HELP: LPS infection killing coral

[Fin Jackson]

Hey All,
About 2-3 weeks ago I lost my Gold Hammer, Indonesian Pink tip Hulk torch and Speckled Purple Green hammer due to bailout. My parameters were all good, but the coral bailed overnight. They started out with really puffy polyps, then they shriveled up bailed out within 36 hours. I thought It was due to me adding in a large toadstool that shedded it's mucas a few days before they bailed out, but then it started happening again this week. My dual head Neon Green hammer bailed out both Polyps, then my blue/brown bailout out 2 of the 3 heads and my elegance coral is starting to show signs of bailing out. I have had all these hammers for over a year and they were all very healthy and completely skinned over the base. There is no sign of brown jelly from the brown jelly disease (unless I'm blind) and I was wondering what else would have caused this mass bailout.

Lights are Radion G4 Pros run on the LPS Schedule for 10 hours a day at 30%. Parameters are:
ALK: 9DKH
CAL: 450 PPM
MAG: 1460
Nitrate: 1-3 ppm
Phosphate: 0.15
Salinity: 34
Temp: 25 degrees Celsius.

 

[loui]

Leather corals can be pretty nasty chemical wise. Did you add anything else? Such as something to reduce phosphates or maybe to much carbon? If not running some carbon may help. I would bet it is fall out from the leather coral. Unfortunately once and event like this starts it is hard to stop it. Water changes and adding some carbon may slow the process. Is your skimmer going crazy? I would do about 50% water changes (25%) at a time add carbon and let the tank settle down and see what happens. May also be best to remove any corals that are showing dead flesh no reason to let it decay in the tank.

 

[Fin Jackson]

Here are a few images from over the past few weeks (incase I needed to make a thread).

 

[Fin Jackson]

Leather corals can be pretty nasty chemical wise. Did you add anything else? Such as something to reduce phosphates or maybe to much carbon? If not running some carbon may help. I would bet it is fall out from the leather coral. Unfortunately once and event like this starts it is hard to stop it. Water changes and adding some carbon may slow the process. Is your skimmer going crazy? I would do about 50% water changes (25%) at a time add carbon and let the tank settle down and see what happens. May also be best to remove any corals that are showing dead flesh no reason to let it decay in the tank.

Thanks, yeh I'm picking up more carbon tommorow from my LFS, but my skimmer isn't going to crazy. I have noticed the skim is alot darker them usual but I thought that was due to me upping the feeding of MinS and reef roids to maintain nutrients.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Sorry to hear about the corals. My moneys also on chemical warfare, assuming you have a large amount of leather corals. That’s how I almost lost all my lps (and lost one of my frogspawns). I think there comes a point that leather corals and other soft corals become too dominant and start to overtake otherwise healthy corals. I have since upgraded my tank to reduce the effectiveness of the leathers and the lps all seem extremely happy now. What is your tank size, by the way? If it’s large, chemical warfare doesn’t seem extremely likely, though it is still possible.

 

[Fin Jackson]

My tank is a Red Sea reefer XL 300 (80g 3ftx2ftx2ft). Originaly the tank was split 50-50 between soft/zoa/mushrooms and LPS and it was working great. I have a group of maybe 5-6 decent size stems of Xenia close-ish to the toadstool, could this be where the problem is?

Sorry to hear about the corals. My moneys also on chemical warfare, assuming you have a large amount of leather corals. That’s how I almost lost all my lps (and lost one of my frogspawns). I think there comes a point that leather corals and other soft corals become too dominant and start to overtake otherwise healthy corals. I have since upgraded my tank to reduce the effectiveness of the leathers and the lps all seem extremely happy now. What is your tank size, by the way? If it’s large, chemical warfare doesn’t seem extremely likely, though it is still possible.

 

[Sharkbait19]

My tank is a Red Sea reefer XL 300 (80g 3ftx2ftx2ft). Originaly the tank was split 50-50 between soft/zoa/mushrooms and LPS and it was working great. I have a group of maybe 5-6 decent size stems of Xenia close-ish to the toadstool, could this be where the problem is?

The Xenia could be stressing the leather coral causing it to release chemicals nearby. I do find it a little bit strange, however, that this would bother an entire tank of lps. Try removing the remaining lps and acclimating them into clean aquarium water, with some water movement. If they start to look decent, then it is likely that either chemical warfare is taking place or some type of water parameter is out of place.

 

[Fin Jackson]

Thanks, I found a Vid that I took maybe 2-3 days ago but I can't load it up. I will try again soon to show the placement of these coral. The tanks looking very empty. I'm going to bring in water for a trident/electronic test at my LFS tommorow aswell and maybe send it off for an ICP just to be sure. During the day when the lights are fully on, everything is opening up, and generally when it's a parameter for me, I've found that my Xenia and Zoas close or don't open fully. I think I'm leaning towards the warfare side. Bummer because the corals I lost were really starting to take off.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Hopefully they start to recover. It really sucks, especially when the corals are starting to really thrive and grow...
Good luck and definitely keep us updated.

 

[Fin Jackson]

Thanks Sharkbait

 

[Fin Jackson]

I went to my LFS today to pick up carbon and test my water, and as I suspected my water was good on the trident test. Ive put the carbon in about an hour ago and hoping to see if that works. My LFS also told me about a flatworm outbreak they had a few years back where this exact thing happened, and a sixline wrasse fixed them up, so I bought one of them to just incase. I've had a look at threads on here that have had the same symptoms as mine and the results were not good. Completely decimated LPS populations, a few months where it kept coming back - the lot. It's really weird though because it's going through all my LPS from right to left, and a few other posts have found this aswell. Anyway, time will tell what goes on.

 

[Fin Jackson]

Update: Lost my elegance and another hammer yesterday, and my Rose Alveopora is showing signs of stress. My current level of LPS coral dropped from around 10-11 down to 2 healthy specimens (8head hammer and large wall hammer). Hopefully these two pull through.

 

[Shirak]

Here are a few images from over the past few weeks (incase I needed to make a thread).

Looks like Brown Jelly Disease to me.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Looks like Brown Jelly Disease to me.

I don’t think it’s BJD in this case, this looks more like melted flesh but not necessarily a bacterial infection. It could be tested with an iodine dip and a turkey baster to blow at the flesh, however.

 

[Shirak]

I disagree there is clearly brown remnants in the scutes of the skeleton on more than one euphyllia and on the elegance. This is not bailout as the OP surmises. The heads are shrinking and breaking up from one side to the other as the disease progresses. Sometimes big streams of slimy muck are not so evident with bjd
I also don’t think it’s chemical warfare from a toadstool which would have affected the lps more unilaterally instead of over the span of a few weeks from one coral to the next.
I have tried iodine dipping in the past along with turkey basting in the iodine bath and have never been able to save a coral once infected. On the other hand Cipro treatment since I started using it has saved many that would have otherwise died imo.

 

[Fin Jackson]

Thanks for responses everyone,
The shrinking heads is correct, but one the heads have taking themselves off the skeleton there is no remnanents of anything, just a plain white skeleton. I've had BJD (very early days of my tank) in the past and only lost 2 heads of a hammer and I found that quite a bit of the slime was left behind. I see what you mean though with the brown pieces of flesh/jelly in between the scutes. Once that coral had bailed out, it was just a white skeleton with no remnants.

I disagree there is clearly brown remnants in the scutes of the skeleton on more than one euphyllia and on the elegance. This is not bailout as the OP surmises. The heads are shrinking and breaking up from one side to the other as the disease progresses. Sometimes big streams of slimy muck are not so evident with bjd
I also don’t think it’s chemical warfare from a toadstool which would have affected the lps more unilaterally instead of over the span of a few weeks from one coral to the next.
I have tried iodine dipping in the past along with turkey basting in the iodine bath and have never been able to save a coral once infected. On the other hand Cipro treatment since I started using it has saved many that would have otherwise died imo.

 

[Shirak]

Thanks for responses everyone,
The shrinking heads is correct, but one the heads have taking themselves off the skeleton there is no remnanents of anything, just a plain white skeleton. I've had BJD (very early days of my tank) in the past and only lost 2 heads of a hammer and I found that quite a bit of the slime was left behind. I see what you mean though with the brown pieces of flesh/jelly in between the scutes. Once that coral had bailed out, it was just a white skeleton with no remnants.

It's possible some did a polyp bailout and others have some bacteria infection going on. Perhaps they got stressed with the leather and caused some bailout and others susceptible to infection? Hard to say but I have leathers and softies of all sorts and have no problem with the stony corals and I am not that rigorous with my water changes and carbon refreshing.
The way it has progressed from one to the other leads me more to think something infectious. Maybe not BJD exactly but disease at least.

 

[Fin Jackson]

I

It's possible some did a polyp bailout and others have some bacteria infection going on. Perhaps they got stressed with the leather and caused some bailout and others susceptible to infection? Hard to say but I have leathers and softies of all sorts and have no problem with the stony corals and I am not that rigorous with my water changes and carbon refreshing.
The way it has progressed from one to the other leads me more to think something infectious. Maybe not BJD exactly but disease at least.

I agree that it is an infection or disease of some sort. It seems that overall once the coral gets it, there's no stopping it. I did try dipping but I had no success.

 

[Spare time]

I went to my LFS today to pick up carbon and test my water, and as I suspected my water was good on the trident test. Ive put the carbon in about an hour ago and hoping to see if that works. My LFS also told me about a flatworm outbreak they had a few years back where this exact thing happened, and a sixline wrasse fixed them up, so I bought one of them to just incase. I've had a look at threads on here that have had the same symptoms as mine and the results were not good. Completely decimated LPS populations, a few months where it kept coming back - the lot. It's really weird though because it's going through all my LPS from right to left, and a few other posts have found this aswell. Anyway, time will tell what goes on.

I'd disagree that 1 ppm nitrate is considered good

 

[Spare time]

Also, maybe consider adding dr tims eco balance