Help hammers and frogspawn keep melting

[kkircher]

Help needed. In the last 10 days I have lost 2 hammers, an octospawn and currently a frogspawn. They have all showed the exact same symptoms. They retract for half a day then look like they pumps start to disintegrate and then polyps bail out. I have not seen any brown jelly. I have attempted to use lugols to dip them before too bad but they just keep dying. I also lost 2 sps corals that died like over night. They must have bailed out as they didn’t bleach but pure white in 24 hours. Some of the drags were a few weeks in tank some for months.

Water params:
Nitrates 10
Phosphates 0
Alk 8.1
Calcium 480
Mag 1275
Salinity 1.025
Ph 8.1
Temp 78

Tank information:
200g DT
4 Red Sea reefled 90 lights
2 Red Sea reefwave 45
No chemical filtration used.
Pax bellum 24n with chaeto
2 inch sand bed
Tank been running since august

dosing and coral food:
Brightwheel neophos (no luck registering phosphates)
Iron+manganese (pax bellum daily drops)
Tropic Marin all for reef
Tropic Marin pro reef salt
Red Sea ab+
Reef roids

inhabitants:
Powder blue tang
Powder brown tang
Yellow tang
Sailfin tang
Coral beauty
Flame angel
Carpenter wrasse
6 line wrasse
2x clowns
Lawnmower blenny
Standard cuc snails
Mostly Lps and leathers



None of the fish are nipping at corals and I am fighting low phosphates. All the corals were placed far enough from each other that they aren’t able to sting each other.


I only havepicture from current casualty, the frogspawn. These pictures are from last night. Today it has melted to nothing.

Any ideas what I can do or am I doomed for this to take out rest of my corals?

 

[New&no clue]

I had something similar happen. I was reading it can be from a bacterial infection. Dipping doesn’t help as the bacteria is in the tank not just the coral. People have been trying to dose low levels of Cipro. I’ll see if I can find the thread it was on.

 

[kkircher]

Wow that sounds horrible. How to even know? And where to get it. Haha

 

[New&no clue]

Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease

Brown Jelly Disease (BJD) is an issue many reefers have run into. Like most coral diseases, the pathogen causing BJD has not been conclusively determined. Here I will share some observations and test results supporting the idea that its caused by a bacterial pathogen, and so may be treatable...

www.reef2reef.com

Here is the thread, it is talking about brown jelly. But you might find it helpful.

 

[kkircher]

Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease

Brown Jelly Disease (BJD) is an issue many reefers have run into. Like most coral diseases, the pathogen causing BJD has not been conclusively determined. Here I will share some observations and test results supporting the idea that its caused by a bacterial pathogen, and so may be treatable...

www.reef2reef.com

Here is the thread, it is talking about brown jelly. But you might find it helpful.

Thanks for the thread. This is pretty far past my skill right now.

frogspawn has now been removed as is dead. Just noticed bailout started on my largest hammer.

I would have assumed with 4-5 corals now dead that I would physically see bjd but just haven’t. The hammer now is bailing out and not Wilting away first. After reading the article I am starting to think I am hosed as I don’t have anywhere to put coral in, don’t have antibiotics to give them. Bummer.

 

[New&no clue]

You could try some big water changes. Although that wouldn’t help the low nitrates.

 

[kkircher]

You could try some big water changes. Although that wouldn’t help the low nitrates.

I was thinking the same thing. I have no problem with the idea of water changes but with parameters set, would a water change so much? Not sure if a bacteria is in water column, a water change would get rid of it. My main problem is with a 240g water volume, that is a lot of water and of course I don’t have enough salt on site to do more then maybe 30% change and no lfs in town. I am basically screwed. No online retailer has my salt either. Not sure why tropic Marin salt is sold out everywhere but BRS says they won’t have any until April. I am kind of screwed.

 

[Bars]

Can't really help you out unfortunately, but I do want to say that my Euphyllia (torches and frogspawns) do not like when my phosphates get below 0.05 I usually run them around 0.1 and they are happy with that. So perhaps it might be worth increasing your phosphates a bit?

Instead of a water change you could toss in a bag of GAC if you have it. It's my go to solution whenever my corals look unhappy and 9/10 times it (temporarily) fixes the issue when it's something parameter related.

 

[kkircher]

Can't really help you out unfortunately, but I do want to say that my Euphyllia (torches and frogspawns) do not like when my phosphates get below 0.05 I usually run them around 0.1 and they are happy with that. So perhaps it might be worth increasing your phosphates a bit?

Instead of a water change you could toss in a bag of GAC if you have it. It's my go to solution whenever my corals look unhappy and 9/10 times it (temporarily) fixes the issue when it's something parameter related.

Thanks for the GAC tip. I will try that right now. I have been trying to get phosphates up for weeks. I am doing neophos and feeding my fat fish like crazy. Feeding coral. I got it up to .02 for one day then drop back down. Just can’t seem to get it up to a level. I think my rock and sand consuming it so unmeasurable.
Thanks again on the tip

 

[kkircher]

I have added GAC to see if I can help anything.
Picture of the next affected. This started this morning. Still haven’t seen brown jelly.

 

[kkircher]

And now he is a gonner. 2/3 with brown jelly today. So much for having euphyllia garden. Some times this hobby is just downright torturous.

 

[daniel90]

Same happens to one of my hammers after I moved it to a new tank. It melted off and I was left with just the skeleton. Fast forward a couple of weeks later and it began to grow back

 

[kkircher]

Same happens to one of my hammers after I moved it to a new tank. It melted off and I was left with just the skeleton. Fast forward a couple of weeks later and it began to grow back

I have heard a few people say the same thing in other threads. I have kept the skeletons of the branching hammers with hope, but looking bleak. Do recall how many weeks?

 

[anthonygf]

There is a post here that I read the other day. Softies were not doing well and they raised the magnesium to 1500 over the course of a week and they responded and doing better. I am currently trying this myself. Maybe it will help you, they say mag that high will not hurt. I haven't confirmed that.

 

[kkircher]

There is a post here that I read the other day. Softies were not doing well and they raised the magnesium to 1500 over the course of a week and they responded and doing better. I am currently trying this myself. Maybe it will help you, they say mag that high will not hurt. I haven't confirmed that.

Interesting. Let me know how it goes. I currently just did a huge water change and will look into trying that.

 

[daniel90]

I have heard a few people say the same thing in other threads. I have kept the skeletons of the branching hammers with hope, but looking bleak. Do recall how many weeks?

I didn’t keep track since it thought it was gone for good, until one day I saw a little color at the base. I’d guess 8+ weeks at least

 

[redeyejedi]

0 phos is killing them. Also raise mag to 1500

 

[anthonygf]

Get a Hanna phosphorus test kit. When my phosphate read zero I go to phosphorus tester and got 10ppb, so just because you think you have zero you may have some. Still low but not zero. I use both testers, phosphate is my primary and when I get a zero reading I will check again with phosphorus tester. My p04 is .15 currently.

 

[kkircher]

I have a Hanna phosphate but not the phosphorus one. I also attempted to dose phosphate but I think the rocks were sucking it up like crazy. I have bought more in an attempt to save what I have left in the tank.

 

[kkircher]

I didn’t keep track since it thought it was gone for good, until one day I saw a little color at the base. I’d guess 8+ weeks at least

Very interesting because I kept 2 hammers because the base had color in them. Will be watching.