Coralline Disease

[tinyreef]

I normally keep my postings to nano-reef stuff. I already posted this on chris’s sister site (reefaquarium.info) as well as reefs.org and a private forum I belong to but so far no answers that I believe are on target, so please forgive the fact that this issue is from a mid-sized reef.

 

the pic below is of some discoloration of coralline that starts out slightly yellow and progressively blackens and dies (flakes off). It almost looks like someone is taking a blowtorch to the coralline. has anyone seen a bacteria or virus (my guess) like this? ???

 

coralline of various types are growing rampantly throughout the system. the 'disease' seems to only affect the dull pink variety that originally came on my fiji rocks. The purples and vibrant pink coralline seems to be unaffected. Some other forums have guessed on the side of some kind of deficiency but the symptoms don’t point to that imo. It looks like an infection to me and besides my other coralline is still growing like crazy.

 

my tank parameters seem pretty normal, i don't test much anymore tho. i usually gauge by sight and animal reactions for the tank’s conditions besides my regular dosings. i dose with b-ionic, CaCl, and most of the various kent products on a daily (but low) basis.

 

it's a 4-year old tank (about 100g total capacity). it's mainly a soft coral system (leathers, colts, gsp, zoanths, and erthypodiums). a couple of hitchhiking stonys, porites and baby brain. I have the typical cleaner crews (astrae & hermits) and a couple of fish (damsel, clown, gramma). everything is very healthy and growing. I filter with a skimmer, macroalgae, carbon, and poly-filter, all 24/7.

 

any advice/info/help would be greatly appreciated. (panic slowly starts to creep in)

[tinyreef]

this overall pic (cropped a little) shows the scale and coralline growth in the tank. the rocks are pretty white because of a stupid urchin that only eats on the rock and not off the glass (anyone interested in a trade?)

 

my daughter is pointing out the affected rock shown in the other pic. she's such a good helper (yeah, right. it was chance) X)

[BCOrchidGuy]

Jeez what a shame I hope you can get it straightened out. Any chance it is... black band ??? disease? I read about it, but if I remember right it is a Hard coral disease, Im not sure if it affects coraline algae.

[tinyreef]

thanks, i was gettin worried there.

 

actually, i'm beginning to think it's a variant of CLD or CLOD (as suggested by sushigirl). it has obvious color differences from CLOD but does have some color (yellowing~black) whereas CLD is without 'color'. but it seems to act more like CLD in its spread pattern (i.e. shockwave or multiple concentric infection zones). i'm thinking it's probably a cousin of the two.

 

bad news is...no cure. none that i'm aware of at least. (anyone? please?) thing is this 'disease' has shown its ugly @ss head before but this time it seems to be pretty virulent. i've got whole pieces of original LR and seeded LR turning white/black. part of the coralline turns white but most of it turns black! so far it's just localized to my main tank but i think my sump is beginning to show signs as well.

 

i'm hoping it just burns itself out again as it did in the past.

[rickjg]

I have been blaming tiny sea stars for eating my coralline.

I did a sand trade a few months ago and ended up with tiny sea stars.

It appeared that they were eating my pink Caribbean coralline and blue Tonga coralline algae at a high rate of speed.

I have never heard of sea stars eating coralline algae, but I have white spots on rocks where the starfish are found. The purple coralline alga does not seem to be affected.

Maybe I am blaming the starfish for something they are innocent of. The guy that I traded with claims that the sea stars are not to blame. He thinks it is the rust colored flat worms we both have in our tanks that eat the coralline and the stars are eating the flatworms. Both the flat worms and sea stars also hang out on the glass and I have yet to see a sea star getting even close to the flat worms, so I don't buy that story. Is it possible I have the dreaded coralline disease??????????????????????????????

[tinyreef]

funky! imo it looks like some type of disease to me, versus a nutritional deficiency from the edges of the coralline (still seem to be growing). not that i'm any kind of expert on coralline diseases, i wish i was! X)

 

or...was the lighting change between tanks extreme? that may cause coralline to bleach. if it went from lower to higher (your tank) i wouldn't be surprised at bleaching. if it was reverse then ???

 

or...extreme changes in calcium/alk between the two systems may cause similar ???

[Dave ESPI]

tinyreef .... shame shame shame.

Imy tank parameters seem pretty normal, i don't test much anymore tho. i usually gauge by sight and animal reactions for the tank’s conditions besides my regular dosings.  i dose with b-ionic, CaCl, and most of the various kent products on a daily (but low) basis.  

 

it's a 4-year old tank  

 

any advice/info/help would be greatly appreciated.    (panic slowly starts to creep in)

 

OTS might be creeping in. try some Marc Weis Coralvital or Reef DNA. It has coraline enzymes that really boost the growth and make it healthy. You could also benifit from adding a new piece of live rock that is coated in coraline, and do scape.

 

Tiny, I like ya..... but.... yer in the hot seat....

DO SOME TEST ! When in doubt, simply eyeballing it (and NOT having a LOG BOOK) while there is OBVIOUSLY a problem, is no excuse fer lazyness. I dont like to test all the time and I dont either, BUT when sheiat goes assunder, Be a Pirate and be prepared to Blunder ....... or ye will loose yer Plunder !

YARRRRRRRrrr .....

[tinyreef]

, i know, i know. i've been procrastinating on getting new test kits. that's one of the reasons why i didn't post this situation right after i posted on the reefaquarium.info website. (even after being prodded by physh) all my test kits were way expired! X)

 

i really didn't want to ask for help without giving enough info on the situation (ca, alk, pH, mg, and so on). i was just hoping someone may have seen the condition before and have a quick answer (not necessarily a quick fix).

 

ok, ok, i'm ordering test kits! scrape? why? don't you like my coralline picture frame effect? ??? you can help me scrape when you come over!

[printerdown01]

Imy tank parameters seem pretty normal, i don't test much anymore tho. i usually gauge by sight and animal reactions

Tiny, I like you and everything but... Hello? I am right in there with you when it comes to watching my tank for signs of distress, rather than buying test kist (however I do have 2 which I consider indespensible)... But YOUR CORALLINE IS DYING, that should be enough to alert you that something is probably wrong with the tank... lol... Anyway, I think that it is very possibly a disease... I would try taking the rock out and craping (steel wool scouring pad) any of the infected area off... If it pops up again that probably isn't the problem... You will have to deal with bald spots on your rock for a while, but it is better than loosing all your coralline!

[tinyreef]

thanks for the constructive criticism (you and dave) i do appreciate it. but i'm not losing all my coralline. only one specific species is affected by the 'disease'. the rest of my coralline is booming! half my rocks are fused together from the purple encrusting coralline and the pink is still running rampant over the glass and rocks. (i DO scrape everyday btw. it just looks like i don't )

 

the white bare rock is from my sea urchin who munches along at night but stays off the glass. anyone want to trade? free? pay you $5? the urchin has been able to munch along on one side and after a month migrate to the other half and then rotate. now with this 'disease' some of his food is gone. maybe now he'll eat off the glass. :

 

also all the corals (stony and soft) and inverts (detritvores and planktivores) are doing fine. my pink cuke is fighting the vermetids for food tho.

[Dave ESPI]

you have issues.