Trumpet coral looking bad

[Oracus]

Noticed this yesterday evening. Checked parameters temp 76, ammonia 0,nitrate <10, phosphate 0, alk 8, salinity 1.025.

 

Today looks worse when I took the pic. Any ideas?

[seabass]

Are your parameters stable?  Alkalinity swings?  If phosphate is actually 0.00 ppm, that's not good.  If you are using API's phosphate kit, get a low range kit instead.  Do you feed it?  How long have you had it?  Anything change lately?

[Oracus]

This and all the rest of the corals were transferred from a smaller tank on Nov 24 2017. 

All parameters are stable with minor increases in CA 300 to 360 and ALK 7 to 8 over two weeks.

I have had the trumpets since Jan 9 2017.

I do you API phosphate test and have always interpreted 0.25ppm as near 0ppm as that is the only color i've ever read on it. Ill order one since LFS only carries API.

I don't usually feed it, but will occasionally overspray some coral food in its area.

I have added another photo from Dec 3 2017, you can see the close proximity of my BTA which has never bothered it before.

I do weekly 25% WC on Wednesdays and feed the tank on M-W-F's.  

List of recent changes

Last week added purigen and chemipure to media basket (removed purigen yesterday)

Fragged frogspawn coral just before transfer and two heads not doing well (mucus?)

Added favia coral about 18in away on far side of tank Dec 8 2017

Feed BTA FW guppy Saturday Dec 9 2017( noticed trumpet did not look good on Dec 10)

That is all i can recall right now. 

 

 

[Oracus]

Current setup

 

Previous tank

[seabass]

I doubt that this problem has anything to do with phosphate.  0.00 ppm phosphate is unusual, so I mentioned it.  Since you are using API's kit, we can assume that you have some phosphate in your tank.  Phosphate is an important nutrient in our tanks so some is good (0.01 to 0.03 ppm), but too much is bad.

 

Hmm, so your frogspawn is also having problems?  Makes me think it might have to do with water parameters.  That often involves alkalinity swings.

 

I would think that a sting from your BTA or another coral would only affect a couple of heads, not all of them.  The tissue loss is pretty severe; I'm not very optimistic about its chances.

[Oracus]

25 minutes ago, seabass said:

I doubt that this problem has anything to do with phosphate.  0.00 ppm phosphate is unusual, so I mentioned it.  Since you are using API's kit, we can assume that you have some phosphate in your tank.  Phosphate is an important nutrient in our tanks so some is good (0.01 to 0.03 ppm), but too much is bad.

 

Hmm, so your frogspawn is also having problems?  Makes me think it might have to do with water parameters.  That often involves alkalinity swings.

 

I would think that a sting from your BTA or another coral would only affect a couple of heads, not all of them.  The tissue loss is pretty severe; I'm not very optimistic about its chances.

As for the frogspawn the two heads have never come out after the fragging so i didn't believe it was related.

I did move the trumpets to the far end of the tank lower flow and light.

Then there is always the possibility of foreign contaminate, I wash my hands alot and try to keep my hands out of the tank. But the wife likes to change hand soaps everytime she goes to the store. I try to rinse them with water alone lots of time.  

[seabass]

Predator?  I'm at a loss.  Anybody else?

[tk3445]

It looks like its sunburned too me. Mine use to always melt just like that when I had them too high with too much flow.

[markalot]

It needs food.  I have some blue trumpets in my 40 gallon and if po4 and or no3 drops too low they recede every time, super sensitive for some reason.  New tanks are notorious for super clean water with no food particles in the water column.  Stirring gravel or feeding coral food should help IMO.  On the other hand, it may be too much light in combination with little food, so moving them to a darker spot could help as well. 

[Oracus]

34 minutes ago, seabass said:

Predator?  I'm at a loss.  Anybody else?

I do have 3 hermits and 2 bumblebee snails

[Oracus]

22 minutes ago, tk3445 said:

It looks like its sunburned too me. Mine use to always melt just like that when I had them too high with too much flow.

Flow is a good possibility. I needed more flow for this tank so the circ pump is on the far end blowing towards the trumpets. Light is the same as before and distance, I lowered the brightness alittle when i made the change over and slowly increase it.  

[Oracus]

16 minutes ago, markalot said:

It needs food.  I have some blue trumpets in my 40 gallon and if po4 and or no3 drops too low they recede every time, super sensitive for some reason.  New tanks are notorious for super clean water with no food particles in the water column.  Stirring gravel or feeding coral food should help IMO.  On the other hand, it may be too much light in combination with little food, so moving them to a darker spot could help as well. 

I will try your suggestions. Since it is a new tank i am over feeding alittle bit. 

[MainelyReefer]

I've had similar recession from when my skimmer pump was leaching electricity shocking everything in the tank, and next it would be alk issues that cause that kind of reaction, any changes in salt mix?

[Oracus]

I get it premixed from LFS Red Sea Coral Pro. I was getting ready to start mixing my own. 

[markalot]

1 hour ago, Oracus said:

I will try your suggestions. Since it is a new tank i am over feeding alittle bit. 

Did you use Chemi-Pure elite?  If so that contains GFO, I would take it out now as this appears to be rapid PO4 drop damage.  IMO this could harm your frogspawn as well.  Keep in mind that whatever happened may be over so all you can do now is improve conditions and hope for a recovery.  I don't like all in one products, but I also tolerate a 'filthy' tank for the benefit of the corals.  

[Oracus]

Yes it Elite! I did not setup my phosban reactor on this tank just a bag of Chemipure elite in the basket. I'll remove it this evening also. 

[luckie1966]

Its not good to keep moving them ,less light is better if you moved them and they look hungry.

[Oracus]

6 minutes ago, luckie1966 said:

Its not good to keep moving them ,less light is better if you moved them and they look hungry.

I've only moved it this once

[Clown79]

There's a good chance it's the chemipure and purigen addition all at once.

 

Purigen polishes the water and in doing that can reduce nutrients as well as causing the water to clear up- causing more light to reach the corals.

 

Chemipure is carbon and gfo. Carbon also polishes the water and can remove traces of elements, the gfo could rapidly drop the phosphates causing issues.

 

I use purigen and phosguard but I prefer to buy the items in bulk and use smaller quantities I place in media bags.

 

The pre bagged media is great for preventing having to bag your own media(time saver) but you can't control qty or how long the media lasts/needs replacing. This can either strip a tank if too much media is used as well as when the media is exhausted it no longer works but the product apparently lasts months.

 

The api phos kit is not good for saltwater. You need salifert or Hanna for accurate testing.

 

The only other things that I would think outside of the addition of too much media at once would be

 

Alk swings- have you tested it daily for a week straight?

 

Too much flow and too much direct light.

[Oracus]

3 hours ago, Clown79 said:

There's a good chance it's the chemipure and purigen addition all at once.

 

Purigen polishes the water and in doing that can reduce nutrients as well as causing the water to clear up- causing more light to reach the corals.

 

Chemipure is carbon and gfo. Carbon also polishes the water and can remove traces of elements, the gfo could rapidly drop the phosphates causing issues.

 

I use purigen and phosguard but I prefer to buy the items in bulk and use smaller quantities I place in media bags.

 

The pre bagged media is great for preventing having to bag your own media(time saver) but you can't control qty or how long the media lasts/needs replacing. This can either strip a tank if too much media is used as well as when the media is exhausted it no longer works but the product apparently lasts months.

 

The api phos kit is not good for saltwater. You need salifert or Hanna for accurate testing.

 

The only other things that I would think outside of the addition of too much media at once would be

 

Alk swings- have you tested it daily for a week straight?

 

Too much flow and too much direct light.

 

I tested alk every other day and was consistently 7 until my last wc and now its 8. But no not everyday

[Oracus]

I removed it from tank tonight, was turning brown on some heads.