Approaching total coral wipe-out

[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...

[jason604]

this thread seems so depressing. So many ppl with mass sps die off

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

the thought that this is some sort of pathogen has crossed my mind more than once. The fact that it's favouring acroporas, and the fact that it's happening in the whole tank all at once seems disease-esque. But after I did that major round of fragging and selling, every single coral healed over and started growing aggressively from the places I had cut them. And that was in what... December? Everything was growing like weeds until February when this started.

I have one montipora digitata colony, and one montipora capricornis colony that have continued to grow normally since this all began, while another monti cap and my forest fire digi have shut down completely, with tissue recession in a few places. None of my euphyllias or my elegance coral have been damaged, but my only colony of acans has lost a ton of tissue, so if it is a disease it's a disease with a very weird taste for coral species.