Acro dieing from below

dwest · Sep 3, 2018

Ben Pedersen said:
I’ve had a reef tank for more than 30 years and have had acros for around 15 years. I’ve never seen this before. Starting about a month ago, several of my large healthy acros started turning white around their bases. Slowly, the white grows until all the coral’s tissue is gone. It started with a metalic pinkish-yellow milli that I’ve had for more than 8 years. I fragged a large piece of that and put it next to a large red planet colony. That frag was the first to show symptoms and die. The red planet then got it. Then 2 colonies of garfs got it. Now, corals all over my tank have it. I’ve had to emergency frag several corals that I’ve had for many years.

This issue doesn’t seem to affect birds nest, encrusting corals, clams or a few others, but most branching acros and millis are affected. I initially thought it was due to a contaminant in the water and made multiple water changes, but the plague e continues to spread.

The strange thing is that the corals are all still growing and showing good polyp extention and color. I’ve tested my water multiple times. Alk around 8.5, PH 8.3, and all other parameters are perfect. The corals aren’t starving.

Any help would be appreciated.

I would check to make sure your rodi water is 0 tds with a hand held meter. Seems silly but my inline meters failed recently and it caused big problems in my tank.

rock_lobster · Sep 3, 2018

Ben Pedersen said:
Wouldn’t the condition you are describing cause the corals to loose color (be pastel)? I will test again.

No mine was the opposite every time. The sps would be extremely bright colored (due to low phos) then they would start dying.

jda · Sep 3, 2018

I am not on the building-block bandwagon - undetectable N is nothing to worry about and even .01P is fine. Having lower building blocks can produce colors that people are not happy with, but should not be causing massive death. My tank is undetectable N and .005-.01 P and the acropora double in size every few months.

This looks like point-source light death. Everything looks fine as frags and even transitional colonies and then all of a sudden, they reach a critical mass of size and start to die from the bottom up. Excatly what lights are you using? ... and what is your schedule? If you are using LED, then I would look here first. If you are using a good bunch of T5s (6 or more) or MH, then this is probably not the problem.

Everybody needs to keep in mind that throughput is what matters, not residual numbers on a test kit. My tank, most ZeoVit tanks, etc. all have very low residual numbers, but the amount of food that goes through the system with heavy import and export is massive and there is always N and P around for consumption.

rock_lobster · Sep 3, 2018

jda said:
I am not on the building-block bandwagon - undetectable N is nothing to worry about and even .01P is fine. Having lower building blocks can produce colors that people are not happy with, but should not be causing massive death. My tank is undetectable N and .005-.01 P and the acropora double in size every few months.

This looks like point-source light death. Everything looks fine as frags and even transitional colonies and then all of a sudden, they reach a critical mass of size and start to die from the bottom up. Excatly what lights are you using? ... and what is your schedule? If you are using LED, then I would look here first. If you are using a good bunch of T5s (6 or more) or MH, then this is probably not the problem.

Everybody needs to keep in mind that throughput is what matters, not residual numbers on a test kit. My tank, most ZeoVit tanks, etc. all have very low residual numbers, but the amount of food that goes through the system with heavy import and export is massive and there is always N and P around for consumption.

Good anecdotal experience but not reproducible for most tanks. Low nutrients will definitely crash a tank right away. You are describing a very specific "high throughput" system which most tanks arent. Many have very low nutrient export as well as low feeding along with using lots of absorbing media and chemical cleaners.

Bustyraker · Sep 3, 2018

I went through the same problem a year ago and ended up shutting down my system because of it. Started losing all of my older colonies and then began to effect some newer frags. Ended up being a starvation issue. I didnt carbon dose but I did have a very efficient regugium that kept my no3 and po4 at 0. I rarely fed my corals and only fed my fish lrs which is a really clean food. Try bumping up some aminos and coral food. Hope you can get it turned around!

jda · Sep 3, 2018

He did not mention using any GFO, LC, Organic Carbon, etc... if so, then this changes things since they truly can drive the building blocks to zero. Natural methods cannot.

Your all's description of a tank with too low of building blocks will have dull corals with muted color, low growth and otherwise not look like these. If you want to argue that it is a combination of too low of building blocks along with not enough true nutrients (zoox creating sugars for food) with inferior or too little lighting, then maybe.

rock_lobster · Sep 3, 2018

Foothill Corals said:
IME it's usually not anyone thing that starts a TN event, It's usually a one-two punch on a coral that is stressed. Things like not enough light, low nutrients, inadequate flow or an Alk fluctuation by them self may stress the coral but if a few of these things happen at the same time watch out.

Firmly disagree, I have seen several times STN on the base of SPS specifically due to low phosphate at undetectable levels. And when phosphate alone was increased the STN stopped within 2-3 days and started re-encrusting.

jda said:
He did not mention using any GFO, LC, Organic Carbon, etc... if so, then this changes things since they truly can drive the building blocks to zero. Natural methods cannot.

Your all's description of a tank with too low of building blocks will have dull corals with muted color, low growth and otherwise not look like these. If you want to argue that it is a combination of too low of building blocks along with not enough true nutrients (zoox creating sugars for food) with inferior or too little lighting, then maybe.

Im not sure where you have heard this. It is very common for an efficient refugium to deplete nutrients to the point of where coral will starve to death. Ive seen it at least 20 times on tanks ive don't maintenance on. Second the point just before death where SPS are suffering from phosphate depletion is the point where color will be very vibrant. Ultra low phos is very well known to bring out incredible colors but it is a risky level to maintain.

Foothill Corals · Sep 3, 2018

"Firmly disagree, I have seen several times STN on the base of SPS specifically due to low phosphate at undetectable levels. And when phosphate alone was increased the STN stopped within 2-3 days and started re-encrusting."

I agree and disagree. Low nutrients alone will not always cause it but when it does it shows up where the coral is getting inadequate light or flow usually IME. I was wondering about both since he has larger colonies and LED plus flow may no longer be enough. I totally agree, bump up the nutrients IF they are low.

Ben Pedersen · Sep 3, 2018

trido said:
Sounds like everyone is pointing toward more nutrients. AS my corals get bigger I expect to see some die off on the bottoms but it does sound like yours is happening quickly. More food is an easy start, more flow is also something to consider especially since there is new die off.

I noticed that you have black box LED's in one of your pictures..

How old are your lights?

The lights are about 5 months old. I have a lot of flow (mp40 & mp60).

Ben Pedersen · Sep 3, 2018

29bonsaireef said:
If you are seeing film algae on the glass then, IMO.. there should be enough P04 for the corals. If you truly have zero P04 it can be detrimental to the corals over time, but ime you will not see the same effects you are describing. I've gone weeks at a time with zero P04 while away from home only to come home to ugly corals never seen an RTN/STN event like this. I would imagine it would also be effecting all corals as well not just acros, one-by-one.

Exactly.. The corals are not starving. This is infecting acros. Brain, acan, clams, birdsnest, etc show no signs of infection.

Almost certainly this is white band disease caused by common soil bacteria.. the question is, how to stop it.

Ben Pedersen · Sep 3, 2018

My tank i

rock_lobster said:
Good anecdotal experience but not reproducible for most tanks. Low nutrients will definitely crash a tank right away. You are describing a very specific "high throughput" system which most tanks arent. Many have very low nutrient export as well as low feeding along with using lots of absorbing media and chemical cleaners.

Bustyraker said:
I went through the same problem a year ago and ended up shutting down my system because of it. Started losing all of my older colonies and then began to effect some newer frags. Ended up being a starvation issue. I didnt carbon dose but I did have a very efficient regugium that kept my no3 and po4 at 0. I rarely fed my corals and only fed my fish lrs which is a really clean food. Try bumping up some aminos and coral food. Hope you can get it turned around!

I add reef fuel (amino acids, and vitamins) every other day.

Ben Pedersen · Sep 3, 2018

I will get water test results tomorrow. I sincerely appreciate everyone’s insight.

Based on my experience and the current conditions, I’m fairly confident that this is a bacterial infection that affects acros, probably (Type I White Band Disease).

Does anyone know of anything that can be used to treat bacterial infections in a reef tank? There are lots of other healthy corals in the tank that I dont want to hurt. It will not be posible to take the corals out of the tank because they have grown together. The only other alternative is to let it run it’s course and hope that some of the acros will out compete the infection.

rock_lobster · Sep 3, 2018

Ben Pedersen said:
I will get water test results tomorrow.

You could always do an ICP to just to be safe.

jda · Sep 3, 2018

rock_lobster said:
Im not sure where you have heard this...

Something else is happening that you need to figure out. Chaeto cannot outcompete bacteria nor dinos (zoox) since it limits at a higher concentration. If the chaeto and other algae is growing, then there is enough there for the bacteria and coral. Bacteria can outcompete dinos, but in natural situations, the bacteria are deep in the sand and rock, but this can change with organic carbon dosing. Like I said before, though, if you are carbon dosing, GFO, LC, etc. then this can alter the equation dramatically. It is possible that if these tanks are new(er) or just had dry/dead rock get cleaned/cycled, then the aragonite is binding up all of the phosphate - never underestimate aragonite's ability to bind phosphate and both keep it really low in new tank (until it binds enough to leave some in the water) and also be quite a reservoir in water with high concentration levels.

OP - if you think that this is a bacterial infestation, there are threads that I have seen where people treat with an antibiotic - search for "STN and antibiotic". This is the one that gets thrown about a lot. It is a dense read, but might help you out. Good luck.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083779/

vetteguy53081 · Sep 3, 2018

beautiful collection !!
Appears to be either low nutrients or shading ( Shading, whereas the lighting is shaded by branches and other SPS . Has anything changed such as flow, type of food fed, temperatures (warmer than normal) or intro of a new fish which may be pecking at coral??

Ben Pedersen · Sep 3, 2018

jda said:
Something else is happening that you need to figure out. Chaeto cannot outcompete bacteria nor dinos (zoox) since it limits at a higher concentration. If the chaeto and other algae is growing, then there is enough there for the bacteria and coral. Bacteria can outcompete dinos, but in natural situations, the bacteria are deep in the sand and rock, but this can change with organic carbon dosing. Like I said before, though, if you are carbon dosing, GFO, LC, etc. then this can alter the equation dramatically. It is possible that if these tanks are new(er) or just had dry/dead rock get cleaned/cycled, then the aragonite is binding up all of the phosphate - never underestimate aragonite's ability to bind phosphate and both keep it really low in new tank (until it binds enough to leave some in the water) and also be quite a reservoir in water with high concentration levels.

OP - if you think that this is a bacterial infestation, there are threads that I have seen where people treat with an antibiotic - search for "STN and antibiotic". This is the one that gets thrown about a lot. It is a dense read, but might help you out. Good luck.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083779/

My refugium alge is still growing.

BigJohnny · Sep 3, 2018

I dont know what stressors are causing your corals to experience this since I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of your system, however I agree 100% it is bacterial. Here is something you can try to stop the spread while you figure out what is stressing the corals and allowing them to succumb to the infection.

Mix kanamycin (seachem kanaplex is an option) with cyanoacrylate gel aka super glue gel. It has to be the gel or youll have a hard time mixing. The amount is not important, just use a little bit and make sure its mixed well. Spread that with your finger or any other instrument necessary just above and on the border of the infection and the healthy tissue.

This is much easier out of water but it can be done in the tank. I know someone who is the top aquatic vet in NC and has used this technique to stop rtn on many different species of corals (including acros) with a decent success rate. I have never tried and am simply passing on the info. If you have any questions I can give you her contact info just pm me. Btw neomycin can be used in a pinch but kanamycin works better, supposedly.

I was told increasing flow will help as well. Good luck.

29bonsaireef · Sep 3, 2018

+1 for antibiotic treatment.

Sarah24! · Sep 3, 2018

Hello,

So I’m gonna shoot in the dark here but hey it may help. Now this has just happened to me like a month and a half ago. All of my old colonies that were five years old did literally exactly and you have claimed and some it took forever for them to bleach. I fragged them also dipped and still same thing. Now this happened only to the frags I bought from my lfs. None of my expensive sps did any of this as a point of fact some of them even thrived.

After testing my nitrates were up around 20 which I was told would be better. I dosed the Red Sea no3 and dropped back to five and the corals still declined. One is still trying to hold on. Now where I’m going with this is odd but bare with me. As an example I have a purple bonsai from my lfs that is five years old and it’s hanging on still well trying to. Now I have a new purple bonsai as well and it has been growing crazy and no issues at all and it’s only four months old. The difference was the one from my lfs was grown in the ocean farm, and the other was grown in a tank. All my tank raised sps have had zero issues and are much much hardier than any of my lfs sps, which are all grown in the ocean and then shipped. Nothing I have done seems to stop it, stable parameters are alk 8.0 cal 440 mag 1350 salinity 1.025 nitrates normally five but have jumped to ten and I have had to dose no3 again to bring it down. Yet the only corals in my tank doing poorly are the ones from my lfs that I have had forever. I’m curious if yours are also ocean grown as well are If your able to find out. It is very sad and frustrating for as much work as we put into them. I have noticed that I’m not sure if filter socks are very beneficial either. When they are on, my nitrates take off, when they are off my nitrates stay at a good 5-10 ppm. Not saying this is what’s doing it but sure sounds very similar to mine, and nothing I did helped, and it was only my ocean grown sps. I did also add an icecap 3k which is an extra 3,000 gph in my 240 where I have four current 2100 gph and two 3100 gph return pumps. But definitely plan on adding two more wave makers in the bottom corners just to be overly excessive on flow.

Da8 · Sep 4, 2018

Ben Pedersen said:
I will get water test results tomorrow. I sincerely appreciate everyone’s insight.

Based on my experience and the current conditions, I’m fairly confident that this is a bacterial infection that affects acros, probably (Type I White Band Disease).

Does anyone know of anything that can be used to treat bacterial infections in a reef tank? There are lots of other healthy corals in the tank that I dont want to hurt. It will not be posible to take the corals out of the tank because they have grown together. The only other alternative is to let it run it’s course and hope that some of the acros will out compete the infection.