Sharing my pain
 

Thought I'd share my pain over this colony losing tissue. It's slowly been doing this for a couple of months now, likely due to my rearranging things. This grew from a frag 2 years ago to this thing today. It's about 10" across, although I'm cutting the dead areas away now.

http://www.islandreef.ca/post/slough.jpg

hmm is that the other one you showed me last time?

Steve

don't know. I have a few doing this.

was there anything encroaching on that part of the coral? mushrooms ect?

Steve

Nope, just different flow than what it was used to.

Man that sucks. It hasn't slowed down at all eh?

Christy :)

No, it just slowly loses more each day. I cut off most of the dead area and glued it, and I'm going to move it to higher flow.

:eek:

That's painful to watch.

That sux .... hope you can find a better place for it...

tony, I have several pieces doing this, so it's possible that it is something else. At this point I'm trying to blame PO4, although a test shows negative. I added about 20 concrete frag plugs that didn't cure, so that is a source of bad things maybe. I also have lots of fuzzy red algae, so who knows. Hopefully I can get back on an upswing!!

The worst part in situations like this is you can't really do anything. So, best of luck Brad! I hope everything pulls through with your corals and tank.

ouch. I think all my frags add up to about the size of the dead tissue on that piece. wow.

Dont think it was uncured plugs.


Wendell

My tank being considerably smaller than most other SPS type tanks (48x18x20) it is a challenge to maintain adequate flow as the corals keep growing. I have a bit of a battle against slow necrosis sometimes. For now the solution is if I notice an area of coral tissue that looks off I try to add a powerhead. A stream or a penductor isn't an option since I have about 4" of free space above the reef (less above my cap). A stream type flow, although called for, will do more damage than good in my case; so I'm stuck with using a lot of powerheads.

I won't make this mistake on my next SPS tank, the next setup for that will be a lot taller. Much easier for flow conditions, I think (I hope).

But when it's a flow shadow that's causing me problems, it tends to be on one coral that's in a flow shadow, and a particular localized spot. Not an overal general necrosis in a number of them.

So I understand your worry Brad, I hope that whatever it is goes away and things settle back.

Weird stuff. Could it be some kind of allelopathy perhaps?

Don't think so. It's all the same stuff in the tank. I also started running carbon after the DSB removal, so the chances of chemical warfare is slim to none, IMO.
My pink milli has taken the worst beating, and it's in almost the identical spot it had before the move. I've lost over 3/4 of that colony so far.
Really, I have no idea what is going on, I can only hope it stops soon!!

Sorry to hear that Brad :frown:
I hope things change for you real fast, I will pray to the Coral Gods for ya.

Yikes.... :confused:

Is the tissue bleaching first and then dying back, or is it just sloughing off?

Good luck. :confused:

Mitch

Mitch, it's sort of mixed. This one just gets more white on it as the days pass, where my pink milli actually gets very thin looking tissue then sloughs!

2 months ago, a couple colonies of mine did the same thing. I lost 70% each of a hydnophora, pocillipora and a neon green acro. Untouched/unaffected were my birdsnest, and a purple acro.
I never could find anything wrong, and chaulked it up to the fact that right now I have a "coral garden" set-up (mixed soft, lps, sps) and too much chemical wafare going on.

Then it just stopped. I still don't know why. All the while the corals were dying off, there was full polyp extension and good color on the remaining living tissue. Never lost an entire colony. They're all growing well again too.

<shrug>

Mitch

DSB removal, could that have activated the reaction and do you use a substate now or bare bottom?

Yes, I believe this is triggered by the removal of the sand, but I'm not sure why. I currently run about 50 pounds of sand, although some is 2" deep and other spots is almost bare. I am familiar with tanks that had sand removed that didn't do this, so....
I borrowed a UV unit today, so maybe that will assist a recovery. Not sure what else to do, other than wait and hope.

Hope that works for you.

Doug

I don't know about the sand bed removal.. seams like a long time later but who knows maybe you kicked up a lot of crap and stresses stuff.

or maybe you need to go back in and remove all the sand :eek:

Steve

Steve, this started the day after removing the sand. It's been happening for 4 months now.

Oh, hmmm my sence of time is out of perspective then... ok.. I mist have been theinking of the tank change.

Steve