Help! Loosing stony corals

[ReefingIsMyTherapy]

PLEASE HELP! Some of my stony corals are losing flesh and I have no idea why 3 of the heads of my candy cane are gone. They were OK just 2 weeks ago. I also lost a Flame Boi Favia that had been growing and encrusting. All its flesh is now gone and all that's left is the skeleton First pic shows the candy cane and what was left of the favia (red arrow) 2 weeks ago. Other two pics is candy cane today (took it out just for a few secs to take a good picture).

I have been battling dinos and I believe I'm slowly winning the war (sandbend is finally clean, but I can still see some in the rock, along with turf algae). I have had dinos for several months and hadn't lost any coral to dinos, so my guess this is something else, but I have no idea what. I'll really appreciate any help to figure out what's going on.

Parameters
Salinity 35
Temp 77.5
Alk 8.3
Calcium 430
Magnesium 1395
PO4 0.12
Nitrates 13.6

 

[Lavey29]

Your numbers seem fine. Have you added any chemicals to fight dinos? Have you done a recent ICP test? Check all your equipment for rusty parts like rusty magnets.

I lost a few LPS heads to flow. To much flow exactly so have cut way back for them.

Did you dip that candy cane for pests?

 

[Saltwater2370]

Are those vermeteid snails on the stony parts? If it is and your perameters are good that may be the cause. I’m taking some out of my tank also. I found one on a Duncan and 16 more in my tank. Have to find the mother which I haven’t found yet. I recently learned about these and many peoples tanks have issues and they can’t figure out why until they find these pests.

 

[ReefingIsMyTherapy]

Your numbers seem fine. Have you added any chemicals to fight dinos? Have you done a recent ICP test? Check all your equipment for rusty parts like rusty magnets.

I lost a few LPS heads to flow. To much flow exactly so have cut way back for them.

Did you dip that candy cane for pests?

My strategy to fight dinos so far has been all natural: pods, phyto, AF life source, Probidio, and MB7.

My last ICP test was done a month ago. No pollutants reported, except Aluminum @ 44.4 ug/L, but I've seen Aluminum reported in all my ICP tests (with similar readings) and never had a problem. This coral has been in my tank for 6~8 months. It's placed at the central/bottom part in my tank, and it gets very gentle flow. 80~90 PAR.

I have not dipped it yet. I have Lugol's Iodine. Maybe it'd be a good idea to do a quick dip?

 

[ReefingIsMyTherapy]

Are those vermeteid snails on the stony parts? If it is and your perameters are good that may be the cause. I’m taking some out of my tank also. I found one on a Duncan and 16 more in my tank. Have to find the mother which I haven’t found yet. I recently learned about these and many peoples tanks have issues and they can’t figure out why until they find these pests.

Yes, those are vermetid snails. I added bumblebee snails a few weeks ago to help with the fight. I remove when I can but do it slow, because was told that killing too many at once could cause ammonia spikes.

 

[Saltwater2370]

That’s a good point, I’ve removed some and next week I’ll remove some more. They have killed 3 Duncan heads and made a hole in the skeleton of one Duncan which can have algae get inside so I scraped it gently so the hole isn’t there anymore and now they look really healthy and it’s helped them a lot. They do release some toxin when removed so I used a bucket of new saltwater took the snails off, then put the rock in the bucket for a bit before adding rock or corals back into the tank and it’s worked great so far. Hope this helps you some.