LPS Corals all receding: currently battling prorocentrum dinos

[Lavey29]

What sort of cadence would you recommend with something like that in this case? Is this a weekly thing?

I dose PNS probio weekly at a max amount. Some people do weekly others choose smaller amounts spread out during the week. Just keep track of nutrients levels dosing heterotrophic bacteria. It can lower levels but in my tank it just keeps things well balanced. I have a few small patches of dinos in the sand here and there that come and go. I can't really do much because the tank is wall to wall corals so I rely on pods and good bacteria to maintain the environment. Dinos are in every tank but if the biome is strong and balanced then dinos never get the opportunity to establish. This is just my opinion from research of course.

 

[testuser]

Back to the hammer: it looked better in the morning after dosing alk and calc last night. However, after I guess disturbing it during the water change (removing dinos floating around it), replacing the carbon, dosing magnesium, and dosing Waste Away, it's now back to what it was last night but a little bit worse.

All of the water chemistry looks fine now though, including salinity. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Also, the magnesium was the correct level per the Aquaforest salt that came with my tank, but I get that it can sometimes be desired to be higher.

 

[testuser]

I dose PNS probio weekly at a max amount. Some people do weekly others choose smaller amounts spread out during the week. Just keep track of nutrients levels dosing heterotrophic bacteria. It can lower levels but in my tank it just keeps things well balanced. I have a few small patches of dinos in the sand here and there that come and go. I can't really do much because the tank is wall to wall corals so I rely on pods and good bacteria to maintain the environment. Dinos are in every tank but if the biome is strong and balanced then dinos never get the opportunity to establish. This is just my opinion from research of course.

Unfortunately, the hammer polyp bailed out and oddly enough, all of the corals look distressed. Does the hammer release toxins when bailing out? All of my parameters look fine, so this is pretty upsetting. I'm still in the camp that the dinos have been irritating the corals. Very disappointing... Even the Florida Ricordea are all shriveled up after the event. I'm hoping that the rest at least go back to normal, because this is getting ridiculous.

 

[Lavey29]

Unfortunately, the hammer polyp bailed out and oddly enough, all of the corals look distressed. Does the hammer release toxins when bailing out? All of my parameters look fine, so this is pretty upsetting. I'm still in the camp that the dinos have been irritating the corals. Very disappointing... Even the Florida Ricordea are all shriveled up after the event. I'm hoping that the rest at least go back to normal, because this is getting ridiculous.

Unfortunately as I mentioned, corals can be under stress for weeks or months before all of a sudden you start to see the outward signs of decline. You can siphon the sand daily into a sock without a water change but keep up weekly water changes maybe a sand sifting goby could help too or a conch. Maintaing proper parameters is critical to include light and flow. Dosing good bacteria to outcompete the bad guys. Pods and phytoplankton. Hammer will not release any toxin but dying corals can add ammonia to the tank in minimal levels.

 

[testuser]

Unfortunately as I mentioned, corals can be under stress for weeks or months before all of a sudden you start to see the outward signs of decline. You can siphon the sand daily into a sock without a water change but keep up weekly water changes maybe a sand sifting goby could help too or a conch. Maintaing proper parameters is critical to include light and flow. Dosing good bacteria to outcompete the bad guys. Pods and phytoplankton. Hammer will not release any toxin but dying corals can add ammonia to the tank in minimal levels.

I'll keep dosing Waste Away but look into what you said, as well as silica in order to get diatoms eventually. I naturally have copepods in my tank by the way. As for the sand, I'll manually sift it daily and do a weekly water change. I have a nassarius snail, but it does nothing useful.

Any idea why all of the corals all at once (within the hour of the event of the polyps bailout) all showed upset signs when looking perfect before? Ammonia related potentially?

 

[kevgib67]

Have you gotten your magnesium and calcium up to the levels that @Lavey29 suggested? I put my money on the low levels of calcium and magnesium as the major driver of your lps decline.

 

[testuser]

Have you gotten your magnesium and calcium up to the levels that @Lavey29 suggested? I put my money on the low levels of calcium and magnesium as the major driver of your lps decline.

Ehhhh, it's a bit contradictory and frustrating since those are exactly the levels of my salt from Aquaforest for LPS corals and maintaining 1.026 for salinity... I highly doubt that's the reason. Yes, I raised the levels of both beyond that of the salt, but the polyp already bailed out. Given that this happened last time when I had prorocentrum dinos as well, I wouldn't doubt that it's the same issue again.

I thought that I got rid of them before, as they were gone for 2 weeks. Places in the new corals and prorocentrum was back 2 days later. These are the worst. I'll keep up with the bacteria, silica for diatoms, spot removal when I can, look into Algae Barn for what Lavey29 said, and pray. Mack's Facebook page for dinos did not recommend anything else besides silica for diatoms by the way.

 

[Lavey29]

I'll keep dosing Waste Away but look into what you said, as well as silica in order to get diatoms eventually. I naturally have copepods in my tank by the way. As for the sand, I'll manually sift it daily and do a weekly water change. I have a nassarius snail, but it does nothing useful.

Any idea why all of the corals all at once (within the hour of the event of the polyps bailout) all showed upset signs when looking perfect before? Ammonia related potentially?

Corals can actually use ammonia so that's not the issue but of course ammonia spike is bad for fish and inverts. Sometimes something happens in the tank that upsets corals and they close up briefly or a day maybe but the situation corrects itself. It's obvious your tank has been out of balance for an extended period of time as evidenced by the dino increase and your stated parameters. So the corals have been struggling and now show the decline. Some should pull through and some won't if you get your parameters corrected.

 

[testuser]

Corals can actually use ammonia so that's not the issue but of course ammonia spike is bad for fish and inverts. Sometimes something happens in the tank that upsets corals and they close up briefly or a day maybe but the situation corrects itself. It's obvious your tank has been out of balance for an extended period of time as evidenced by the dino increase and your stated parameters. So the corals have been struggling and now show the decline. Some should pull through and some won't if you get your parameters corrected.

Parameters such as phosphates being bottomed out only up until a week or two ago I imagine. Assuming that's what caused the dinos, and as you said, they could have been silently suffering from the imbalance all this time, that hammer was bound to go. I have automatic dosing on now with hopefully balanced nitrates and phosphates, which I struggled with for a very long time before.

 

[Lavey29]

Parameters such as phosphates being bottomed out only up until a week or two ago I imagine. Assuming that's what caused the dinos, and as you said, they could have been silently suffering from the imbalance all this time, that hammer was bound to go. I have automatic dosing on now with hopefully balanced nitrates and phosphates, which I struggled with for a very long time before.

We've all been there too

 

[slingfox]

Since it looks like most of your corals are goners have you considered scrubbing down the rocks and siphoning out and washing the top layer of sand? Do this every day for 2+ weeks straight if needed. If you can remove large amounts of dinos every day while dosing bacteria/phyto/pods/silica while running UV etc. the hope is micro biome other than dinos can start to tip the balance. I have been doing this (except I don't do daily pods dosing---I have only done that once a week and plan to stop for now due to cost) for the last few weeks and now cyano and GHA are outcompeting dinos and there has gradually been less and less ugly regrowth every day.

 

[testuser]

Since it looks like most of your corals are goners have you considered scrubbing down the rocks and siphoning out and washing the top layer of sand? Do this every day for 2+ weeks straight if needed. If you can remove large amounts of dinos every day while dosing bacteria/phyto/pods/silica while running UV etc. the hope is micro biome other than dinos can start to tip the balance. I have been doing this (except I don't do daily pods dosing---I have only done that once a week and plan to stop for now due to cost) for the last few weeks and now cyano and GHA are outcompeting dinos and there has gradually been less and less ugly regrowth every day.

Only the one was a goner. I did something similar to this though prior to my new batch of corals with no luck. Diatoms are the only answer.