Pest or bacterial? Wierd flash loss on sps

[Vanquishxxx]

So I have had some wierd flesh loss on my corals lately in my qt. Nothing has been addded in about 6 months. Tank was treated with interceptor at double dosage for 48 hours 1 time a week for 3 weeks. About 3 months ago for red bugs. Conditioned seemed to heal up but now is back. I assumed it was the red bugs cause I thought I saw them. Now I am not sure it was red bugs. Anyone ever seen markings like this? Was told by someone it’s bacterial, not pest related. It’s on some frags which were in seperate parts of the tank. All the same coral. So bacterial isn’t out of the question but curious if anyone has some jnsite.

 

[Vanquishxxx]

Forgot to mention polyp extension was and has been at 110% (crazy good) so didn’t seem to be annoyed

 

[jda]

You sure that is tissue necrosis and not just contrast in the tissue due to shadowing or just natural color... like a coral that will just want to have lighter/whiter stalks? Tissue loss would show bare skeleton that eventually grows algae on it. Pests usually show bite marks and I don't see any of these. It totally could be tissue loss and I might not be able to tell in the photos.

FWIW, and people usually don't injest this and just scoff and move on, but acropora can have lots of PE and be suffering. They only have to use the polyps for gas exchange and there are reasons why the polyps might be out a lot from not being able to respire very well - significantly out of whack pH (usually from a chemical), too high of residual N and P or too much ammonia, for examples. Quick and massives changes in PE, either way, usually need sorted. Color and growth are better indicators of health.

In any case, bump for more eyes and maybe opinions.

 

[Vanquishxxx]

Yea I have no idea. It doesn’t look like pests for the most part. Appreciate the input. Anything helps

 

[Vanquishxxx]

Bump for some input

 

[xjiang7]

Agree with jda, looks normal.

 

[jmwreef]

I'm not remotely an expert, like jda and others are, but I've been growing acros pretty well for about 4 years. Sometimes I think they just look funky -- maybe bacterial (I guess) or something else. For me, as long as I've totally ruled out pests, and there's no actual tissue loss, and it's not spreading to anything, I've learned just to ignore it and to try to keep the system healthy and happy. Here's a picture of my purple monster. It's had this very same white patch, no kidding, for the last three years (slow grower!). When the frag was much smaller it used to freak me out. But the coral grows fine. It's been dipped many many times. I suppose it probably was damaged at some point and just ended up that way.