Duncan Losing Skin - Help

[Rip3618]

I’ve had my Duncan in my 20 gal for about 6-7 weeks and he’s looked happy and healthy, even started growing a new head last week.  Yesterday we noticed some of his skin had turned brown and is coming off his skeleton.  I did a recent 50% water change Sunday and my water parameters are fine. I had him living in the middle water column of my peninsula aquarium and thought maybe he was getting too much water flow. Yesterday I moved him to the bottom to see if he improves. My other corals and fish seem to be healthy and doing well. 

 

Is there anything I can test for or anything I can to get him back to being healthy?  Thank you. 

[Ratvan]

Following along as this is what has happened to mine after approximately the same time period.

I have however stopped feeding it in the past couple of weeks so i do wonder if hat has any influence over the condition? 

An Iodine based dip tends to perk mine up a little (such as Lugols)  

I wonder if it is anything to do with growing a new head? Like maybe it cannot stretch as much as it did and has to receed to allow the new head to grow? I'm guessing here

[Lognor]

I don't know that growing a new head has anything to do with it.  I've had mine for over a year and it's flesh has always remained at roughly the same place, no matter how many heads it grows.  It really needs to be fragged, but I'm too nervous about having to cut the flesh on it.  

 

What parameters are you testing for?  Have you been spot feeding it at all?  Flow will affect the heads appearance, as far as polyp size and extension go. 

 

Receding flesh though is something different.  Iodine dip may help.  I'm not an expert though.

 

[Rip3618]

Nitrate 25ppm, Phosphate .5ppm

[Lognor]

What about Ph, alkalinity, calcium, and salinity?  Euphyllias are sensitive to alkalinity and salinity changes.  If there's not enough calcium they can't grow their skeleton, so if it is popping a new head and there's not enough calcium, it could be retracting at the bottom to support growth at the top.  I'm not 100% sure on that, just taking a bit of an educated guess.  Do you have other euphyllias in the tank?  If so, are they acting normal? 

[Rip3618]

Salinity and PH are good but I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t have kits to

test for alkalinity and calcium (guess what I’ll be buying today?).  I’m going to bring a water sample to my LFS this afternoon. 

 

I’m still new-ish to the hobby so I’m not sure how many types of coral Euphyllias include. I have the Duncan, a GSP, three small ricordea mushrooms and two small zoa colonies. 

[Lognor]

Ok, so it's your first euphyllia (hammers, torches, frogspawns), no biggie was just wondering if you were seeing any comparable behavior.  You can try a coral dip to try to help if it is damaged flesh, but it's hard to say for sure without knowing all the parameters and whether or not there has been a change recently.  Having the LFS check for you is a good step as well.

[Rip3618]

LFS said water tests were all within parameters. They think it’s a parasite or one of my hermits caused the damage from eating algae. They gave me some ME Coral One Shot to dip the Duncan.  We’ll see what happens (fingers crossed!). 

 

A buddy of mine has been in the hobby for years and suggested I add a calcium supplement or a Purple Tech to get my corals stronger.  Is this a good idea for a 20 gal nano reef tank?  I really don’t want to be scraping algae off my glass and powerhead. 

 

Hopefully my duncan will recover. 

[Ratvan]

You can dose calcium but you'd to test for it and ensure it stays "in range" for all your corals.

[MrObscura]

If keeping stony corals you must get a cal and Alk test kit and test regularly. "within parameters" means nothing if you don't have a target range and strive for stability. 

 

Also is your po4 0.05 or 0.5? because 0.5 is super high. Not necessarily the problem but that's almost unbelievably high. 

[Rip3618]

52 minutes ago, MrObscura said:

If keeping stony corals you must get a cal and Alk test kit and test regularly. "within parameters" means nothing if you don't have a target range and strive for stability. 

 

Also is your po4 0.05 or 0.5? because 0.5 is super high. Not necessarily the problem but that's almost unbelievably high. 

That was a typo, sorry.

 

PO4 is .05. 

[Rip3618]

Woke this morning and my Duncan looked  really, really bad. I talked to my coral guy and he suggested I perform a dip as well. I skipped the MEcoral dip and went with Seachem Reef Dip for the iodine. I also did a 50% water change and will do another 50% water change in few days to keep my po4 in check.  My Duncan looks rough and I’m afraid he might be a gonner. Fingers crossed. 

[Rip3618]

Update; 12 hours after the Seachem Reef Dip my duncan was covered in this brown crap.  Learned it was Brown Jelly Disease.  After spending all morning learning about BJD and remedies I went ahead and performed a peroxide dip and brushed (gently) away the visible BJD.  I say visible because 24 hours later the BJD was back. 

 

Unfortunately I decided to “pull the plug” on my duncan.  I’m pretty bummed about this and believe it’s my fault. I didn’t know enough when I got my corals to dip them to rid pests, etc prior to placing in my tank and I was neglectful and didn’t learn enough about testing and maintaining healthy tank water.  

 

To those that are new to the hobby let this be a lesson learned. I just wish the lesson wasn’t at the expense of a living creature I was responsible for. 

[Aurortpa]

Oh no 😞. Sorry to hear that.  I would do a larger water change and then  a fallow period of no new LPS coming in.  Forgive me, not sure of the exact period for brown jelly, hopefully someone chimes in.