Need ADVICE / HELP right now.

[maus42]

Hey all,

Got a problem here that I know I probably can't do much about but since I've never had to deal with it directly I'm hoping a fellow experienced reefer out there can give me some advice I haven't thought of.

Two days ago I decided to do some tank re-arranging. It's a new tank, as corals adjust I'm find them they're permanent homes. It's at small tank, 30x12x12, no skimmer (turf scrubber instead), mostly LPS and softies with a few super easy SPS. I washed my hands per usual before doing any major work in the tank but this time SOMETHING remained. My tank started to slowly crash, nothing I haven't handled before. Turn off lights, big water change, wait, water change again, we're ok. I lost one coral, possibly two.

It's the second I'm worried about. It's my prized acan hillae pictured below. While working on the tank I gashed my hand on it pretty hard, going about 1/2 - 3/4 of 1mm deep into some thick skin on my palm. Minor tissue damage to the hillae and I could see a tiny spot of skeleton but this has also happened to me before and I've never lost a coral to it.

This time I'm seeing a very slow decline in the coral, every day more skeleton, less flesh. Not areas of total flesh loss (i'll take a current pic asap) but I'm seeing more and more of the septae popping out. It's also clearly spreading from the point of our collision. I would consider fragging for worst case scenario but at this point it's clear, as it's also been 36 hours since this happened, its affecting the entirety of the coral. BUT IT IS FIGHTING, and ******* if I won't do everything in my power to help.

The only thing I can think of is adding carbon filtration to the system. In a reactor so it's actually effectively using the carbon, might help scrub the toxin out of the water that the coral might expel and would guarantee any water it takes in to itself is clean.

I dose sponge power from ZeoVit even though it's a non zeovit system. The stuff does wonders for saving corals / helping heal frags / general health. Also amino acids and phol's but I'm out of the latter. Akl / Ca. controlled by B-ionic.

So... who's got a fresh idea out there for me. This is the coral that I'm losing;

 

[spspirate]

I wash my hands with only tap water then air dry completely to avoid anything..rearranging coral can stress them out to..too some point if a coral is having a bad day he may recede a bit or maybe RTN all together. How are you supplying adequate oxygen to the reef? Maybe you should relocate the the hillae to a more stable reef untill you can find the cause and run carbon in yours. Sounds like you just stressed him out a bit..will take a little while for him to bounce back. Dont think youll loose him..beautiful coral by the way.

 

[maus42]

Oh my hands were washed, the movement as stated was small and gradual to adjust the the coral over. The only reason it's a new tank is I downsized, so it's the same rock, water, and sand they already know. And just cause I have no skimmer doesnt mean I don't have a sump and that's plenty of dissolved 02. If it wasn't the fish wouldn't be doing a-ok right now.

My experience in the hobby is a bit more than your avg. reefer. I've owned my own store, I can I'd more coral correctly on the fly than anyone I know. I have never had a crash that I didnt save the majority of the corals. And I'm already the guy a lot of people call and message when they don't know what to do.

The problem is specific to the coral and was caused by me gashing my hand on it. Clearly you didn't read everything I wrote? Because I explained all this already. The recession is moving away from the point of contact, it's the only coral that isnt back to at least 95% health before the crash minus one small, very delicate SPS RTN'ing.

And moving to another tank is more shock right now than it needs. I'm confident in the ecosystem it's in, the problem is systemic to the coral alone now.

 

[maus42]

Oh yeah, and this coral has been in that spot for 2 months now, it wasnt one that was moved, and was thriving prior to this incident. The picture above is from last week...

 

[spspirate]

Just trying to help..have you tried dipping the coral in revive?

 

[maus42]

Sorry if the above reply was a bit agressive, that's not who I really am but this is affecting me pretty badly. The moment I saw the condition of the coral this morning put me in to a panic attack that still is not fully under control (thank god I have meds for anxiety / panic attacks, not good I'm so prone to them to need medication around).

I do have some revive and I have considered dipping it, but I've not much experience with that particular product so have been wary. I'm afraid of even moving it right now but that fear is likely unjustified for a revive dip. As soon as my body doesn't feel like every cell in my body is trying to rip itself free and escape at the same time, I'll try that. I also have a reactor lined up and I already have the carbon on hand, so that will be up in a few hours.

And thanks for replying, at least someone did :P

 

[maus42]

Hrm... seems that although the main mouth is taking it pretty badly, it and all the other small heads are holding out much better than the interceding tissue. I've seen chalices do this before and although they lose everything between corallites, the coral makes an eventual comeback. I'll take that as at least one sign of hope...

 

[dakotasreef]

I am not a LPS guy, but I would say go for the carbon. I would think it to have only positive results. I would also consider adding an airstone or something to help oxygenate the water like suggested above.

You would think that something minor like this would not cause such a reaction in this situation.

Good luck

 

[maus42]

Dakota,

Same, I've gashed my hands enough on coral and rock and it's ME that gets the nasty hand infection. Never the other way around. This is the first time I can think of in at least 5 years asking for help on any kind of problem. I doubt its low 02 but I don't have an orp probe on here and I have an airpump so I'll do that. But this tank has been up long enough that if low o2 was the issue problems would have already shown on some level across all corals and especially the fish.

I agree carbon is the #1 thing I can do right now and those plans are already in motion. Luckily we're talking about the slowest recession of tissue I've witnessed before so a few hours won't make a huge difference till the reactor is here and I get it online.

Reading up more on exactly what revive is and does (not finding alot) to see if it's even worth the time. If revive isn't going to have at least some chance of helping just the shock of out of tank, dip, back in tank is unwarranted IMHO and the coral will be better off staying put.

 

[dakotasreef]

I have used revive to dip new corals, but it is a coral cleanser. I agree with you, I do not know if I would pull the coral yet and stress it any more. I was thinking that if there was a high amount of Co2 that it might hinder the healing process of the coral. If it does continue to progress, then you might want to concider other options. But for now I would just continue the path you are on.

 

[maus42]

Thanks, helps to know a little I've done / doing everything I really can, but if I had just been that much more careful this would have never happened. I treat my care of my coral seriously, they're animals and my decades playing with different branches of zoology has showed me that on every level of evolution if it has any kind of nervous system they can at least feel pain. Pain is a survival mechanism, not a feature of conscious mind. So I know its suffering. And it's not getting better worse, perhaps a little faster, a little too much faster now. Still haven't given up yet though, I'll keep trying till that skeleton is covered is coralline.

And as to the revive I'm still against it at this point unless someone with experience using it in some kind of situation like this, which I doubt is going to happen, steps forward and says they had positive results. Or I find something, but at this point I doubt that too.

 

[maus42]

I mean the stuff does claim to help with RTN / STN but there's no science behind it that I can find. It's ingredients are not listed to know exactly whats in it. But im I'm about to say f!ck it.. it's STN'ing faster now. *sigh*. Voodoo juice lets go!

 

[Bio-nut]

Alright Shawn, This happened to Matt K (FNF)., and Jessy (jessycat) when she had her tank up in temecula. It took he and I quite a while to figure out but it was a bacterial out break. So the first thing that you need to do is stop feeding food that feed bacteria such as :Amino acids and sponge power. I would use some "chemi clean" as a biocide. In fact when Jessy broke down her tank she passed the infection to Ed (Barometer) when he offered to house her corals. When we treated Ed's system we pulled all the coral out and put in QT system with no rock after we had dipped them in a mixture of Revive and Mellafix. The recipe of the mixture came from Minh. which I am sure that he would be willing to share if you can get a hold of him. Corals made a noticable comeback after two weeks in QT. Just don't transfer and of the rock or sand into the QT system, it will have to be treated seperately. I hope that this helps. feel free to PM.

Ian

 

[maus42]

Ian, it's wonderful to hear from :P Too bad under the circumstances but yeah, ok then.

I already stopped use of sponge power / aminos since I did the big WC. But I'm curious, a bacterial break out? Did Matt and Jessy (both of whom I know very well so don't worry about which names you use) just have a single coral affected or the entire tank. I mean, I'm missing something here. All other coral that took any dmg when the crash started, which started right after I spent a couple hours hands in the tank and cutting myself on the coral we're talking about. After the WC everything that showed any injury has rebounded quickly, and most you can't even tell was in danger recently.

Anywho due to circumstance I dont have the extra tanks immediately on hand, the mellafix or chemi clean / equivalent. But did throw it in the revive dip which i do have with me. If it's alive tomorrow I'll continue to treat as you recommend.

I'm gonna talk to Ed about his personal experience too.

 

[CoralBandit]

try an iodine dip they work pretty well with LPS, you may need to do multiple dips. Does it have a brown gelatinous edge where the die off is?

 

[CoralBandit]

a damaged coral can get infected just like we can get a staph infection or necrotizing fasciiitis from an open wound, you need to stop it. If its brown jelly that sucks b/c i couldnt stop it even when fragging. But If I were you and its not looking like a favorable result, frag the most distal piece and toss the rest and be glad you were able to have a frag of the most ****** hillae i've ever seen. Good luck bud I hope the best.

 

[maus42]

Jellying, thank gods.

 

[maus42]

Not jellying, sorry.

Update: After the revive dip the coral looked like it had lost a little a more tissue. No big deal, that's the stuff that was about to fall off anyways. The coral is no longer continuing to STN with all the heads having some flesh, including 12 at the top that look quite good. There's tissue along the entire edge and top of the coral that looks quite healthy. There skeleton is showing just a wee bit more than before I went to sleep but no big deal, we're talking fractions of a mm here. Also, no visible tissue sloughing off anymore. Most of the area between the heads has lost its surface skin. But the underlying tissue is still there and dare I say it, it looks pretty healthy.

So, overall, I think there'a much better chance at recovery. Carbon didn't come through but should today.

 

[maus42]

Coral Diver, thanks for the compliment on the hillae. Although I get that a lot :P

What's sad is that picture, although taken a week or so before this, was just an update shot of it recovering all it's color. The tissue between the heads is actually a blue / purple mix you have to see, I can't describe it. 3 more months or so and it would have looked ******. Unfortunately I have never been able to get it to look like this.

Here's the picture of when It first came in. It just GLOWED. The glow has been lost but the color variation, and the number of different colors has increased such I think it looks better now than this. Although I'd love that glow again.

 

[maus42]

I wish I had taken pictures of the damage the coral has taken over time but I was to preoccupied trying to save it :P But this morning, about 36 hours since the dip, I'm seeing tissue regrowth from the mouths and the edge of the coral back in. Still a see a bit more skeleton in on area of the coral but overall it looks like its on the mend... *fingers crossed, knocks on wood*