War Coral Trouble

[VR28man]

ETA: more pics

Hey all,

Suddenly, my war coral (green mouths, red/blue body, Favites pentagona) seems to be suffering STN, or bleaching, or somesuch.

Some amount of tissue has turned almost pure white. One bit even looked a bit like a fungus type of a white thing, but I'm unsure. It seems to be on the tissue itself.

A few days ago (3 days ago I think), I noticed a few white smallish (relativey) white spots on the coral.

As of this morning, it was still at that point, maybe had gotten better.

But when I just got home, the white spots had become much bigger. There are now two largish one, and one quite long one. They look fungus-like, except that I poked them a bit and they seemed hard.

Any thoughts on what's going on and what to do appreciated. I may give it a CoralRx treatment and move it to a place with a bit more flow.

Here's what it looked like this morning (see further down in the video).




History:

• Obtained around Christmastime
• Has grown fairly well. No problems to until Friday
• Lighting is a Kessil 360, usually gone up to around 80% in a 18" deep Petco 29G
• Previously, water paramaters were bad: I had a GHA and cyano problem. Now, it's gone, and for a while parameters were down to around 1ppm NO3 and 0.9ppm phosphate. As of the past two weeks, they went up to ~10ppm NO3 and (grrr;Rage) 0.17ppm phosphate (Salifert and Hanna checker)
• Alkalinity has, as of the past two weeks, been stable at around 170ppm/9.5 dkh (Hanna PPM checker, whcih is why I think in PPM)
• Salinity is 33-35ppt
• I have moved the war coral around, because of rescaping and because for a while the location was clearly not optimal (too much flow)
• for the past month, it's been about 4 inches from a set of (very well growing) green implosion palys (palythoa mutuki)

In all this time, it's grown fairly well. I placed it on a rock, buried up to its bottom in the sand, to make it grow massive/brain style. I have noted growth in size, as well as (mostly) in the number of polyps.

What I've done in the past week:

• add a BTA a week ago
• turned lights down to acclimation mode on the Kessil controller
• turned flow to like 20% for the BTA’s acclimation, to include turning off my gyre completely. Flow did not go back up until Saturday, at about 66% pre-BTA flow, using the same patterns.
• fed the war coral and a gorgonian last night - RS reef nutrition
• added ~0.2ml baking soda in RODI to raise Alk. Alk is now around 168ppm/9.4 dkh
• unclogged the skimmer saturday. Saturday there was an enormous amount of moderately heavy skimmate. Sunday, I'm not running it as heavy, but there's still a good amount more modest skimmate. Today, there's even less and the skimmate is clearer.
• scraped off a good amount of purple/green coralline and other green algae off the glass last (Saturday) night. This was enough to put a decent amount of stuff into the water column, which is all gone now.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

It almost looks as if it was stung. It also does look like you've made quite a few quick changes to the tank lately and have had some nutrient fluctuations, which together may be causing the issue. Corals crave stability right after good water quality and adequate lighting.

 

[VR28man]

Thanks, nautical Nathaniel!

Quick am update from my phone: some of the white spots appear to have “healed”.

I will be researching bta chemical warfare.

I am also considering my options – I’m not sure that the location was optimum for the coral even before. The BTA is on the other side of the tank, but the palys are pretty close. Something I was worried about for this location in the first place, but for the past three weeks there seems to be no problems until this weekend.

But I’m still going to do this carefully And thoughtfully, since again I don’t want to be moving it around all the time.

 

[VR28man]

Did a Coral RX dip last night (followed the instructions of course) and on return placed it a few inches further from the palys.

Looks like its Condition is unchanged Over the past day or two.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Definitely looked as though it was stung by another coral. These guys are really hardy in my experience. In fact, I had one in my gorg tank that went down to one head and when I removed to new tank, it is now 3" across and rounded down in ball form.

 

[VR28man]

Yeah, but there’s nothing else in the tank that it’s in contact with.

So, if that’s the case, it must be something, possibly chemical warfare related, in the water column. Which might explain my BTA problems in another thread in the clown fish and anemone forum......

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-bta-jitters.381961/

 

[mahindra.dev]

Try iodine dip. I recently lost a torch head and everyone suggested iodine dip the other part of the coral. I did and it seems to be doing better.

 

[DeniseAndy]

The gorg you have could be the culprit. Do you run carbon? If not, start. Gorgs are great at chemical warfare and usually win.

 

[VR28man]

The gorg you have could be the culprit. Do you run carbon? If not, start. Gorgs are great at chemical warfare and usually win.

!!!!???????? Wow, hadn’t thought of that!!!

Julian sprungs book on corals, as I recall, said that the species (Pterogorgia anceps) was fairly peaceful. It’s also been in the tank for like three months, with no problems.

But, who really knows? The book is old, and all kinds of things happen. I’ll look into this later, since unfortunately I’m already late for work. I am thinking about going and getting some carbon tonight.......

 

[VR28man]

@DeniseAndy

Thanks again for your post. I did some research. First, Julian Sprung's old book on corals does rate most PS gorgonians as "lowest" in aggressiveness. (the species Pseudoplexaura gets a 3/10, FWIW). I did some googling on my specific species (Pterogorgia anceps, trade names purple ribbon, angular sea whip, and a few others) and found that they are chemically active, as a feeding deterrent. Your experience seems to show that some/many gorgonians can be even more chemically active.

There is a skunk cleaner shrimp that likes harassing soft things to look for food. S/he greedily seeks out food, every time the tank lid is open, and harasses soft things like hands, anemones, and gorgonians. I am thinking of removing or breeder boxing the shrimp for a bit, to see if that makes things calmer.

But again, I've had the gorgonian since january and the war coral since December, and this is the first time that I've noticed the war coral showing any signs of stress. But I did have a mysterious sudden pocillopora die off a few weeks ago - a colony was doing well, and then suddenly STN'd. Both the pocillopra and the war coral are down stream of the flow from the gorgonian.

Hmmmm....... I think I will start running carbon, but I will research it a bit because I recall some people do not advocate it, and I want to be very deliberate in what I do.

 

[DeniseAndy]

It can take until the gorgonia settles before you notice any issues. Once they begin to grow it can cause more. Due to the many species I have, I cannot be sure which are the worst except I know a few main culprits. Try to keep the gorg at the back of the flow if possible and add some carbon. It may or may not help. More later, running after kids.

 

[VR28man]

Update: things have gotten worse for the War Coral.

I did start running activated carbon, as much as a I can (bag in the "sump", a small overflow box in my sumpless system).

I tried first moving the coral to an area of low flow and low light. Things got worse; the area in the bottom right this photo died and is now rock. The other areas are worse, though not that bad. Overall, the prognosis for the top of the coral is bad.

I have moved it, as of a few days ago, back into the "main" area in an area that does not get direct light and flow, but still gets a good amount of light. Again, up until a few days after the BTA was introduced (and I started the "acclimation" lighting mode on the Kessil, the coral was growing excellently. Water conditions have improved; heavy skimming, a water change, a suck up of lots of detritus, and the addition of chaeto (and a light) has dropped nitrates to 5ppm and phospate to around 0.07.

I've moved the gorgonian, and the palys, away from the war coral. Still not looking good. However, at least the area on the bottom still looks OK.

I am honestly thinking of temporarily removing the gorg. Next step might be moving the war coral into a hospital tank of some sort.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Does look a lot worse. I am sorry. These guys can recover fast if we figure out the problem. I used them to test my gorg toxicity a lot. They bounce back nicely in the correct environment. Wish I knew how to help. Sound like in a good place with good parameters. Scrub the algae off the coral with very soft toothbrush if you can. Helps heal those areas. Algae gets a foothold otherwise and out competes the coral.

If you can remove the gorg and place in another tank for a while. Maybe a month or so and see if the coral recovers, if it does, could be the issue. Of course, nothing is that easy to say what is the true cause, but if it helps, it helps.