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

 

[CHSUB]

The rock looks new? Is this a newly set up tank? I would put it back to where it was thriving.

 

[sassyonmane]

The rock looks new? Is this a newly set up tank? I would put it back to where it was thriving.

Its a tank setup with 80% liverock, the section where I put the sun coral is a nps section I made that is fully shaded and has barely any light, but a few of the rocks were originally dry rock yes but all cycled in sump of my established tank for months.

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

Yesterday i did the dropping food directly on the polyp craters and i think it accepted them slowly, I will continue to do this and start using shrimp soaked in amino acids.

I dont think leaving it be to starve would be a good idea, sun corals usually need to be fed daily in captivity and will starve otherwise, Should i start mixing in reefroids into the shrimp paste?

 

[PolypPocket]

The rock looks new? Is this a newly set up tank? I would put it back to where it was thriving.

Its a tank setup with 80% liverock, the section where I put the sun coral is a nps section I made that is fully shaded and has barely any light, but a few of the rocks were originally dry rock yes but all cycled in sump of my established tank for months.

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

Yesterday i did the dropping food directly on the polyp craters and i think it accepted them slowly, I will continue to do this and start using shrimp soaked in amino acids.

I dont think leaving it be to starve would be a good idea, sun corals usually need to be fed daily in captivity and will starve otherwise, Should i start mixing in reefroids into the shrimp paste?

That’s good news if it accepted food! Did you end up moving it back to the original tank or no?

Wishing you luck!!

 

[sassyonmane]

That’s good news if it accepted food! Did you end up moving it back to the original tank or no?

Wishing you luck!!

I might keep it in the tank I moved it to for now, just so it dosent cause any extra stress of being moved to a new environment then back, if I dont see any clear progress i will move it back to the original tank.

 

[PolypPocket]

That’s good news if it accepted food! Did you end up moving it back to the original tank or no?

Wishing you luck!!

I might keep it in the tank I moved it to for now, just so it dosent cause any extra stress of being moved to a new environment then back, if I dont see any clear progress i will move it back to the original tank.

Update us in a few weeks, I’m invested now

 

[sassyonmane]

Update us in a few weeks, I’m invested now

Update: did a heavy feeding last night, already starting to see much better results, alot of the heads are extending little yellow tentacles now but still not full inflation yet, just blowing shrimp all over the colony with a turkey baster and then moving the pieces around until theyre in each "crater"

 

[PolypPocket]

Update us in a few weeks, I’m invested now

Update: did a heavy feeding last night, already starting to see much better results, alot of the heads are extending little yellow tentacles now but still not full inflation yet, just blowing shrimp all over the colony with a turkey baster and then moving the pieces around until theyre in each "crater"

That’s awesome!!

 

[sassyonmane]

That’s awesome!!

I don’t know why?

Put it back to where it was thriving.

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

Just out of curiosity, I tested the plankton / food source theory I had, i put it back into the old tank and the same night it started having strong polyp inflation and last night all the polyps opened back up fully to feed.
Seems that my smaller / older tank has a population of plankton or some sort of food that the sun coral feeds on.

 

[KrisReef]

Very interesting update! Thanks for keeping this thread updated.

 

[PolypPocket]

That’s awesome!!

I don’t know why?

Put it back to where it was thriving.

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

Just out of curiosity, I tested the plankton / food source theory I had, i put it back into the old tank and the same night it started having strong polyp inflation and last night all the polyps opened back up fully to feed.
Seems that my smaller / older tank has a population of plankton or some sort of food that the sun coral feeds on.

That’s so interesting, there must be some tiny difference (to us) that is a big deal to them. Like you said maybe some food source.

Thanks for updating!

 

[sassyonmane]

Very interesting update! Thanks for keeping this thread updated.

That’s so interesting, there must be some tiny difference (to us) that is a big deal to them. Like you said maybe some food source.

Thanks for updating!

hey guys!,

Probably the final update for this

Sun coral has fully bounced back and recovered :)

 

[sassyonmane]

Regarding the plankton / food source theory I will try to figure out what caused the sudden change in health from different tanks,

Perhaps maybe its even the salt used?
The salt i was using in the smaller tank (tank where it was happy) is a cheap chinese brand that has no trace elements and anything, pretty much can only be used for fowlr tanks from what ive heard and the tank relies on two part dosing, the salt used in the large tank where it was unhappy was a mix of about 0.8ppm salinity of red sea blue bucket and the rest up to 1.025ppm with quantum's LPS probiotic salt (the mixture is due to me running out of salt mix when I was setting up the tank)


Another theory I have is, the smaller tank has been setup for much much longer, most of the corals in there are wild (and also from other peoples tanks) and for the longest time ever, I was adding in water from LFS and from other reefer's tanks straight into my tank when adding new corals (yikes), this only caused me to have bubble algae and ulva (to my knowledge)
I also had added in some sea shells with corraline algae, snails and some random rocks I found from tidepools into the tank so maybe there was a food source / plankton that was carried in through that?

Another major difference is, the smaller reef tank has much higher nitrates and phosphates, phosphates at 0.4 or 0.5 last time I checked, although with my stocking in my new larger reef tank I wouldin't be surprised if the nitrates and phosphates were high in there too.

If I do figure out what the major difference is, I will post it onto this thread again :)