Sun coral necrosis?

[sassyonmane]

Unsure which section to post this in but I’ve had this sun coral for over a year, started off super small and I grew it out and was super healthy, extending every night until sunrise even without food but when I moved it to my other tank it was fine for 2 days then stopped opening and eventually had its tissue getting blown off when I turkey basted it leaving yellow dots all over it, what would cause this? And should I leave it or frag it or iodine dip or cipro dip it, should I move it back into the old tank?
In the old tank it was getting little to zero flow and in the new tank it was getting pretty high flow in the sump

 

[KrisReef]

I don’t know why?

Put it back to where it was thriving.

 

[PolypPocket]

You mentioned it had low flow before and high flow now. Maybe that was too much of a shock? What about parameters between the two tanks, are they vastly different? Light different? How did you acclimate it? Is there anything in the new tank that could be picking at it? These are just some things I’d ask myself if it were me.

I agree with Kris, move it back. But now it has to recover so it’s not going to show lots of improvement right away, be patient.

 

[sassyonmane]

You mentioned it had low flow before and high flow now. Maybe that was too much of a shock? What about parameters between the two tanks, are they vastly different? Light different? How did you acclimate it? Is there anything in the new tank that could be picking at it? These are just some things I’d ask myself if it were me.

I agree with Kris, move it back. But now it has to recover so it’s not going to show lots of improvement right away, be patient.

The only major parameter change would be nitrates and phosphates, but the two tanks are running on two different salts, would that cause the problem? and originally i put the sun coral into the other tank's sump hoping that it would be open 24/7 but once i noticed the tissue loss i moved it into a shaded spot in the display.
Could it be that there was some sort of plankton or something that it was filterfeeding in the old tank, hence why it opened every night? and in the new tank the plankton or foodsource was unavalible and caused it to starve? In the old tank i was feeding it once or sometimes twice a week and it was still healthy, extending and growing.

I gave it an iodine dip yesterday, would it be a good idea to move it back into the old tank or let it adjust to the new tank and give extra feedings / try to forcefeed by dropping some chopped up shrimp on it at night with the pumps off for a hour, yesterday one or two healthy polyps extended at night to feed and the others just barely peeked open but didnt puff up

 

[PolypPocket]

I have to preface this with telling you I’ve never kept sun corals specifically. But your question about the different salt is reasonable, however when you consider we buy corals from growers or stores that most likely don’t use the same salt we do I would conclude it’s probably not that. But possibly if you didn’t acclimate and just plopped it in there it could have had some shock which lowered its defenses.

Then it got hit with strong current and based on what you said, no light. I could be wrong there, but it’s what it sounded like being you thought it would be open 24/7. I know they aren’t photosynthetic but they may still need a day night cycle to function. Not sure.

And your theory on the possible food source being abundant in one tank and nonexistent in the other is plausible, which may not have caused the tissue melting but it could have further weakened it.

In my experience once the coral is in regeneration mode they don’t accept food and force feeding will probably cause more stress BUT like I said I don’t have experience with non-photosynthetic corals. So you could try to offer something extra smelly like raw shrimp, but don’t force it. If it doesn’t eat then let it recover for a while before trying again.

Hopefully someone else chimes in as well who has more experience.

@EnterName