Help needed!

[Reefsurfing]

Hey Reefers,

Like most of you, I love sps, and I personally have a dominated 90 gallon(6months-1yrold). Recently, I have had a problem and the water became extremely foggy and 3 of my 10 sps dont look hot. Nothing looks like it is STN'ing but defintely signs of being unhealthy. I have a Red Planet that has turned pasty white;still see some green but no red. My Joe the coral Has lost some minor pigment in its braches, nothing huge. Lastly my blue millie which is a newer addition to the tank has a brown side under its branch. After seeing that I decded to inspect the rest of my sps and all the undersides of my SPS are browning while the tops seem to retain the color. Everything still has full poly extension from the looks of it.

Now I attributed the cloudy water to a bacterial bloom and was figureing my sps are just ****** off b/c the cloudy water is ruining the par values. Just to be safe I figured I would ask the community your thoughts before I made that assumption. So, I moved the sps to the top of the tank on a frag rack. Previously they were located about 9inches from the surface.

Heres my setup/water parameters
Light- ATI 6x54 sunpower
Tank- 90gal AGA with 20H sump baffled and cheato for macro algea mag9.5 pump
Protein skimmer- Octo 150 dnwb
I run Carbon 24/7 in a mesh bag next to my mag pump
2korillias 1050s for flow
ALk-normal range- sorry that all my REd sesa test kit says for alk
PH-8.4
Nitrate-undetectable
Nitrite- Undetectable
Ammonia- I ran a test on a 3 year old red sea ammonia kit which has to be bad b/c its reading 1.0 and a few days earlier I had the LFS run ammonia and it was 0
Calcium-400-420
Phos-Undetectable

I just started feeding DT phytoplankton on ORA's Recommendation other than that I used to dose small amounts of purple up and Marine trace elements by red sea(Ithink these were the culprites of the bacterial bloom). It happened days after I started this red sea regiment was started.

Thats my setup;thanks for your time and advice. Lastly I guess I should ask is it TIME TO FREAK OUT? or just be patient?:nerd:

 

[inactive]

Red bugs.

 

[Reefsurfing]

Red bugs.

Dammitttttt! Ok whats my course of action and how urgent is it?

 

[NaClCrocodile]

Well make sure first. I assume you know what to look for? Other than that you'll need a vet to issue you a prescription for Interceptor. It's a heart worm medicine for dogs but there are many threads about it killing Red Bugs. Search a little and make sure that's what you've got.

 

[Reefsurfing]

I see something on my red planet, very small, red edges white center. Is that the dreaded red bug? and how long do I have to treat? On one vof the others I see what looks like a few bite marks. dangit

 

[Gazog]

Red bugs.

What makes you think its red bugs??

 

[johnanddawn]

doubt it is red bugs because you stated a bacterial bloom or something else caused foggy water - so that is likely the cause

now you say foggy because of a bacterial bloom - may be but i doubt that.
most likely either the purple up or the other stuff or the combination of the 2 caused a some type of Ca precipitation and through your params out of wack
- ie ALK spike Ca drop or something like that

color loss and stn are common symptoms of this sort of thing

problem with situations like this is the damage is done to your sps and even though you may not notice right away, and worse yet sometimes it continues for some time, it may take months to get back to normal.

in the mean time do a water change, get a better ALK test kit and try to keep the system stable to allow the sps to recover
i think that you should probably switch to two part if your going to keep sps - purple up really isn't the solution to Ca/ALK managment

and also it is pretty well documented that sps are carnivores so feeding phyto is not the best idea either - sps will NOT eat phyto so basically it just adds to the nutrient load with little positive return

 

[johnanddawn]

like i said i doubt your current prob can be attributed to bugs but, if you do find that you also have redbugs - here's a good thread

Melevsreef.com - Interceptor | Red Bug treatment

 

[inactive]

Just stating my gut feeling :D

 

[condor]

+1 on switching to a 2 part, and the water change. and new carbon is a good idea also. toss the purple up

 

[inactive]

Bed Rugs?

 

[condor]

come to think of it, does sound like the kh is through the roof

 

[Murfman]

High tank temp can make for O2 depletion and a cloudy tank as well. I didn't see your temp readings on the system.

 

[Eternal]

acropora eating flatworms?

Just a thought, but take a turkey baster and blow the coral off see if any flatworms come off.

 

[Reefsurfing]

I did an experiment with a small frag that a clipped about a month ago. I RO/DI Dipped it for 15 seconds and some stuff shook off of it(not xooanthalle) but skiiny long and white with just a few small specks. I did that before work and came back and the red planet frag looks better than the original colony. I see what look like just small nips in the flesh of the frag. I barely noticed them as they looked liked the white polyps retracted was all.
anyways thanks for the feedbacks.

 

[Reefsurfing]

Called ORA; Flatworms they say. What i descrbe shows no signs of red bugs. The cloudy water IS a algea bloom probably from a calc precip..............
They said dip it and watch make sure they all recover. Sounds good to me.

Thank you all for helping me out! Everyone suggestions gave me a lot more knowledge since I looked into all of them. That will save me down the road and for that I thank you again.

 

[smokenax]

don't panic take it slow, it will recover.