White spots allover green slimer

[Daniel Berazadi]

Hi hive mind!
I am farely new to SPS.
My tank is 2,5 years old, it is a RedSeaReefer 200XL. It has an skimmer, RedSea90LED and a dosing pump currently dosing only alk. In the tank I have multiple Nero 3s.
I have 6 small fish, some inverts, zoas, some lps and a thriving pocillopora and stylphora mini colonies.
In addition I have a green slimer acro that has been in the tank for 7 months.
I has not grown almost at all, but it has shown great polyp extension so far and given the fact I have a single LED, despite the shadows, has also shown good coloration.
The last couople of days however the polyps are barely opening and I have noticed white spots, bald spots. They dont look like tissue loss, I have seen that, and this is something else I think. Loss of color maybe? Bleaching? No idea.
I just tested the water and this is what I got:
-Temp: 27C
-Salinity 1.0256
-KH: 8.9 dKH
-Ph: 8.2
-Mg: 1250
-Ca: 330
-NO3: 1.5
-PO4: 0.01 if any.

As you can see I have always struggled with low nutrients, so I feed amino and reef roids twice a week plus the fish food 3 times a day every day.
The dkh is maybe a bit high, but as far as I know it is still withing acceptable range. However, could it be the culprit?
The Ca has dropped quite a bit. I had no consumption for a long time, so I relied on water changes, but with new acro frags I suppose the uptake has increased, could this be the culprit instead?
Maybe is just a combination of factors that has stressed out the corals?
I also have an ICP test I did some weeks ago, dont know if it would help as I guess is no longer relevant.

I am waiting for the salt to arrive (no local fish stores in my city), and the first thing I will do will be at least a 10% water change if not a 20%, but I dont know what else to do, and I dont want to try without advice and in a rush.
I could also dip the frag, but wouldnt that stress it even further?

I did my best taking the pictures. I dont have any filters so I had to rely a bit on editing magic. Hopefully you can see the white spots, especially on the "back" shaded area.

What be ye thoughts?

 

[rc8t6353]

At first glance of your parameters, nitrate, phosphate, and calcium look to be low. I was running into a similar issue with supposedly easy SPS. I've slowly brought up the phosphates with feeding and dosing. Nitrates I try to keep between 10 and 15. Phosphates between .04 and .1. I've been able to keep a few SPS happy with those numbers. Hope this helps!

 

[Battlecorals]

Almost looks like blenny bites. You got a bicolor in there by any chance?

 

[Dburr1014]

At first glance of your parameters, nitrate, phosphate, and calcium look to be low. I was running into a similar issue with supposedly easy SPS. I've slowly brought up the phosphates with feeding and dosing. Nitrates I try to keep between 10 and 15. Phosphates between .04 and .1. I've been able to keep a few SPS happy with those numbers. Hope this helps!

+1 to this^^^^

Also, that looks like shading.

 

[Dburr1014]

Almost looks like blenny bites. You got a bicolor in there by any chance?

Sorta does look like bites along with shading in that closeup pick.

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

At first glance of your parameters, nitrate, phosphate, and calcium look to be low. I was running into a similar issue with supposedly easy SPS. I've slowly brought up the phosphates with feeding and dosing. Nitrates I try to keep between 10 and 15. Phosphates between .04 and .1. I've been able to keep a few SPS happy with those numbers. Hope this helps!

Yeah... Calcium is almost resolved and nutrients... I dont know why I am always runing so low. I guess I need more fish.

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

Almost looks like blenny bites. You got a bicolor in there by any chance?

You know what, I do have a blenny, is not a bicolor, it is a a scenius lineatus. Now that I am reading more about the fish, I can see it has been reported to nip on corals. There is a ton of algae in the aquarium, do you think this could be it? This is why the coral is not opening anymore?
A bought the fish to take care of algae, as we say in spanish: the remedy was worse than the sickness.

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

+1 to this^^^^

Also, that looks like shading.

Yes, there is definetly shading, but up untill now, it looked smooth, no fluoresence, but a smooth peach color, and the past few days it has those splotches.
I am trying to bring up those numbers.

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

You know what, I do have a blenny, is not a bicolor, it is a a scenius lineatus. Now that I am reading more about the fish, I can see it has been reported to nip on corals. There is a ton of algae in the aquarium, do you think this could be it? This is why the coral is not opening anymore?
A bought the fish to take care of algae, as we say in spanish: the remedy was worse than the sickness.

Also, the blenny is the new addition, it came with some other frags a week ago. It does fit with the timescale

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

Some other corals are also acting a bit weird, not openiong up as usual.
I dont know if this is relevant, but we are in the middle of a heatwave, and my tank has gone from 26C (78.8) to 82, farely quickly, and has been swinging in that range, which is unusual. I have no chiller nor AC in my house, so nut much I can do except ice bottles. Could this be stressing them aswell? Some are peachy, the stylo and poci are great, but the cyphastrea and the green slimer are retracted.

Should I dip the affected coral to help it heal?

 

[Solo McReefer]

Acropora Eating Flatworms?

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

Acropora Eating Flatworms?

How could I test for that? I do have a yellow wrasse, but I guess those worms could only come out at night?

 

[Solo McReefer]

Ya, that wrasse is sleepin on the job

I would have pulled it and dipped in Revive or Reef Primer already

You will know immediately if it is covered in AEFW. There will be dozens floating and writhing in the water. Use a white "bowl" to dip

If you're getting little white blemishes (especially on the bases/'trunks') on other acros or corals, they are probably infected too

 

[Solo McReefer]

Another thing

When you pull an acro out of the water

And it has AEFW infested

You will smell the acro death smell, it's unmistakable. And you'll never forget it

If that's what it is, which it looks like to me

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

Another thing

When you pull an acro out of the water

And it has AEFW infested

You will smell the acro death smell, it's unmistakable. And you'll never forget it

If that's what it is, which it looks like to me

Well, sort of good news. I don't thik it is flatworms, not only was there no smell, but I dipped all my acro frags and I did not see any flatworms, nor spiders, nothing. I should have taken some pictures but I forgot.
I did a water change and yesterday the dip, lets see how the frag responds today.

 

[Solo McReefer]

Yeah!

Very good deal as to that

Hope others can diagnoses your sliders sickness

 

[Daniel Berazadi]

Yeah!

Very good deal as to that

Hope others can diagnoses your sliders sickness

Indeed. As of today the white splotches are not as visible as some days ago, however it refuses to open the polyps.
I have no idea what is going on, but could it be that indeed the fish mistakenly took some bites, and now the coral is in recovery mode and this is why it is not extending its polyps? Or this is nonsense?
The rest of the corals are fine. A cyphastrea is a bit ticked as the blenny has chosen it as its throne.
My new frags are still not showing the polyps but it has been only a week.
The rest, are as always.
This is so odd, the green slimer when it arrived inmediately opened its polyps and it tooked fine...
I will do another waterchange soon just in case.