, I liken it to trees... if a tree has a dead spot, it will spend all it's extra energy trying to repair that spot. If you cut it out, it will spend the same amount of energy for new growth. Sometimes you have to cut away the dead spots so new growth can take place. That said, I'm very careful to only let the H2O2 touch the leading edge of the flesh and only for short (5-10s) periods. Frankly, I bought a $10 brown acro from the 'Please save me' bin at the LFS to experiment with... and I was pretty brutal to the coral but learned a ton.

 

[-Logzor]

So just for the sake of documenting what's happening online, here's what I've done so far:

Last night I dipped several corals showing the very first signs of the necrosis. It was particularly noticeable in my pink lemonade colony, there is a 1mm area that completely surrounds the base that is beginning to show symptoms. As I mentioned before, this is very slow moving, it might move up 1-2mm per week. I guess we can call this the "ring of death".

The dip I used was TMPCC (iodine). I dipped using approximately 50mL in about 3 gallons of water. Dip time totaled about 8-10 minutes. I had to use so much water because I was dipping an entire rock with three colonie s attached. I have dipped using Coral Rx to no avail, this dip did not stop the necrosis. I chose Iodine based on the recommendations in this thread, hoping that it might kill off whatever bacteria is causing the problem.

I typically don't use an Iodine dip on my sps corals, I feel it's overly harsh and causes discoloration in the tissue. For this reason I have been strictly using Coral Rx. Having had this experience I will move to a dual-dip solution, using both iodine and Coral Rx. A more harsh dip is an acceptable risk if I can avoid another tank-wide infection. On the other hand, perhaps these bacteria are always present in our system but only bloom during high-stress situations, such as the salinity spike that I experienced (and the following correction in salinity).

In addition to the dip, I dripped 3% H202 on the base of several corals, others I did not, I will observe and note the progression on both specimens. On other corals, I simply super-glued over the problematic area.

I am also dosing 15mL of H202 directly in the tank, today will be the 3rd day of this dose. System volume is approximately 180g. There is an algae in my system that looks similar to dinoflagellates, I am thinking a toxic within this creature could be the root cause of the necrosis.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[secretreefer]

Not sure if this was recommended but ever thought of doing a 50% water change? Maybe the "clean/fresh" water will help.

 

[-Logzor]

Not sure if this was recommended but ever thought of doing a 50% water change? Maybe the "clean/fresh" water will help.

Haven't tried that yet, best I can really do is about 30g total WC. I don't have the capacity to make 80+ gallons of water.

 

[secretreefer]

lol me neither. if i wanted to do that to my 180g iʻd be in headed to the Depot to pick up 3 rubbish cans. good luck bro, let us know how it goes. I know the feeling youʻre going thru.....when i lost almost all my LPS....

 

[-Logzor]

I must say, from the H202 my water is insanely crystal clear I about fell over when I went down to look at it this afternoon. I might have to dose this regularly...

 

[caudill187]

It really does sound like it could be AEFWs. Take a coral that looks bad, soak it in a white bowl with revive, coral rx, or Iodine for about 5 minutes then blast it with a turkey baster in the crevices of the coral. Look for flatworms to come off with a flashlight against the white bowl. Had a buddy with the exact same baffling pattern you are describing and couldn't see the flatworms until he did this....It was really a buddy LOL.

 

[-Logzor]

It really does sound like it could be AEFWs. Take a coral that looks bad, soak it in a white bowl with revive, coral rx, or Iodine for about 5 minutes then blast it with a turkey baster in the crevices of the coral. Look for flatworms to come off with a flashlight against the white bowl. Had a buddy with the exact same baffling pattern you are describing and couldn't see the flatworms until he did this....It was really a buddy LOL.

AEFW's don't cause a perfect ring around the base of the corals that slowly and evenly bleaches the tissue as it rises up the base. There are no bite marks nor eggs present. These are easily seen at night with a flashlight. I have pulled and inspected all of my colonies very carefully.

 

[CJO]

I am curious can you elaborate a bit more on the bad foam?

Sorry, missed this. The bubbles were a bit bigger than before. Still fine, but not as fine as when the impeller wasn't broken.

CJ

 

[aquavista99]

I would rule out AEFWs as well. When exposed to high salinity levels over a period of time, some SPS corals can't recover and will continue to show signs of tissue necrosis or decline months later whereas other SPS will recover quickly when salinity levels return to normal. I wonder if some of your corals are still dealing with the stress of your salinity issues from the past and may never recover?

 

[-Logzor]

Yeah I'm not sure what the deal is, I'm thinking the stress of the salinity allowed outbreak to occur, now it's spreading to all the acros. Similar to how diseases spread between humans.

I am also considering stray voltage as a potential cause, so I cut the power on any pump that wasn't completely necessary and cranked up the MP60. Now that I think about it, the STN loosely coincides with adding these pumps (this is not an issue of too much flow causing the STN, I assure you).

 

[-Logzor]

When I got home from work I had my new beer-brewing thermometer waiting for me. I needed this to get the correct mash temperatures and to know when I had cooled down the wort enough.

So the first thing I did was run downstairs to see what the aquarium measured. I figured, yeah the temp probe on my aquacontroller is pretty old, might as well check it. To my surprise, it measured just over 72 degrees! No wonder my acros are slowly dying, the water's a bit too chilly!

So I ran upstairs to boil some water just to make sure it's correct. I ended up reading around 209.5 degrees. With elevation water should boil at around 210.5. I also measure icewater in a styrofoam cup, it hovered around 0 Celsius.

It's a lab grade thermometer with calibration documentation, so I'm fairly confident it's correct.

I'm going to go ahead and begin raising the temperature and hope this corrects the problem.

For the record, my controller was reading 76.7.

I also confirmed the reading with my TDS meter, which matched the new thermometer exactly (my TDS meter also measure temp...which I had forgotten about).

How quickly is it safe to raise the temp up to 76 or so?

 

[Nuocmam]

Dude I'm so glad you figured this one out.

 

[Reefltx]

Idk if you mentioned but what type of controller are you using?


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[-Logzor]

Dude I'm so glad you figured this one out.

Me too! Hopefully this does the trick. I'm thinking that month after month of low temp were causing my acros to slowly lose ground. Based on how my controller was setup, the heater probably kicked on a 71.0 degrees and turned off at 72.5. That's my guess anyways. It's suppose to range between 76-77.5 or so.

Idk if you mentioned but what type of controller are you using?


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I'm using the original aquacontroller jr. Should I just replace the temp probe or calibrate it?

I went ahead and calibrated it about 1 degree up, to raise the temperature. I'll raise it a degree a day. Think that's safe enough?

 

[-Logzor]

Just a small update. Now that my tank has been running at a higher temperature, around 73-75 degrees, I am noticing that some of the corals are showing new growth rings. They are very distinct and definitely show that the corals are recovering.

I am waiting on a new temp probe to arrive, to raise my temp I just calibrated the probe I have down a few degrees. Something is still screwy with it though, hence the replacement probe.

 

[secretreefer]

glad you figured it out bro. i myself am having problems now with my plating montiporas. white dots then it stn's outwards. no aefw but i did notice black "bigger" copepods on the monti's that i never noticed before.

 

[-Logzor]

glad you figured it out bro. i myself am having problems now with my plating montiporas. white dots then it stn's outwards. no aefw but i did notice black "bigger" copepods on the monti's that i never noticed before.

That's very strange, plating montipora are typically pretty resilient. Did you mean montipora eating nudibranchs?