sick plate coral

[PryncesNewbie]

i don't know what to do. my plate coral is not doing well. its def. dying, but i can't figure out why.
the paramaters are almost all good, the kh was a little high, but i put some ph down in it, and it should be ok. but still I don't know what to do....
i know its disintigrating, but is there anything i can do once that started?

 

[steve-s]

First off, welcome to Aquariumadvice.com

i don't know what to do. my plate coral is not doing well. its def. dying, but i can't figure out why. i know its disintigrating, but is there anything i can do once that started?

Is the flesh receding from a small area or large, mainly one side and is there any signs of brown liquid over the affected area? Can you post a pic?

the paramaters are almost all good

Please post actual numbers for your parameters. It can be rather challenging to pinpoint possible causes without as much info as possible. Please include NH3, NO2, NO3, pH, alk, Ca, temp & salinity.

Also provide some detail about your tank set up. Lighting, fish, inverts, substrate type, location of the coral, nearest coral neighbour, water flow conditions, carbon use if any and age of set up.

More often than not with these types of LPS corals is is either excessive luminar water flow or it's location. Depending on the severity of the damage, they are quite good at recovering if the effects that caused it in the first place are repaired.

the kh was a little high, but i put some ph down in it, and it should be ok.

Do not use these kinds of chemicals to repair chemistry issues in the tank. They will have no affect on alkalinity and merely supress the pH. If the alkalinity is too high, best off performing a few good water changes with well aged/aerated SW. This will commonly fix chemistry issues depending on what the new SW tests at. It also helps dilute contaminate/nutrient in the water at the same time.

Cheers
Steve

 

[PryncesNewbie]

well, I'm not at my house right now, but I can tell you that the amonia, nitrate, nitrite are all 0. I have to recheck the ca and the alk to give exact numbers

the tissue is disintigrating mostly from one side, yes and when it all started it looked like something had taken a bite from it.
i've tried to move it to some shade, thinking that maybe the light is too bright.

I have a 55 gal tank with a sand substrate. 220 w VHO lights (which I've recently discovered many not be working too well, because I didn't change the endcaps when I rewired the ballast.)

the inahbitants are the members of an algae attack pack, red tip dwarfs, scarletts, and turbo snails. There are quite a few red /blue mushrooms (which aren't look all too well either since this morning, a few only opened halfway), a bubble coral and a ricordea florida. we also have 3 green chromis.

thanks for the warm welcome.

ty

 

[steve-s]

I have to recheck the ca and the alk to give exact numbers

Please do...

the tissue is disintigrating mostly from one side, yes and when it all started it looked like something had taken a bite from it.

Definately sounds like it's being caused by an irritant. Either too close to a hard surface (should be on the sand not touching rock), too much water flow (near a powerhead or outport of skimmer/filetr) or too close to another (any) coral.

i've tried to move it to some shade, thinking that maybe the light is too bright.

Excessive light will actually cause these corals to fade but will generally not cause resession.

You will also need to ensure you start feeding this coral if you want it to recover properly. They feed quite readily on meaty seafoods minced up. Add some Selcon or other high [acronym="Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acid"]HUFA[/acronym] liquid marine vitamin to boost the nutrition and speed of healing.

Cheers
Steve