Euphyllia expert needed, What are these on my favorite coral?

[Wen]

I posted this under LPS Discussion because I don't think these are parasites, please advise.

This huge yellow frogspawn has been in my care for 8 years. When purchased it was baseball sized and bleached, it has grown into the size of a basketball, and the show piece of our aquarium.

Over the past 3 months it has been irritated...not inflating to full size and looking "crimped" or "tense" around the edges. I dipped it once in Bayer, no pests came off that I could see. A month later and still not happy, I dipped it in Revive, and no pests came off. Today, I dipped it in Lugols, one flat worm came off and I noticed these white nodules along the edges. I do not remember the white nodules during the 2 previous dips.
I tried turkey basting them off, but they seem part of the tissue. You can see the pink on the skeleton, that is where the flesh used to be...so it is receding. The frogspawn has 3 lobes, 2 lobes have multiple white nodules and 1 does not. All 3 lobes are irritated.

Anyone seen this before?

150 gallon mixed reef
prolific refugium / skimmer / cryptic zone / 40 gal sump
Cal 440
Alk 9
Mag 1440
phos 0-.06 (I struggle keeping it above 0)
nitrates 0 (I just started dosing potassium nitrates...)
1.025
I target feed this coral chopped krill, silversides, reef roids, ROE and pellets. I have not moved its location, water parameters are stable, lighting hasn't changed...

Other 4 euphyllia in tank are happy...sps and softies are happy.

thank you.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

#reefsquad any idea about what may be going on here?

I have a lot of experience with euphyllia, mostly branching varieties though. I will say that I have seen these white globules on the tissue in the area where tissue meets skeleton and I do believe they went away with time and also did not negatively affect the coral from what I can remember. I do know that they showed up on my torch coral that was having some issues after being introduced to my tank and were gone in about a month or so after it got used to the aquarium.

Euphyllia hate being move around a lot, so the white marks might be a side effect of several dip sessions and being moved around in the tank. It took three months for my gold torch to fully adjust to my aquarium and have full polyp extension. During this time I did a lot of worrying about it since it's not a cheap coral and dipped it a few times in ME Coral Washoff. It finally turned around when I stopped messing with it and glued it to my rocks on the same plane and amount of flow that a healthy frogspawn was also in nearby in my aquarium. Now it's growing like a weed and takes up quite a bit of space.

Keep a close eye on it, they're tough corals and it actually doesn't look too bad in the first picture, besides maybe for the unidentified white things.

 

[DSC reef]

Could they be mesenterial filaments?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

Could they be mesenterial filaments?

Mine looked like a white, oval-ish shaped scab sort of thing (definitely not a critter since it wouldn't come off), but I think you may be on to something since these are bumpy and have some stringy looking elements.

Here's a thread from nano-reef of a branching hammer where the white marks really do look like mesenterial filaments balled up at the edge of the tissue https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/371922-hammer-coral-dying/

 

[Wen]

Thank you,

Here is photo after last dip. Inflating same size as last few months, which is 1/4 normal size.
Last photo is when it was happy.

I have not moved this coral around the tank, same placement, same flow, same light.

Currently my plan is to wait it out, keep feeding, and no more dips.

Anyone else with similar white nodules on euphyllia?

 

[JBKReef]

With the last photo and how extended it was, and looking happy, is there anything just out of the frame that could be stinging it?

 

[DSC reef]

The euphyllia look pretty happy. When we used to grow frogspawn we would get on occasion those mesenterial blobs but never noticed any bad effects from them. However, I could never pinpoint if it was a defensive response, feeding response or just general irritation of the coral itself.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Could they be mesenterial filaments?

I second!

 

[HB AL]

You mentioned a flatworm, I'm rolling with flatworms, things killed a couple torches years back and torches where not inflating like before, for a month or so before I dipped in iodine and a couple popped out, was too late by the time I figured it out and I assume there where more inside eating away unnoticed.

 

[Wen]

Thanks everybody for your thoughts.

There is a bicolor branching frogspawn next to it (they don't touch) and another regular branching frogspawn behind it, both of them are happy. No other types of corals close.

I have been dipping large colonies of plating montipora due to a couple monitpora eating nudies I found and no flatworms have come off them, so I don't think its flatworms causing irritation. Plus I should have seen them with the previous dips.

I have been using the flashlight at night on the whole tank and don't see anything.

HOWEVER, one thing interesting...you know those pretty white, fluffy feather duster worms that live in the sand bed and don't bother anyone. Well, I had 20+ of those for 8+ years (in DT and fuge) and they ALL have died over the past 3 months. I couldn't figure it out. Meanwhile, I haven't lost a coral, haven't lost a fish, haven't lost snails/hermits/serpent starts or BTAs. I haven't added a fish that would eat them...and no fish in fuge. Weird.

I just mailed out a water sample to Triton today. Maybe something will turn up there? IDK

Thank you, any other ideas to save it?

 

[Wen]

Pic of feather dusters

 

[cjpitt80]

Were you able to save it?

 

[Jesterrace]

Just me but I would say your nitrates are the big red flag that I see. Euphyllia like dirtier water generally. If my nitrates dip below 10 my frogspawns and hammers get cranky and are visibly more retracted. If you have been running with little to low nitrates for a while I could definitely see that causing the problem.

 

[Tennyson]

+1 on mesenterial filaments, but something must be causing these to appear and its usually stress related.

Flatworms will definitely cause these to appear as they eat the tissue from the base of the coral. They are extremely hard to spot and often match the color of the coral they are eating. It may help if you know what to look for -> https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/eefw-infestation-euphyllia-eating-flatworms.549090/

Hopefully its not these! They can be very small. Best of luck.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

+2 on nitrates and what everyone else has said so far. My euphyllia like dirtier water as much but I don’t think that is the problem.

 

[bluerider098]

I am curious if you ever figured this out. I did see something very similar on a hammer of mine and it ended up having flatworms. I don’t think the white spots were flatworms, but maybe a reaction.

 

[Wen]

I am curious if you ever figured this out. I did see something very similar on a hammer of mine and it ended up having flatworms. I don’t think the white spots were flatworms, but maybe a reaction.

@bluerider098
It was Flatworms.

 

[bluerider098]

@bluerider098
It was Flatworms.

Repeated dips every few days cured it for me. I gently brushed those sac looking things off.