Chalice Colony Dying

[CanadianReefer]

I have a large chalice colony and it went from looking awesome to shedding most of its flesh literally overnight. I had done a water change - a small one - 10 gallons in a 100 gallon system. Perimeters are the same. I tested for everything - alk 9, cal 460, amm/nitrite 0, nitrate around 10, salinity 1.024. It's in fairly low light (I have an LED system - the Orbit IC loop - and it's a system meant for LPS/Softies so the lighting would not have been too strong for the chalice) and moderate waterflow.

I figure it's done, by the looks of it - just wondering if anyone has had this problem before and if anyone was able to have one bounce back?

The rest of my tank is perfectly fine - even my spider sponge and sun coral.

 

[CanadianReefer]

FYI, I moved it to the sand on the off chance the lighting was irritating it, but I've attached a picture. This was a blue, turquoise and orange chalice, but what's left of it looks like basically nothing but a bit of green and red flesh.

Unfortunately, I also noticed today that my toadstool has a bit of goop floating around it (perhaps flesh) and one arm of my torch colony seems to also be retracted. I just changed out the carbon in case this is chemical related. I tested phosphates and they are at an undetectable level. I tested the saltwater that I added last night and nothing seems out of order. I haven't made much in changes with the exception of the following: I started the zeovit well over a month ago in an attempt to get the nitrates to an acceptable level and started feeding a bit less at the same time. I'm definitely not overdosing anything of the zeovit - I've read the manual several times now to be sure. It's hard to find a balance with my nitrates given that I have NPS corals, but I'm trying! I switched from Instant Ocean to Red Sea Coral Pro, but in total, I've only swapped out about 20% of the water over the past month in order to introduce the new salt slowly.

I'll dump the mixed saltwater I have been using (stored in my brute can next to my RODI system) in case it has somehow formed a bacteria, but I can't see how that would have happened?

I have a heater in my saltwater bucket to match the temp of my tank, so it's not temperature shock.

Does anyone have any ideas? I'm beginning to fear a tank crash of some sort.

To tell you a bit more about my system, it's 105 gallons total, 2 filter socks changed every 2-3 days, marine pure, refugium with fuge mud, chaeto and a healthy stock of copepods, and I run the icecap 120 skimmer. As for livestock, I have 2 wrasse (flasher and christmas), 4 damsels (3 talbot and one yellow fin), 1 bicolor blenny (he does pick at the corals from time to time, but he's a little guy and doesn't seem to do much damage), 1 purple firefish and 2 clowns. I also have one tuxedo urchin, 2 fire shrimp, 1 skunk cleaner shrimp and 2 peppermint shrimp. The shrimp have all been molting without issue (my skunk left me a shell just last night), and the urchin is healthy and happy, eating all my coralline and wearing his shell (and occasionally my mushrooms grrr!) camo.

My system is mostly lps/softie. I have a few NPS (spider sponge and sun coral) and a total of 4 SPS corals (I don't have powerful enough light for most SPS).

I have an ATO, I'm running the reefkeeper elite to monitor my system, and although I have 2-part and dosing pumps installed, I've never had to use them. My mag/calc/alk has remained stable - probably because I have very few SPS, so water changes give the system enough of what it needs.

The chalice and torch were near a very large elegance colony, but at a space of about 5 - 6", which I think should be enough to avoid a nasty sting (though it's a possibility, I suppose).

Anyway, that's about all I can tell you at this point - I'm rambling because I'm trying to think of what it could be at the same time.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[CanadianReefer]

No one??

:(

 

[Zero Nitrates]

How long have you had the chalice?

What is the Alk of the new saltwater you started using?

 

[CanadianReefer]

I may have discovered the problem. My torch started looking funky yesterday, and today, it's covered in brown jelly. dang. I should have just taken that chalice out and dipped it immediately!

I will take out the torch and the chalice. Anyone have any suggestions on how to save the rest of the corals? From what I've read, this can spread rapidly....

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Brown jelly is no good:(

A friend of mine had it. Stay on top it. Get it out of your tank as soon as you see it. Keep up your maintenance and water changes. His went away in a month or so.;)

 

[CanadianReefer]

It's amazing how quickly it consumes the corals! It wasn't readily evident that it was "brown jelly" on the chalice - I had it initially in a spot where it was hard to see, and when I moved it to the sand, it already looked like the picture. Happened literally overnight. Fortunately it was evident with the torch. 6 head colony consumed within hours. There wasn't a head to save - all of them were partially or completely covered with the jelly. I decided it wasn't worth attempting to save either coral at the risk of losing other corals. I have some fairly expensive ones in there! Problem is that my sweet (grr) little Blenny (he's so cute though, so it's hard to be mad) had noticed the dying chalice, and was going up to it every few minutes and eating the flesh - as he was doing that, pieces were flying around everywhere.



I have good filtration and water flow, so here's hoping that it didn't get a chance to land on much else. I will keep a close eye on it, dip anything that looks remotely suspicious, and do several small water changes over the next few weeks.

If anyone else has any pointers, please let me know... anything I could safely dose the tank with to minimize the risk of this spreading? I had read that a UV sterilizer may help, but I can't run one with the zeovit system so I'm SOL there...