Skin peeling off birdsnest

[Theelderfox2]

Has any one ever seen this before? The skin is peeling off my birdsnest coral? And ideas

 

[tbrown]

There's no picture.

What are your parameters? Alkalinity, magnesium, calcium, nitrates, phosphates, pH, etc?

 

[dloberry]

I have seen this and have not figured out why. Mine just lost all the polyps, which basically means all the skin. I have a few polups left and hoping it comes back. My lighting is the same it has been for months. My parameters are nearly perfect at least in my tank.

Alk is 9.3
Mag is 1325-1350
Calcium is 420-450
Ph is 8.3-8.4
Nitates hover around 12
Phospahates hkver around .03

 

[Mebbid]

Could be a lot of things. Your tank is only a few months old, so some hiccups in getting things stable can be expected. Without more information it's hard to tell what happened. Need to know parameters, time frame this happened over, what your process ws for adding it to the tank, really anything you can think to add.

But some things to look at:
Poor shipping
Acclimation issues
Coral dips
Swinging parameters
Getting stung by other corals
Too much light

 

[Theelderfox2]

 

[Theelderfox2]

I think it maybe a salinity issue. Here is the problem I found with my im 25 lagoon. I have been running filter floss in my media baskets. (The nice acrylic ones I forget the name) my filter floss has over time clogged the overflow. Not completely but enough to cause the display’s water level to rise. This then causes the water level in the rear return chamber to drop. Ato kicks in more than it should. I change the filter floss, the water flows more quickly though the fresh floss. Water level goes down in the display. I check water level in the rear chambers. The level is way higher, over the middle baffles. I change the floss every 2-3 days. Over time im losing salinity.

I wonder if anyone else has come across this problem on an aio tank.

For now i just pulled the floss and am just running a small bag of carbon, two heaters, and two bags of established rubble I received from a fellow reefer. I may use a drop in uv sterilizer if my water clarity dips.

 

[Theelderfox2]

Also I had a battle with what I thought were Dino’s for a month. Stripped nitrate and phosphate. I dosed them back up. Kept battling the Dino’s. The Dino’s turned a hint of reddish. I thought maybe they weren’t Dino’s. I dosed chemiclean, maybe it was cyano. BAM whole tank clean as a whistle in 4 days.

After the chemiclean treatment is when the birdsnest started peeling and im noticing a dulling green slimer. So weird after treatment some corals look better some worse.

Current parameters.
Salinity 34 ppt slowly raising w/o filter floss
Nitrate 10-20
Phosphate .01
Calcium 450
Alk 9.8-10.4 (alittle high for my liking)
Mag 1400


I think alk jumped from the lack of algae/ cyano. I think it was effectively buffering it down. When the cyano/dinos were present. I was pretty stable around 9.0-9.4

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Your PO4 at 0.01 is probably the problem. They are starved. Get it up to ~0.08-0.1. There is a big misconception that low PO4 is the way to go with SPS. Moderate nutrients + trace availability is what lets them thrive.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

Also I had a battle with what I thought were Dino’s for a month. Stripped nitrate and phosphate. I dosed them back up. Kept battling the Dino’s. The Dino’s turned a hint of reddish. I thought maybe they weren’t Dino’s. I dosed chemiclean, maybe it was cyano. BAM whole tank clean as a whistle in 4 days.

After the chemiclean treatment is when the birdsnest started peeling and im noticing a dulling green slimer. So weird after treatment some corals look better some worse.

Current parameters.
Salinity 34 ppt slowly raising w/o filter floss
Nitrate 10-20
Phosphate .01
Calcium 450
Alk 9.8-10.4 (alittle high for my liking)
Mag 1400


I think alk jumped from the lack of algae/ cyano. I think it was effectively buffering it down. When the cyano/dinos were present. I was pretty stable around 9.0-9.4

Chemiclean is the WORST thing to do in a new tank. You are nuking your microfauna and bacteria which the corals MUST HAVE to convert nutrients to something they can use. That's probably another reason for the deaths.

 

[higher99]

I think it maybe a salinity issue. Here is the problem I found with my im 25 lagoon. I have been running filter floss in my media baskets. (The nice acrylic ones I forget the name) my filter floss has over time clogged the overflow. Not completely but enough to cause the display’s water level to rise. This then causes the water level in the rear return chamber to drop. Ato kicks in more than it should. I change the filter floss, the water flows more quickly though the fresh floss. Water level goes down in the display. I check water level in the rear chambers. The level is way higher, over the middle baffles. I change the floss every 2-3 days. Over time im losing salinity.

I wonder if anyone else has come across this problem on an aio tank.

For now i just pulled the floss and am just running a small bag of carbon, two heaters, and two bags of established rubble I received from a fellow reefer. I may use a drop in uv sterilizer if my water clarity dips.

I don’t have SPS but I do have a IM25 Lagoon. This theory holds some weight…

Even the smallest movement like touching the media basket chamber triggers my tunze 3152.

The filter floss theory I’ve personally seen the ATO kick in when I change it.

Do you say we just keep the salinity at like 1.027 or something to combat some swings? That’s partially why I haven’t not gotten SPS for my tank yet. It’s such a small system with high bioload I don’t want to take any chances.

 

[rzimm33]

I had this happen in my early tank days when battling Dino’s. Couldn’t say if it was the Dino’s causing it, or the various treatments I attempted

 

[56longroof]

I don’t have SPS but I do have a IM25 Lagoon. This theory holds some weight…

Even the smallest movement like touching the media basket chamber triggers my tunze 3152.

The filter floss theory I’ve personally seen the ATO kick in when I change it.

Do you say we just keep the salinity at like 1.027 or something to combat some swings? That’s partially why I haven’t not gotten SPS for my tank yet. It’s such a small system with high bioload I don’t want to take any chances.

Shut the ATO off when you change out the filter floss. Add saltwater to restore the water level in the sump. This will keep your salinity in check.

 

[higher99]

I don’t have SPS but I do have a IM25 Lagoon. This theory holds some weight…

Even the smallest movement like touching the media basket chamber triggers my tunze 3152.

The filter floss theory I’ve personally seen the ATO kick in when I change it.

Do you say we just keep the salinity at like 1.027 or something to combat some swings? That’s partially why I haven’t not gotten SPS for my tank yet. It’s such a small system with high bioload I don’t want to take any chances.

Shut the ATO off when you change out the filter floss. Add saltwater to restore the water level in the sump. This will keep your salinity in check.

Yeah good call. My tunze has a safety feature where the pump would shut off and you would need to reset it anyways.

Overall I’d say the nano tanks are great. Small compacted and easy to to use

 

[tbrown]

Also I had a battle with what I thought were Dino’s for a month. Stripped nitrate and phosphate. I dosed them back up. Kept battling the Dino’s. The Dino’s turned a hint of reddish. I thought maybe they weren’t Dino’s. I dosed chemiclean, maybe it was cyano. BAM whole tank clean as a whistle in 4 days.

After the chemiclean treatment is when the birdsnest started peeling and im noticing a dulling green slimer. So weird after treatment some corals look better some worse.

Current parameters.
Salinity 34 ppt slowly raising w/o filter floss
Nitrate 10-20
Phosphate .01
Calcium 450
Alk 9.8-10.4 (alittle high for my liking)
Mag 1400


I think alk jumped from the lack of algae/ cyano. I think it was effectively buffering it down. When the cyano/dinos were present. I was pretty stable around 9.0-9.4

Your PO4 at 0.01 is probably the problem. They are starved. Get it up to ~0.08-0.1. There is a big misconception that low PO4 is the way to go with SPS. Moderate nutrients + trace availability is what lets them thrive.

I'm fairly certain Reginald is right on with this guess, especially with an alkalinity over 9. I have had similar with several different SPS when I let my alkalinity climb and phosphates fall.

 

[Theelderfox2]

Did a wc today. Will keep updated. I was able to get the salinity to 35 ppt. It seems much more stable without the floss. I ordered a tropic Marin hydrometer. Hopefully I can be certain about the salinity. I’m going to try to keep that stable then go from there maybe feed some reef roofs to boost phos. I also added a jebao 4 head doser for my aqua forest 3 in 1.