Need Help: New Corals Bleaching with Mucous Coat

[ariellemermaid]

We got some new corals in 3 days ago and we’re now having some issues. Yesterday morning one of the new corals was half covered in a white stringy web-looking thing that was kind of flapping in the flow. I blew it off, only to find the coral below was bleached in that spot.

Very back middle; poor picture but you can see the far edge is bleached and the rest looks fine. (Ignore the white acro, it arrived that way) The only nearby coral potentially aggressive was a chalice at the time but they weren’t actually touching on the frag rack. Not sure what kind of coral it is; it was a bonus one. Small hairy polyps with yellow spots.

Well this morning on the complete opposite end of the coral rack from where that one originally was, my new acan was covered in what looked like a thick mucous; both polyps, and it looked like the coral itself produced it. Completely covered the polyps from side to side, not overflowing them, just right across the tops.

Unfortunately didn’t get a picture of the mucous itself, but this is what the coral looked like after I blew it off; bleached underneath with most of the red color loss. Keep in mind all day yesterday I was around this coral and it looked perfect with beautiful coloring, open polyps, etc. Now overnight half dead with mucous on it.

I don’t think it’s close enough to anything super aggressive that it would be warfare. The other acan has really short tentacles and besides, this mucous or web or whatever yesterday was on a different coral on a different side of the rack. So any ideas what’s killing my corals?!

Salinity 35ppt
Ph 8
Temp 77-78
Alk 8.01/Ca 435/Mg 1311
No ammonia/nitrites
Nitrates 5-10 and stable

 

[ariellemermaid]

Upon reflection I think what I’m looking at is RTN. It really seems like the coral just melted in less than 24 hours and the goop that was on top was just melted coral tissue. So, #reefsquad whats my next step? The tank is more stable now than its ever been with Apex and a Trident. Definitely don’t want this to spread to other corals. FYI, I used Seachem Reef Dip on all new corals.

 

[redfishbluefish]

This is a wild guess, but that guess is sweeper tentacles, more common to LPS.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I found this picture on Reef Builders of an orange Lobo attacking a green Scoly with sweeper tentacles.

Using a flashlight, check your tank after lights have been off for a couple hours. If you have a murderous coral in there, it's tentacles will be out looking for its next victim.

 

[ScottR]

Corals just sometimes don’t make it. You may never know why. Like redfishbluefish said, could me mesenterial filaments from a nearby coral at night (really, do look in at night). On a frag rack, we’re subjecting all corals to the same lighting. Usually on a frag rack. That’s higher light than they may be used to. It could be bacterial (RTN is believed to be bacterial).

 

[ariellemermaid]

Corals just sometimes don’t make it. You may never know why. Like redfishbluefish said, could me mesenterial filaments from a nearby coral at night (really, do look in at night). On a frag rack, we’re subjecting all corals to the same lighting. Usually on a frag rack. That’s higher light than they may be used to. It could be bacterial (RTN is believed to be bacterial).

My first thought was coral warfare because of buying some corals that are a bit more aggressive than what we’re used to- the acan’s and the chalice. I was thinking it could make sense with the first coral affected because it was right next to a chalice and because it was a web-like membrane coming from the same side as the chalice and only covering half the coral. When I blew it off the coral, below it looked normal but bleached. Kind of like the picture above, web-like, but without attachments to the chalice by the AM.

The acan was a little different though, I wish I’d grabbed a picture. Both polyps facing different directions had perfect little “caps” of blobs on the top not extending past the edges of the polyps. When I used a target feeder to blow it off, the coral below looks totally different, it’s like all the soft tissue completely dissolved, and there are black spots in the structure. Could this still fit aggression? Aside from the other acan, it’s surrounded only by rag tag zoa’s, a monti, and a ? stylophora. I have observed the acans at night but only seen very short little tentacles. Could the acan of the same size have completely dissolved the other one in like 12 hours? Given how small they are it seems like a long way to reach for total destruction. It is interesting it happened at night though, everything looked fine before lights out.

I’m just worried about RTN killing everything in the tank. Should I remove it just to be safe, or hold out hope for some chance of recovery?