What causes acans to "melt"?

Swooshjvm

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did it get stung by anything? i had that happen once and frog spawn was barely touching acan
 

Lilmatty5dimes

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+1 what's around it? I still think its brown jelly disease. It happened to a few of my acans and I had a friend say the same thing. But it was also his hammers and frogspawn.
 
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RalphsReef

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I feel your pain. I have lost so much $ in acans from them mysteriously melting (on several occasions), that I have basically sworn them off. And as they melt, nothing else is affected. We may never know why this is.
 

Andrew L

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just had one melting away so the skeleton was showing, dipped the guy and put him in high flow, just leaving him to rest now but will soon feed him and he should pop right back up.
 

CherryCorals

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IME white slime is usually from something physically damaging a coral, like when you frag a coral and it slimes up. You dont have a copperbanded butterfly or a hippo tang by chance? If you do just watch those fish and see if they are munching your acans those two I know can develop a taste for lps. I had a blue hippo turn on every lps in my tank and a friend who had a regal yellow belly blue hippo had one do the same thing. Not common but it does happen. That is just no fun I hope you get things turned around!

Agreed, the white slime usually hits freshly cut or damaged polyps. I haven't seen white fungal/bacterial attacks in over 4 years and never on something established.
 
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thewackyreefer

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Agreed, the white slime usually hits freshly cut or damaged polyps. I haven't seen white fungal/bacterial attacks in over 4 years and never on something established.

All I have in the tank is a cardinal, six line wrasse and banded coral shrimp. Nothing else near them that could be affecting them, unless they're all too close to each other?

At this point I've lost about 20 pieces and have about a dozen left...
 

Sugo

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All I have in the tank is a cardinal, six line wrasse and banded coral shrimp. Nothing else near them that could be affecting them, unless they're all too close to each other?

At this point I've lost about 20 pieces and have about a dozen left...

Really sorry to hear about your loss, I've admired your collection ever since I got into reefing.

Any updates/progress?

Dennis
 

EyeCatchingCoral

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It is hard to say exactly what is causing it without seeing it in person. I would make sure you are not having rapid swings in temp or salinity(also be careful that the salt is fully dissolved during water changes before adding the new water to the system). They are very sensitive to that and it will cause them to brown slime. Also if your temp is fluctuating a great deal that is not good. For example 80 during the day but only 72 at night. Also be sure the tank is not getting too hot at any point. Heat is much worse then cold for most coral. Hope this helps.
 

rossco

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I had a similar issue a year ago where otherwise healthy colonies would just recede until they were gone. The polyps would look healthy right up to the recession, even partial polyps would eat. The next day the half polyp that ate would have receded past the mouth. Out of desperation I took out two colonies and mixed up a dip of interceptor and put them in. As the pattern had been the same as yours, recession until they were gone, I left them in the dip overnight since there didn't seem much to lose. In the morning the colonies were opened wide polyps open and happy - in the dip cup! I put them back in the display and almost immediately they started growing back. Soon after I did 2 whole tank treatments with interceptor and the issue has not returned. All acans and scolys get a 2 to 3 hour interceptor dip before they enter the display now. Nothing scientific about it, but it worked for me.
 

-Logzor

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I haven't kept a lot of acans but I have seen the melting occur, only once. During this same time period a large favia of mine receded. This is only speculation but I think it could have been due to the grandis palys nearby, they have a powerful toxin. Do you have any of these in your system? All of my SPS were fine.
 

Filipino Reefer

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Same here I'm starting or had started acans melting not sure why, after reading this article, I'm beginning to believe it's my light hitting too strong. Well I'm going to try the iodine lugol's solution dip and go from there.
 

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Filipino Reefer

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Following update I got 2 of my acan colonies dead. I did dip I did light nothing changes I got 3 colonies left and 1 that's currently melting away. I do feel that there's maybe possible work that eat them.... I don't know what else to do ... no other tanks in my house so I guess whatever ... do you guys think a black widow nem can kill them acans?
 

Sharkbait19

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It seems like the melting is characteristic of brown jelly infection, which is a bacterial infection that can come from a coral being stressed, or sometimes occurs randomly. The best option is iodine dips and fragging off the healthy parts. The key is preventing it from spreading.
 

Dburr1014

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So, I received my results back from aquariumwatertesting.com today. Somehow, my salinity is at 1.030! According to my refracto (calibrated before every use) and a hydrometer it's at 1.026.

Here are my results.
ParameterTest SummaryResult
Ammonia (NH3-4)Good0
Nitrite (NO2)Good0.004
Nitrate (NO3)Good0.6
Phosphate (PO4)Good0.05
Silica (Sio2-3)Good0.4
Potassium (K)Low183
Ionic Calcium (Ca)Low98
Molybdenum (Mo)Good0.1
Strontium (Sr)Good8
Magnesium (Mg)High1513
Iodine (I)Good0.06
Copper (Cu)Good0.02
Alkalinity (meq/L)Good2.9
Total Calcium (Ca)Good435
This can do it.
No3 could use a bump too.
 

Filipino Reefer

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It seems like the melting is characteristic of brown jelly infection, which is a bacterial infection that can come from a coral being stressed, or sometimes occurs randomly. The best option is iodine dips and fragging off the healthy parts. The key is preventing it from spreading.
Noted. Will give it a try. Thanks
 

SlugSnorter

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Okay, so I'm looking for ANY advice at this point...my acans are melting. For the most part they still have their feeders out but I can see white slimy stuff moving from the outside inward on them and I can blow it off pretty easily.

I've tested all of my parameters (alk, cal, mag, nitrates, po4) and according to my tests they're all in normal ranges. Alk is around 10.5, cal 440, mag 1300 (going to raise to 1400), 0 nitrates and .04 po4. I haven't had any major parm swings. Also sending in a sample to aquariumwatertesting for testing to see if they come up with anything. I'm trying anything at this point.

Any suggestions or ideas would help!
tank age? lighting? flow?
 

Filipino Reefer

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Yeah I have no way to frag my my acans and my remaining 3 acans are infected. I don't see the bjd it seems that it's being eaten from inside. I have been dipping it with coral rx and lugol's solution iodine and yet no luck. I don't see anything that floats.
 
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