Please Help - Dying Coral

[bitfishy]

Hi everyone - advice sought on this sorry looking specimen.

This started yesterday morning with a band of white (looks brown because of the little polyps) about an inch wide along the back length. I had recently moved him and this band corresponded to the area which received no direct light from the bulbs. Took it to be this and moved it back to its original position. The band stopped widening by about 1pm so I was hopeful that I may have taken good action. However I woke up this morning to this

Also, I did all the parameter tests yesterday to find that my alkalinity was way high again - 14.1KH!! Did a big water change and it went down to 11.8KH. Planned to do another big one today to bring it to normal levels. Other parameters are as follows:

Salinity .027 Nitrite 0 PH 8.1-8.2 calcium 450 ammonia 0 phosphates 0.25 nitrate 0.5 Temp 78

I have an ongoing battle (like the last year!) with phosphates and nitrates - I do 30-40% water changes fortnightly (sometimes weekly) - run rowaphos in the skimmer etc and these levels are coming down but oh-so-slowly.

For the last week I've been adding a calcium supplement due to low levels, which probably caused the alkalinity rise and have started to add magnesium because this was low too. Also dose with iodine now.

I've had this coral for about 4months and its been quite happy from what I could see. Can't think of any more relevant info to pass on. If anyone could help me out ont his I'd be so grateful. thank you!

 

[bitfishy]

just to update - the brown isn't little polyps - on further inspection its a kind of wispy coating - fire shrimp is eating it. It's not the dreaded brown jelly is it?

anyone out there........

 

[SkiFletch]

Sadly it is, but you're going to loose the coral. It looks like a Porites with symbiotic christmas tree worms. Except it looks like the symbiote worms are dead, and when that happens, the coral follows not too long afterwards. Sorry

 

[bitfishy]

Hi Ski - thanks for the reply........ was dreading it might be. The worms that look dead were actually emerging worms that had yet to break through the surface. There are only three big red worms and couple of small green ones and they still ahve their 'wings' out, but I suppose its a matter of time before they die too. This is terrible - I have to take the coral out I suppose for the sake of the rest. What are the chances of the others already being infected - its been two days now. This is too much - I've tried so hard with this hobby and its been headache after headache. i just don't understand. FOWLR for me now. Its so sad.

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, bron jelly is not necessarily an infection. What it is for sure is an immune response to stress. The coral unfortunately attacks itself for some reason. Often it is a bacterial infection, but not necessarily so. Even if it is bacterial, the infection is most often speices or genus specific. You CAN try fragging the coral, this SOMETIMES works. That's really your only chance.