Approaching total coral wipe-out

[Delphinus]

I think I have a 24-30ish g rubbermaid brute that I somehow inherited off a Canreefer. It has also been used for waterchanges in its life and whilst in my custody it has really only taken up space. You can have or borrow this if you want.

[i have crabs]

Ive been losing close to 70% of my sps over the last 1-2 months, too like a stn type of death with no apparent reason, dont think i swithched anything that i can think of but at this point im gonna have a fowler in notime

[kien]

Originally Posted by i have crabs

Ive been losing close to 70% of my sps over the last 1-2 months, too like a stn type of death with no apparent reason, dont think i swithched anything that i can think of but at this point im gonna have a fowler in notime

Wow.. So this is a trend, apparently. I wonder if there is any commonality. We need a club. Also, sorry to hear of your issues too.

[Palmer]

FWIW if you do decide to start up again I can throw you some LPS and SPS frags if you want them.

[i have crabs]

On the plus side of killing my corals, they all fit into one of the 2 sides now and i can have non coral safe fish in the other side haha, about 2 weeks before i started having problems i overdid a dose of kalk but things seemd ik a couple days after so maybe not related, it also looks like possibly brown jelly disease in some of my corals but who knows, at this point im just letting it do what it wants and ill keep what lives the rest probably arnt getting replaced

[waynemah]

Not sure if this was covered, but could it be due to the snow melt and water quality? I notice my DI resin changes color within 2 weeks in the spring whereas it'll last a month any other time of the year.

[cuz]

I'm going through the exact same thing to.. burnt tips followed by stn,,, I'd say I'm close to 60% sps die-off..

I've got a few 300g brand new potable plastic tall water "cisterns" your more than welcome to borrow if you come get them or find a volunteer...

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by i have crabs

On the plus side of killing my corals, they all fit into one of the 2 sides now and i can have non coral safe fish in the other side haha, about 2 weeks before i started having problems i overdid a dose of kalk but things seemd ik a couple days after so maybe not related, it also looks like possibly brown jelly disease in some of my corals but who knows, at this point im just letting it do what it wants and ill keep what lives the rest probably arnt getting replaced

Originally Posted by cuz

I'm going through the exact same thing to.. burnt tips followed by stn,,, I'd say I'm close to 60% sps die-off..

I've got a few 300g brand new potable plastic tall water "cisterns" your more than welcome to borrow if you come get them or find a volunteer...

Well I'm not happy it's happening to you, but I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one. Look closely at your corals that this is happening to, the best description I can give is thus:

1. tissue at the growth tips is just gone one day. It's the worst on the side facing the lights

2. The polyps get all weak and floppy. It's like they lose their ability to retract in to the cup or hold any tension in their tissues. From far away it looks like you have the most insane polyp extension ever. Close up it looks like the polyps are just hanging out of their cups.

3. the texture of the remaining tissue gets all weird. Smooth skinned corals get rough and bumpy looking, some of them change colour drastically, darkening (but not browning) across the entire colony. It's actually quite pretty in some for a short while, until all their tissue detaches.

4. In some colonies, little blisters begin to form that look exactly like super tiny bubble-gum bubbles that are about to pop, these hang off the coral and blow about in the current. When they pop they take large chunks of tissue with them.

5. In the corals that don't form bubbles, it's like half the tissue from the outside of the polyp cup just strips off, where brown algae quickly colonizes, making the whole coral look like it's been raked over a cheese grater.

6. Finally, entire strips of tissue just slough off. Entire branches to entire colonies lose all their tissue practically over-night. This is followed within days by colonization of the skeleton by cyano. I'm pretty sure cyano can harvest the phosphate right out of the coral skeleton.

[lastlight]

I had those bubbles you're speaking of on a few of my corals when my sps were dying. when things stabilized i saw a few of them shrink and disappear.

it's actually strange but my problems started shortly after i bought all those frags from you. i have a hard time believing there's any connection though as your tank looked incredible when i was over.

[asylumdown]

I just realized that I haven't posted a single pic:

Feb. 23 - You can barely tell that the tissue from the tips of this stag are gone


Today (from the other side) -


Feb. 23 - This coral was one of the first to show signs of damage


Today - (it's totally dead)


Feb. 23 - The tips are all burnt, but it's hard to see in this photo


Today - Kind of hard to tell, but probably 1/3 of the tissue, all the way down each branch is gone


Feb. 23 - this used to be my favourite coral. It started with just burnt tips


Today - I don't think there's any saving it. There's no more than a couple cm anywhere on the coral that doesn't have damage



And I don't have any earlier photos of these guys but:




And finally:

You can't really tell form this pic, but the small frag in the dead centre of this pic is a Pink lemonade. It presently has several of those blisters I was mentioning. The freshly de-fleshed white skeleton next to it was a beautiful teal acro with blue tips 3 days ago.

Ugh.

The only glimmer of good news is that since I haven't been able to pick up the big tubs yet (I'm hoping for this weekend), I've been doing at least one 45-50 gallon water change every day since Sunday, and I *think* today I see the first possible signs of improvement. At least I haven't lost an entire colony in a couple of days anyway.