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Hi Eric -- me again!
I have a very large (8 inches +17 year old) Stephanocoenia coral that I received when I bought some coral rock from TBS. It has gone up and down in my tank but was getting really healthy. Now all of a sudden it is down but it is not uniform. I changed the flow several times including turning it off but that does not seem to be the issue. I have two potential causes that I want to test out with you.
One possibility is that I have been gradually (over several months!) increasing my calcium in the tank and it now sits between 400 and 450. Prior to this it was 320 - 350. What is the calcium rated at in the Caribbean? I actually don't think this is the cause because the upper portion of the coral is still okay.
The other possibility is some blue tipped hairy mushrooms that I added to the tank. I removed one and am planning on removing the other one. The Stephanocoenia and the mushroom are about 5 inches apart and have absolutely no contact. But the flow would be such that the water would primarily flow from the mushroom to the lower part of this coral. And if looked at this way including the pattern of the withdrawal of the polyps on the Stephanocoenia it's the same as having a bright neon light saying that it is the hairy mushroom. But everyone says their weapon is touch not chemicals.
Can you shed any light?
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One possibility is that I have been gradually (over several months!) increasing my calcium in the tank and it now sits between 400 and 450. Prior to this it was 320 - 350. What is the calcium rated at in the Caribbean? I actually don't think this is the cause because the upper portion of the coral is still okay. I doubt it could be the calcium level (420 is a good target number) unless it is having an affect on the alkalinity/pH of the water, but outside of that concern, as long as any given coral can get its minute daily requirement of calcium it doesn't matter from how large of or how small a pool of calcium it is taking it from.
The other possibility is some blue tipped hairy mushrooms that I added to the tank. I removed one and am planning on removing the other one. The Stephanocoenia and the mushroom are about 5 inches apart and have absolutely no contact. But the flow would be such that the water would primarily flow from the mushroom to the lower part of this coral. And if looked at this way including the pattern of the withdrawal of the polyps on the Stephanocoenia it's the same as having a bright neon light saying that it is the hairy mushroom. But everyone says their weapon is touch not chemicals. I would also suspect the corallimorph as their mucus can contain some fairly potent toxins, which if being blown against your coral could cause issues (as you are seeing). I would also double check your phosphate levels as that is also another common cause for coral decline. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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Thanks Charles -- just as added info I have used rowaphos for about a year so my phosphates are zero. My alk was a bit low but then then the withdrawal is usually uniform. Here's some before and now pics:
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| Yeah, thats quite a drastic tissue loss. And of course with such events, unless it is some glaring, obvious parameter problem (such as phosphates, pH) it becomes really hard to pin down an exact cause as we are extremely limited in what we can actualy test for, and even then, those tests are just good ball park figures. You mentioned that this is a reoccuring event for this coral? With the corallimorphs being new additions that might explain this recent event but what of the previous declines? With so little to actualy go on, I guess all one can do is eliminate obvious possibles such as the corallimorphs and stay on top of the basic water parameters. hmmm, just a thought, you run a phosphate binder, I wonder if the binder is doing too good of a job and could be the culprit as well. Its a fine line between too much and too little phosphorous as the coral is in need of minute amounts yet becomes stressed with too much. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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| The before picture is actually with rowaphos use for about 8 months. The mushrooms haven't been in there for very long. The downs were never as drastic as this nor as prolonged. One was my naked clown irritating it, another was a change in flow -- but each time it withdrew for a while, got used to the condition or I modified it eg: changed the flow and also barricaded the silly clown away from it. So I am going to give the mushrooms to a friend -- just take them out of my tank and see what happens. I had thought that the use of Seagel by Seachem was the culprit and I went back to rowaphos. It improved a little but not significantly. The it improved a little when I moved the big mushroom. Now, hopefully when I get the other mushroom and give both to my buddy the problem will be solved. The cool thing about this coral is if you can find the problem, it grows back beautifully.
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| Am glad the coral is able to recover so well, and lets hope the removal of the corallimorph is the solution. Let us know how it turns out. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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| Chuck -- how quickly would you expect to see results? I was just thinking if this is a misdiagnosis then I don't want to wait too long to try and figure out what is happening. The mushrooms are in my sump and I hope to have them gone within the next couple of days. You can bet they are not happy though but at least the toxins are more diluted before they hit anybody at this point. The other strange thing is that one of the heads of my torch, which would have been first in the toxin line from the mushroom I had already removed and put at another spot in my tank, was looking unhappy! So we will see how everyone does!
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| Couldn't really say when to expect any signs of improvement but it would be a matter of weeks not days. Chuck
___________________________________________________________ "My life is free now, my life is dear" - Black Sabbath
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Sherri have you considered that shading could be the issue here? In the first picture the entire area where the tissue recession seems to have occured is very dark. If shading is the issue then I suspect as long as infection doesnt set in the recession will stop at the point where it finds conditions favorable.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________- David -
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