Cherry Tree monti excreting slime at night, is "patchy" and white in same areas next day...?

[klimfish]

I have a large 7" WWC Cherry Tree Monti Colony, it's partially encrusted on to a rock but mostly plating off (so fraggable...). I've noticed for the past week that the monti is shedding a ton of slime after lights out. I then observe the same parts of he colony that were "shedding" slime are now completely white or "patchy". I have tried to observe with a flashlight many hours after lights out to check for monti eating nudi's, but alll I see if the slime coat dancing in the current, and little tiny white specks in the slime coat. Is the MEN's? What else could be causing this?

Parameters:
alk: 8.1
Cal: 440
Mag: 1350
Temp: 78
SG: 1.026
Phos: 0.03-0.08
Nitrate: ~10-15ppm
ph: 7.8

 

[TriggerFinger]

I watched a video last night from tidal gardens about coral warfare. He said mucus secretion is a defense mechanism for some corals when it senses another is too close. Is anything close that might be bothering it?

 

[klimfish]

There are some aptaisia on the rock near it, none touching it right now though. No other corals within 8". Would the mucus excretion explain the white patches? It looks like the skin itself is coming off with the mucus...

 

[TriggerFinger]

I’m not sure. If nothing is attacking the monti then I wouldn’t think it would look white. It may be throwing mucus for another reason. Any pictures of the white areas? Probably hard to get the mucus in a picture?

 

[klimfish]

I’m not sure. If nothing is attacking the monti then I wouldn’t think it would look white. It may be throwing mucus for another reason. Any pictures of the white areas? Probably hard to get the mucus in a picture?

Once my lights are on I'll take a pic of the white areas. The mucus only appears at night after lights out, almost immediately after they go out, which makes me wonder if it's a nocturnal pest of some kind.

I really have no issue with dipping the whole rock and fragging off the coral from it, and getting rid of the rock, while inspecting the frags from the colony for nudis.

Do MEN's lay eggs on the underside of the monti skeleton? What's the best way to eradicate them if they're only on one colony? It's odd if it is a monti pest because I have another pretty large spongodes monti about 8" away that isn't showing ANY of the same symptoms. The cherry tree is getting about 180 PAR and the Spongodes about 140.

 

[Larry L]

Is there anything nearby that might be putting out sweeper/feeding tentacles at night?

 

[TriggerFinger]

Here’s some info about them from coral RX. I have no experience with MEN’s *hope I didn’t jinx myself*

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs - Coral Rx Don't Risk It Dip It!

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs are a type of aeolid nudibranchs which are known to feed on coral. It is important to keep these parasites out of our aquaria.

coralrx.com

Hopefully someone else can chime in with better information

 

[klimfish]

Here’s some info about them from coral RX. I have no experience with MEN’s *hope I didn’t jinx myself*

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs - Coral Rx Don't Risk It Dip It!

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs are a type of aeolid nudibranchs which are known to feed on coral. It is important to keep these parasites out of our aquaria.

coralrx.com

Hopefully someone else can chime in with better information

Thanks for the info, I'll do some reading!

Is there anything nearby that might be putting out sweeper/feeding tentacles at night?

Nope, nothing even remotely near it. The only coral that is close is a tiny frag of Digitata. Everything else is over 10" away and not a coral that would typically put out sweepers. I also observe the tank nightly from 2am-3am (don't ask lol), and haven't noticed any sweepers or other odd behavior besides the mucus excretion and the white patches appearing.

 

[klimfish]

Here are some pictures

 

[TriggerFinger]

That’s a big beauty. I hope it’s not nudis. Has the flow changed recently? It doesn’t look like anything settles on it but maybe it’s trying to clean itself of detritus or sand possibly? Idk...not sure what’s going on there.

 

[klimfish]

Flow is good, sitting happy in the middle of two gyre XF330's.

I'm stumped here!

 

[klimfish]

Did a water change, NO3 was 12 and Phos was .12, don't think that's the issue, but couldn't hurt.

 

[klimfish]

Did some more observation last night. Was unable to find anything crawling on the monti but it still did the whole excrete mucus thing.

 

[klimfish]

Last night I spotted what I think to be MEN's on the colony. TINY little white specks that would slowly move over time. I think I only saw 2 of them even...

This colony is huge...am I better off fragging the good pieces off the rock, and doing an intense dipping regiment with them to hope for eradication? I'm also going to be adding a wrasse-bed and a yellow corris wrasse. Are they enough to control/eradicate a population?

It doesn't seem they've spread to any other monti's yet, is it possible to keep this contained?

 

[klimfish]

Still trucking along...not sure if I what I "saw" were MEN's because now there is no sign of them. Odd. All other monti's look great though.

 

[klimfish]

Did some more inspecting last night. I swear I don't see ANY monti eating nudibranchs...

What I DO see are what appear to be tiny grains of sand, (think oolite sand tiny, very very small, maybe 1/4 the size of a monti polyp) on the surface of the monti, moving with the back and forth flow of the tank slightly, but still visibly, and are held on to the monti by what appears to be a small amount of mucus/slime. I only ever see 2-3 of them at a time on the coral. These "grains" don't move at all hour by hour either, and they seem to eventually get blown off the coral by the flow in the tank. Keep in mind I have a bare bottom tank! So there's no chance it is actual sand.

I don't see any eggs on the underside of the monti or surrounding rocks, and my 3 other montis are showing no signs of MEN's...

Kinda stumped here? It seems the white patching has slowed down considerably in the past few days. The only thing I can think of is I treated very close to the monti with aptaisia X a few weeks ago. I tried very hard to not get any of the aptaisia x on the coral but I'm sure that the gyres blew some on to it after the fact...still doesn't really explain the little white "grains".

Anyone have any ideas/advice or similar experiences?

 

[Kyle_Molin]

What ever happened because I am having the exact same issue right now.