Euphyllia Unwell

capt.dave · Jan 9, 2021

Good evening R2R. I'm looking for some suggestions concerning Euphyllia no longer extending polyps.

SETUP: 120g mixed reef. Shallow sand. Lit with Aquatic Life T5/LED Hybrid running ATI Blue+ and 2 Kessel A360Ws. Supplement with BRS/Tropic Marin Balling Method and adding Red Sea Reef Energy AB+. Reef is 6 years old but tank was changed in February 2020 due to the old one springing a leak. All rock, coral, and fish were transferred with no losses but I did go through an ugly phase with algae and cyano. I think I've largely beat it now with about 6 months of Vibrant and finally Chemiclean to wipe out the cyano when I decided it was really bothering the coral.
PARAMETERS:

Alk: 9.6 (higher than I'd like but stable)
Ca: 430 ppm
Mg: 1350 ppm
PO4: undetectable (no GFO and can't seem to raise it despite feeding heavier)
NO3: 0 - 2
PH 8.1 - 8.3
ICP Test - low iron but no other issues noted

BACKGROUND: I had a mass casualty event in September following a water change. Lost 6 of 14 fish, and several SPS and LPS corals. Others looked pale for several months and are just now starting to come back. I was using natural sea water from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, which they provide free to local hobbyists in San Diego. It's the exact same water they use in their Birch Aquarium here, which has several reef tanks. Its use is very common among reefers here and I've been using it for 6 years and never had a problem before so I don't think it was the water. Instead, I fear there was something nasty growing in my saltwater bin because after the change when the bin was empty it smelled bad. I ran carbon but still lost a lot of fish and coral.

ISSUE: All the Euphyllia in my tank appear to be unhealthy. I have 3 large colonies of hammers and a green torch that are all 5+ years old. None of them are extending polyps like they used to and the skeletons break easily. This has been going since the crash.

POTENTIAL CAUSES I CAN THINK OF

When the crash happened, the coral didn't really bleach. They just lost all their color and slowly faded away. Meanwhile, they weren't taking up Alk and Ca and those climbed. Alk got up to 11.2 over the course of a week in October, Ca to about 490 before I stopped dosing entirely and allowed it to fall slowly back into the 9s and 430s. It was pretty unstable for a while as I tried to find the new set point but it's been stable for the last couple months now so I certainly think it was a stress factor but shouldn't be any more.
Green (not red) cyano was really bad last summer and all through the fall. Since it was green and I also had hair and bubble algae, I thought it was a strange turf algae growing on the rocks and sand and worked to keep NO3 and PO4 low while I tried to beat it with water changes, removal, and Vibrant. Finally, a friend suggested it might be cyano. It got to the point where it was smothering my zoas and I used Chemiclean in November. I run carbon and do 20% water changes every 2 - 4 weeks so the Chemiclean should all be gone.
There are a lot of yellow-green sponges growing in the shady parts of the rock work and I've seen it on the skeletons of the Euphyllia but never near the polyps. I don't know what it is or if it's bad. Everything I've seen says sponges are good to have in your tank so I don't think that's it.
PO4 and NO3 are chronically low. Often undetectable with Sallifert. I feed pretty heavily (Mysis, Rod's Food, Reef Chili occasionally, and pellets) but it never really increases. No GFO or carbon dosing. Vibrant killed all my cheato so I was worried about PO4 and NO3 spiking but it was being taken up by the algae and cyano in the display and stayed low in the water column. Now that the algae and cyano are largely gone I'm still not seeing it come up, even with heavier feeding. Do sponges take that up?
Euphylia are all on the bottom, in about 150 par of light. They've had a year to get used to it so I don't think it's the light.
There is a lot of flow in this tank: 2 gyres and a Nero 5 but that's not new and none of the Euphyllia are in the direct path.
I don't see any critters crawling on the coral.

Sorry about the lousy color. Evening blues are on now but you can see the poor extension. It's been like that for months with several dead heads.

Ideas?

Thanks!
Dave

Ranjib · Jan 11, 2021

If other corals are doing fine i wont worry about the chemistry. I;ll look for pests or some fishes nipping at them. Check at night, some critters are active only at night. Also check if too much flow is causing this. Unless you are seeing tissue loss don't you have time to fix this,

capt.dave · Jan 11, 2021

Thanks, Ranjib. That makes sense and I’ll really take a look tonight. I have a Six Line wrasse in the tank and just happen to have a Leopard Wrasse in quarantine. If there are critters hopefully these guys will manage that problem.

I don’t think it’s flow, they don’t blow around as much as a lot of LPS I see in tanks much nicer than mine.

capt.dave · Mar 22, 2021

Reviving with an update. Sadly, not much has changed for the Euphilya and I've lost some acans, a chalice, an acro and a colony of bubblegum digitatas. This morning I noticed a brilliant orange setosa has started to bleach. Meanwhile, some blue digitata right next to the bubblegum are growing great, as are my zoas, and montis. A purple stylo and an unknown green acro doing OK, good color but not much polyp extension and almost no growth.

Chemistry has been very stable
- Alk: 9.3
- Ca: 430 ppm
- Mg: 1450 ppm
- PO4: undetectable (no GFO and can't seem to raise it despite feeding heavier)
- NO3: 0 - 2
- PH 8.1 - 8.3
PO4 and NO3 still very low
Running carbon
There is some turf algae that I was dosing Vibrant for but it's not near the Euphylia

I'm thinking pest, though I can't see any and have checked with magnifying glass. I've read good things about KZ's Flatworm Stop helping coral with flesh problems, even without pests, but it appears to be targeted at acros. Anyone have any experience with this product helping Euphilya?

HB AL · Mar 22, 2021

I would bet on something in the water that is bumming out your corals. I would give them all an iodine coral dip and then observe them for a week and see if there's any change. I would also test all params again, alk, calc, mag, nitrate, phosphates, salinity, etc... and confirm all are within acceptable levels. In the meantime I would send out an icp test to have all levels of elements etc... to make sure something else isn't in the water we can't test for that would be detrimental to corals at elevated levels.

capt.dave · Mar 23, 2021

HB AL said:
I would bet on something in the water that is bumming out your corals. I would give them all an iodine coral dip and then observe them for a week and see if there's any change. I would also test all params again, alk, calc, mag, nitrate, phosphates, salinity, etc... and confirm all are within acceptable levels. In the meantime I would send out an icp test to have all levels of elements etc... to make sure something else isn't in the water we can't test for that would be detrimental to corals at elevated levels.

Yeah, Good advice. Weekend tests were as above but I was thinking about another ICP.

capt.dave · Mar 23, 2021

Flatworms. I dipped two frags that a fish knocked off the mother colony and got lots of flatworms in the bowl. I couldn’t see them on the coral but they were sure there in the bowl. All this time and death in my tank and I’m chasing the wrong nemesis. Well, now I know and can deal with it.

Suggestions from the community? Products? Preditors? Process?

HB AL · Mar 23, 2021

capt.dave said:
Flatworms. I dipped two frags that a fish knocked off the mother colony and got lots of flatworms in the bowl. I couldn’t see them on the coral but they were sure there in the bowl. All this time and death in my tank and I’m chasing the wrong nemesis. Well, now I know and can deal with it.

Suggestions from the community? Products? Preditors? Process?

This very well could be the issue thats why although the iodine dip won't kill them it will stun them enough where they will come out of the coral and you can see em in the bottom of the bowl. I had a large torch long ago for a few years then it started deteriorating for no apparent reason. I dipped it in an iodine based dip and had around 6 flatworms come out a couple rather large and I got to them to late as they damaged it beyond revival. It was the only euphylia I had at the time so once the torch was toast I removed it and didn't add any euphylia for over 6 months to hope they died off.

PanchoG · Mar 23, 2021

You need wrasse predators to keep those pests at bay. Coris or Melanarus would do the job.

capt.dave · Mar 23, 2021

Re dip, I used Coral Rx last night and got many in the bowl. A few big ones. Problem is I have a lot of LPS and don’t think dipping will be enough. Which brings me to @PanchoG s recommendation of wrasse preditors. I like an all of the above approach to manage what I have to acknowledge is an unsolvable problem. I can probably dip them all without breaking them all up (some are rather large) but I’ll never get all the eggs. This is the best excuse ever for a trip to the LFS! I already have a very active 6 line. Time for reinforcements.

HB AL · Mar 23, 2021

I dont wanna be negative but in my experience with flatworms on lps the wrasses don't really get to them like they do around acropora. Your gonna have to dip all your euphylia multiple times a week and hope you got them all eventually. Worst case scenario which I've had to do once but was 100% effective is remove them all from the dt for 2 to 6 weeks and naturally starve them out.

capt.dave · Mar 24, 2021

@HB AL , maybe why the Six Line isn't enough. I can dip the smaller colonies several times a week but the larger ones would almost require a tank breakdown. They're too big to get out without removing the hood and lights. Just not realistic on this tank.

Anyone have any luck with Salifert's Flatworm Exit? I've read the reviews, especially the 1 Star reviews following complete crashes and loss of many fish and coral. I sure don't like that risk but I wonder how many of those are a result of not following the advice and instructions for manual removal before and after, lots of activated carbon in a reactor, and a 25%+ water change. I use natural sea water from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego (they have an outside faucet and offer it free to local reefers) so I could even do a 50% water change after treatment.

I ordered KZ's Flatworm Stop, which I know doesn't kill them but perhaps helps coral being prayed on in some way. Lot's of good reviews and none say it killed everything in the tank.

PanchoG · Mar 24, 2021

Do the dip but do get the wrasses, if there were flatworms in that coral, there will be more in the tank, predation is the only way in the long term as you will continue to introduce new corals. I would recommend you to avoid the six lines since they can turn very aggressive with age.

HB AL · Mar 24, 2021

Dip the corals ones you can. The wrasses I've noticed over the years that spend there day studying over the corals looking for snacks and get along fine with other fish are the yellow and green coris wrasses and melanarous. The yellow and especially the green coris do the best job. Good luck I've learned to hate all flatworms.

capt.dave · Mar 26, 2021

Thanks, @PanchoG and @HB AL , that's exactly what I'm going to do. In addition to that, I had already ordered a bottle of KZ's Flatworm Stop and I'll use that to help the coral recover. Really appreciate everyone's advice. I'll let you know how it goes.

InvaderJim · Mar 26, 2021

Id highly recommend a melanurus wrasse, they are tireless hunters. I don't have flat worms and all he does is search the rocks all day looking for food.