Sps acro tissue loss in spotty manor

0rangeFish

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A few of my arcos are losing tissue in a way I've never seen before. It's like the tissue is being scrubbed off and the dying flesh is white and are small fluffys. It doesn't look like rtn or stn I've seen in the past. Maybe it's super slow tissue necrosis over large areas? I'd like to try and stop it before the corals are fully gone, but I'm not sure if this is from a specific thing or many things and stress. I've had these corals for maybe 6 years, so they are not new corals.

I'm going to preface this with saying, I am really bad at doing water changes, usually doing them once every 3-4 months. I also don't test much unless I see things going bad (I know, terrible habits). I do dose the tank with a homemade 2 part daily and weekly dose homemade magnesium solution along with red sea's trace elements A-D weekly.

I have a 75 gallon display and 15 gallon sump. It has been up for 2 years after I moved, so the tank contents are very old (minus the sand). A week ago I did two 40% water changes one day after the other as my nitrates were very high (80ppm). I also added PhosGuard and changed out my carbon. I was going to do another water change just now and noticed the corals losing tissue. So far it's just the red planet arco (all 4 different colonies) and green slimer acro (one of two colonies). My other acros and sps coral are ok so far. Actually, my psammocora has gained back color already, going from brown to green. Two of the red planets have polyp extension and all slimers have polyp extension. I also changed my lighting time as the corals in my tank were all brown, going from 10 hours of light at 50% overall intensity to 6 hours of light at 70% overall intensity (3 radion xr15 G6). Maybe it's the light change, maybe it's the change in levels from the water changes, maybe something else. I'm not really sure. Any ideas what it might be or what I should do?

My ph test kit was bad, so couldn't test that. All these kits are new, a mix of salifert and aquaforestkits. My goal was to get nirates down to 10ppm, phosphate to .03, and KH up to 8. The KH is going to take a lot more time though.

Current parameters:
Phosphates: 0.25 ppm
Nitrates: 20 ppm
KH: 4.2
Mg: 1290 ppm
Ca: 380 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Temp: 80 F
Salinity: 1.025

Parameters 1 week ago:
Phosphates: 0.5 ppm
Nitrates: 80 ppm
KH: 4.5
Mg: 1410 ppm
Ca: 415 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Temp: 81.5 F
Salinity: 1.025


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billyocean

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That's a whole lot of changes to be able to nail it down. Firstly, anything new added to the tank recently? Trying to rule out any pests
 
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0rangeFish

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That's a whole lot of changes to be able to nail it down. Firstly, anything new added to the tank recently? Trying to rule out any pests
About a month ago I did get 3 new sps corals and one conch. One coral died, but the other two are still fine. I cut them off the frag plugs they came on and gave them new plugs, visually inspected them, and added them to the tank. I had gotten corals from the lfs before no issues, but maybe that was my mistake. Now that I'm looking at them, the new echinata arco has the same speckled whiting on it's base area. It's on a frag rack still and is near the green slimers. There are also a ton of stylophora on the rack with no signs of the tissue loss. The red planets are all over the tank, none on the frag rack.
 

vetteguy53081

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A few of my arcos are losing tissue in a way I've never seen before. It's like the tissue is being scrubbed off and the dying flesh is white and are small fluffys. It doesn't look like rtn or stn I've seen in the past. Maybe it's super slow tissue necrosis over large areas? I'd like to try and stop it before the corals are fully gone, but I'm not sure if this is from a specific thing or many things and stress. I've had these corals for maybe 6 years, so they are not new corals.

I'm going to preface this with saying, I am really bad at doing water changes, usually doing them once every 3-4 months. I also don't test much unless I see things going bad (I know, terrible habits). I do dose the tank with a homemade 2 part daily and weekly dose homemade magnesium solution along with red sea's trace elements A-D weekly.

I have a 75 gallon display and 15 gallon sump. It has been up for 2 years after I moved, so the tank contents are very old (minus the sand). A week ago I did two 40% water changes one day after the other as my nitrates were very high (80ppm). I also added PhosGuard and changed out my carbon. I was going to do another water change just now and noticed the corals losing tissue. So far it's just the red planet arco (all 4 different colonies) and green slimer acro (one of two colonies). My other acros and sps coral are ok so far. Actually, my psammocora has gained back color already, going from brown to green. Two of the red planets have polyp extension and all slimers have polyp extension. I also changed my lighting time as the corals in my tank were all brown, going from 10 hours of light at 50% overall intensity to 6 hours of light at 70% overall intensity (3 radion xr15 G6). Maybe it's the light change, maybe it's the change in levels from the water changes, maybe something else. I'm not really sure. Any ideas what it might be or what I should do?

My ph test kit was bad, so couldn't test that. All these kits are new, a mix of salifert and aquaforestkits. My goal was to get nirates down to 10ppm, phosphate to .03, and KH up to 8. The KH is going to take a lot more time though.

Current parameters:
Phosphates: 0.25 ppm
Nitrates: 20 ppm
KH: 4.2
Mg: 1290 ppm
Ca: 380 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Temp: 80 F
Salinity: 1.025

Parameters 1 week ago:
Phosphates: 0.5 ppm
Nitrates: 80 ppm
KH: 4.5
Mg: 1410 ppm
Ca: 415 ppm
Ammonia: 0
Temp: 81.5 F
Salinity: 1.025


20230115_190941.jpg

20230115_191013.jpg

20230115_191358.jpg

20230115_191711.jpg
Known as tissue necrosis can be fast or slow. Can be a simple as a swing in temperature but for purposes of process of elimination, other causes are :
- Alkalinity spike
- Temperature spike
- Salinity spike
- Low dissolved oxygen
- Poor water quality related with phosphate levels up to 5 ppm
- Change in water flow
- Additions of sand
- Changes in brand of salt
- Bad test kits giving faulty results
- Levels of minor elements such as Iodine, Potassium, Strontium
- Light intensity
- - Changes in water flow
- Addition of new corals
- - Pesticides
- Airborne Contaminants or sprays

Things to start with is to assure temperature, salt, alk and pH are all within safe range testing every 48 hours to assure stability and cut off dead areas and re-frag good portion to prevent the speard of necrosis.
 
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0rangeFish

0rangeFish

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I pulled out the old magnify glass to inspect again. The white tissue thats falling off the corals looks like shrunk down mushroom guts. You know when you pull a mushroom coral out of water for a bit or poke it a lot, it'll spit up it's innards to lets you know it's not happy. That is was the white tissue looks like super up-close.

Looking through arco pests, maybe it's arco eating flatworms, but it's not really circle spots. I guess it can't hurt to treat with flatworm exit.

Aside from that I'll put the light back to the old settings at 50% intensity and slowly get it up to 70%. I will test alk, salt, temp, and ph everyday this week and see if any changes happen. I'd really rather not cut up my colonies if I can help it. I'll take a few frags off the large colonies, but the tissue loss on the big ones are randomly in the center, not on the base sadly.
 

vetteguy53081

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I pulled out the old magnify glass to inspect again. The white tissue thats falling off the corals looks like shrunk down mushroom guts. You know when you pull a mushroom coral out of water for a bit or poke it a lot, it'll spit up it's innards to lets you know it's not happy. That is was the white tissue looks like super up-close.

Looking through arco pests, maybe it's arco eating flatworms, but it's not really circle spots. I guess it can't hurt to treat with flatworm exit.

Aside from that I'll put the light back to the old settings at 50% intensity and slowly get it up to 70%. I will test alk, salt, temp, and ph everyday this week and see if any changes happen. I'd really rather not cut up my colonies if I can help it. I'll take a few frags off the large colonies, but the tissue loss on the big ones are randomly in the center, not on the base sadly.
Flatworm exit will help the coral even if none but at least you have a base to work with and eliminate items and become more familiar with causes
 

billyocean

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Flatworm Exit does not effect AEFW at all.
I was about to say this. There's a lot of information on treatment if you search. Hopefully it isn't that but if it is, treatment is laborious from what I've read. That's what it take though. I would dip an effected acro and baste it while in the dip to see if any flats come off. Of course, this could also be from swings in the tank as well.
 
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