Coral Deaths - Please Help

[tymo92]

I've been dealing with slow coral necrosis in nearly all my LPS and SPS colonies and frags for coming up on nearly a year now. I think I've thought of nearly every possibility of what this could be and I'm stumped. This is super demoralizing as I've now started to lose colonies I started as frags 5+ years ago and I'm getting to a breaking point where I want to step away from the hobby. Anyone have any ideas what this might be from? Any thoughts appreciated.

The Issue: Slow recession of tissue on most types of LPS and SPS. In faviids/chalices, coral slowly starts to lose flesh often starting at one side of the colony, which progresses over weeks/months to the rest of the coral. In Acros, tissue loss starts at the base and progresses up the coral. Zoas, mushrooms, Xenia, Euphyllia, and a couple other colonies I've had for years are unaffected. I think I've stopped it with superglue on a favia colony, but superglue/fragging has been ineffective on chalices. Dips in CoralRX, Iodine, and H202 have not seemed to make a difference

Things I've suspected:

-Parameters: Alk 7-8, Calc 410, NO3 ~4, PO4 ~0.05, PH 8.1-8.3, Temp 79. Have had 3 ICP tests done since the issues started and nothing out of the ordinary.

-Stray voltage: checked with a multimeter, nothing there.

-Predators: I have seen munnid isopods at the edges of my LPS where the recession occurs at night. I see fewer of these since getting a leopard wrasse 2 months ago. Issues with Acros, chalices, acans, favias seems to rule out black/red bugs, AEFW, etc. No fish or inverts that I've caught picking or that could be the issue. This is still my #1 guess but it seems a bit out there.

-RODI issues/chloramines: I'm using a 3 stage but have replaced all filters recently. 0 TDS

-Light: Orphek Atlantik V4. ~250 Par high up in center where I've put acros and sub-100 at corners/edges where I've put some LPS. Location doesn't seem to worsen the condition or make better.


I posted about this a few months ago and thought I had narrowed my issue down to the munnid pests. After getting a leopard wrasse and Mandarin and still having issues I'm not sure that's the case:

Mystery Coral Deaths

I'm going on about month 6 of slowly losing most of my LPS and SPS to tissue recession. My 70G tank has been set up for a year (was a migration from an established smaller tank), and I've frustratingly been unable to add any new coral as they just tend to die. In my acros its showed up as...

www.reef2reef.com

This is on a tank I set up in December 2019, and transferred my corals/rock/fish over around March 2020.

 

[Spare time]

I wonder if you might benefit from a bacterial "icp" style test https://aquabiomics.com/

 

[Hermie]

How dyou check your salinity? For months I thought I had 35ppt but my swing arm hydrometer was off. And refractometers can be off too.

 

[tymo92]

How dyou check your salinity? For months I thought I had 35ppt but my swing arm hydrometer was off. And refractometers can be off too.

Refractometer calibrated with BRS solution. ICP includes salinity as well which matches my read from refractometer.

 

[tymo92]

I wonder if you might benefit from a bacterial "icp" style test https://aquabiomics.com/

Interesting, don't know too much about this. Any experiences linking bacterial imbalance to the recession issues I've been having?

 

[Spare time]

Interesting, don't know too much about this. Any experiences linking bacterial imbalance to the recession issues I've been having?

Well basically it can give you a big breakdown of bacteria and what not in the tank and could identify if there is some coral disease. I am thinking something like Vibrio coralliilyticus

 

[Spare time]

Also, what test are you using for nitrate? 4ppm is decently low. I notice your previous thread showed you had even lower nitrate. It is possible that you have too little given that our test kits are typically not accurate enough to distinguish nitrate that low. Have you tried amino acids before like brightwell koral amino? I personally would give it a try. WWC uses it for their corals.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Some of the parameters are a little off. Moderate to med water flow and light.
Temp 77-79
ph 8.1-8.3
salinity 1.025
nitrate < .4
phos < .04
Ammonia < .03
mG 1300
Alk 8-9
CA 440

 

[tymo92]

Also, what test are you using for nitrate? 4ppm is decently low. I notice your previous thread showed you had even lower nitrate. It is possible that you have too little given that our test kits are typically not accurate enough to distinguish nitrate that low. Have you tried amino acids before like brightwell koral amino? I personally would give it a try. WWC uses it for their corals.

Red Sea Pro, it's very sensitive and 4PPM is at the higher end of its range. I had suspected too low nutrients as well but I've been running a bit higher than at the time of that previous thread and the issues still persist. I've tried Acropower but I've been trying to keep things simple and controlled since losing corals and have been just doing water changes + calc/alk/mg in terms of additives.

 

[tymo92]

Some of the parameters are a little off. Moderate to med water flow and light.
Temp 77-79
ph 8.1-8.3
salinity 1.025
nitrate < .4
phos < .04
Ammonia < .03
mG 1300
Alk 8-9
CA 440

NSW alk is 7dkh so 7-8 is OK, and running 4PPM nitrates shouldn't cause tissue recession. If anything I'd think .4 would be more likely to cause issues with LPS.

 

[vetteguy53081]

NSW alk is 7dkh so 7-8 is OK, and running 4PPM nitrates shouldn't cause tissue recession. If anything I'd think .4 would be more likely to cause issues with LPS.

The retreat of living tissue off of the skeleton is a malady that can have numerous causes. Injury can cause loss of tissue by physically abrading it or tearing it off, thus weakening the coral, exposing it to infection. Stings by neighboring corals with sweepers can also cause rapid tissue recession as can predation by fish and invertebrates. Most problematic tissue recession is of a much slower nature, and the incidence may be the result of several factors combined. Most coral problems are caused by poor water quality that will most likely go away by themselves when conditions are made more favorable . This is good news! The most common causes of coral problems are: Excess nitrates and nitrates in general. In a mixed reef setting, there has to be a balance for both LPS and SPS which have different requirements. This is where the .4 comes in for nitrates as some need readings of .2 while others are happy in .10.
Tissue recession often occurs when the coral stops depositing calcium. The tissue may continue to grow, but the skeleton shows no new deposition and the tissue recedes like gums pulling away from teeth. Often the skeleton is greenish in color, which indicates the presence of Ostreobium, an alga that may contribute to this condition (see previous section).
The deposition of skeleton for coral growth is dependent on sufficient calcium being in the water. When the coral does not have a pool of at least 400 mg/L to draw calcium from, its growth may be slowed. If the calcium level is below 250 mg/L it may not grow at all, and tissue recession can occur. Additionally, The pH value is critical for calcification since it is the elevated pH at the junction between coral tissue and skeleton that allows the shift to precipitation in the reaction of calcium and carbonate. When the pH in the environment is too low, as can happen in a closed system due to the accumulation of organic acids, nitrate and depletion of the buffer (low dKH), the calcification process is halted.
Phosphate can act as a poison to the calcification process in both corals and coralline algae by interfering with their ability to deposit calcium.
Finally, while most of the reasons for tissue recession are linked to water quality, the growth of coral skeleton is intimately linked with photosynthesis, so inadequate light can also result in the inability to lay down new skeleton. This can produce tissue recession, since the coral may continue to form its organic matrix where calcium crystals should be deposited, and in the absence of calcification, the layers of matrix separate the tissue from the old skeleton.

 

[Spare time]

Red Sea Pro, it's very sensitive and 4PPM is at the higher end of its range. I had suspected too low nutrients as well but I've been running a bit higher than at the time of that previous thread and the issues still persist. I've tried Acropower but I've been trying to keep things simple and controlled since losing corals and have been just doing water changes + calc/alk/mg in terms of additives.

Ah yeah I have that test kit. It has an error range of +/- 0.125ppm though that is assuming perfection in performing it. However, I would still consider brightwell koral amino or red sea reef energy as it won't hurt to try. I just know that WWC uses brightwell's for frags that are in recovery.

 

[tymo92]

Ah yeah I have that test kit. It has an error range of +/- 0.125ppm though that is assuming perfection in performing it. However, I would still consider brightwell koral amino or red sea reef energy as it won't hurt to try. I just know that WWC uses brightwell's for frags that are in recovery.

Thanks, I'll start dosing aminos again and see if that makes a difference.

 

[sde1500]

Interesting, don't know too much about this. Any experiences linking bacterial imbalance to the recession issues I've been having?

I never did that test but recently had a couple major die offs that killed a bunch of corals in my tank. Saw it affecting a fish too so the best guess was bacterial. Did 5 rounds of Ciprofloxacin and tank has been steadily improving since.
Used this as a guide. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/

 

[Spare time]

I know Dr Tim's makes eco balance to try and help boost good bacteria to acta as a buffer against bad bacteria like vibrio. Its cheap so its another thing to consider.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

It seems to me that you are living on the low end of the scale when it comes to light. Can you increase the output of your light. It sounds to me like the coral may be starving and the tissue recession is a result of not enough light to ”feed” the coral.

 

[tymo92]

I never did that test but recently had a couple major die offs that killed a bunch of corals in my tank. Saw it affecting a fish too so the best guess was bacterial. Did 5 rounds of Ciprofloxacin and tank has been steadily improving since.
Used this as a guide. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/e...ic-treatments-for-brown-jelly-disease.782438/

Were you losing LPS only or acros/montis as well? Any negative effects of the Cipro on inhabitants? Would be curious to hear more and whether the symptoms you were seeing were similar to mine (slow recession from edges).

 

[sde1500]

Were you losing LPS only or acros/montis as well? Any negative effects of the Cipro on inhabitants? Would be curious to hear more and whether the symptoms you were seeing were similar to mine (slow recession from edges).

Oddly it was LPS and montis. Every acro I had was doing fine throughout. And it was not slow. It was flesh sloughing off at rapid rate. And my tang was actually showing signs of an infection. Only thought to bring it up because the bacterial imbalance was mentioned. Mine was definitely bacterial. I actually saw zero noticeable drawbacks from dosing Cipro. Tank is much improved, a couple corals dead and gone for good but some I thought to be goners are recovering well.