Asterina Starfish

[Sea Turtle]

The guy at the lfs had a couple of options. Let me know what you think of them.

1. Double Line Dottyback.

2. Feed the fish in the tank less often, like once every two day to force them to seek other food options (preferably pods).

3. Six line Wrasse. (But I already have leopord spotted wrasse in the tank).

 

[Ben1]

How about some pics of the effected corals? That might help see whats going on, I still doubt the pods are causing any issues.

 

[Anonymous]

To add further emphasis to Ben's and my recent posts....it's not the pods. The longer you spend your attention focussed on the pods, the longer something else is not getting the attention it needs. Not only that, but the pods my actually be helping delay the decline of your corals by eating impacted tissue before it degrades your water quality.

I also agree with Ben on the pics request. To add, what are your water parameters and what is the history of your tank and its maintenance?

 

[Sea Turtle]

Ok. When I get home tonight I will work on getting pics and info updated

 

[Sea Turtle]

OK, here are some pics of the coral being eaten. Also, I included a picture of one of the pods that I caught off the coral. These are the guys that are eating it. I see them all over the ends of the branch, right where the skelaton ends and the skin/polyps start. They are eating right at the edge. That is why I feel they are eating the coral and not cleaning dead residue. Each morning there is more dead coral. Also, I had to add a couple of pics of my awsome zoanthid colonies that have been closed up for almost 2 months now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :evil:

My water parameters that I tested tonight are:

PH: 8.0
dKH: 7.0
Ca: 480
MG: 1350
temp: 80 degrees
Salinity: 1.026

 

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't be surprised if these are unrelated issues.

With the poci, I would snap off the white branch and see what happens. The lower regions of my poci are bare skeleton and have been for years due to shading. My colony is ~10" across and only the crown is alive - this is normal. Also, pocilloporas commonly undergo polyp bail out events. I have sprouts all over my tank from both of my colonies.

With the zoas, were they ever healthy in your tank? Have you ever tried moving them around? What is the history of the tank? Lighting?

It's not the pods.

 

[Sea Turtle]

I wouldn't be surprised if these are unrelated issues.

With the poci, I would snap off the white branch and see what happens. The lower regions of my poci are bare skeleton and have been for years due to shading. My colony is ~10" across and only the crown is alive - this is normal. Also, pocilloporas commonly undergo polyp bail out events. I have sprouts all over my tank from both of my colonies.

With the zoas, were they ever healthy in your tank? Have you ever tried moving them around? What is the history of the tank? Lighting?

It's not the pods.

My tank is about 15 months old. I have always had good water quality and maintained the tank on a regular basis. I have had metal halides since the start. The zoas were always very healthy, fully openned and lots of bright colors. Funny thing is, all the colonies in the tank are closed. Even the small disc frags up on the egg crate by the top of the water. Really funny. Maybe it could be something in the water? I did add Blue Life Red slime Control about a month ago to the tank. I have since removed it from the tank with active carbon. I did see that it had an ill effect on some of the corals. Mostly made them lose their color. Could this possibly have caused the zoa to close up for all this time?

The only thing is, some of them open up for a while only to close up again. Oh, and also for some reason the nuclear green zoas have not been affected by anything. They are still open and green. Not complety happy, but open.

 

[Ben1]

I have seen this alot in pocilloporas but in smaller colonys IME it is usually from lack of flow getting through the bottom of the coral. My other thought was that that frogspawn looks close enoug to hit it with sweepers at night. The zoas in the second pic seem to have a bit of different non-coralline algae around them, I cant see to well in the picture but perhaps its causing them issues.

 

[Anonymous]

Ok I'll add to this discussion, I have redbugs (treating this instant actually) but probably have had them in there for a good while while I was trying to catch a couple crafty cleaner shrimp! (luckily their hunger was their weakness!!). Anyways one of my corals where I first noticed the redbugs (via. a very close up macro shot because I can't see the summabitches with my eyes!) after a while had some dead spots on some branches, and I saw... asterinas on them. However I don't think the asterinas are the ultimate cause of this, my belief is maybe the continual red bug irritation caused tissue to slough off or necrosis(necrosize?) and they just ate what rotting flesh there was, there were not all over the coral just on a couple branches.

 

[Sea Turtle]

I have seen this alot in pocilloporas but in smaller colonys IME it is usually from lack of flow getting through the bottom of the coral. My other thought was that that frogspawn looks close enoug to hit it with sweepers at night. The zoas in the second pic seem to have a bit of different non-coralline algae around them, I cant see to well in the picture but perhaps its causing them issues.

Hmmmm. That is very possible since none of the other corals seem to be having this problem. Could this also be caused by an iodine deficency? A lot of my corals have been suffering lately, losing color, no growth, etc. I started adding Lugio's solution (iodine) and they seem to be really startin to improve. Could this have caused the coral to necrosize?

 

[Sea Turtle]

has anyone had any problems with iodine?

 

[Ben1]

Iodine is the one thing I add to my tank that I dont test for I just add 1 drop a day to my 160, of lugols. My old tank I did less and could probably add less to this tank as well but so far so good.

 

[Anonymous]

I haven't dosed iodine for years. I'm in the camp that believes my food inputs are likely able to keep up with iodine depletion.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/chem.htm

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... 3/chem.htm

 

[Sea Turtle]

Thanks for the links, very helpful. I however, am a strong believer of iodine supplementation in the reef tank. My friend had a problem with his sps corals sometime back and could not figure out what was killing them. I don't know what symptoms the corals showed while they were dying. Anyway, he had his water sent away to be professionally tested and they came back and said that there was an iodine deficiency. He started dosing iodine and the corals pulled out of it. A coincidence, maybe, but I'm sure since enough people use it, it must have some benefit.