Oh no, not the Hydnophora

Guys, I'm in some deep s**t here! My favorite and oldest coral, my Hydnophora thats over a year old has what I believe to be brown jelly infection. Its been closed for over a week now and this morning I see tissue sluffing off and some of the tips are swollen like balloons. Its not just the Hydno though, the Starlet coral that came on the liverock seems to be dieing, about three fourths of it has lost its color. Also the other corals are not opening up except for the pipe organ. Frogspawn is fine but my bluetip acro is turning white also. I don't know whats going on, all water parameters are perfect. I stopped the kalkwasser a few days ago when I noticed this but to no avail. It looks like I'm going to loose most of my corals. I'm fixing to take out the rock with the Hydnophora on it and frag up the Hydno and see if the frags will grow. I'm posting pics but its hard to tell, look at the tips of the Hydno. Also the tube coral that came on the liverock to the left of the Starlet coral is dieing.

Hydno


Starlet

Don't know if it had anything to do with the Hydno but when I took out the rock it was on I found a big fireworm, I mean a big one, not long but big around and about 2" long almost big araound as a pencil, look out fingers, I almost grabbed him. He was hold up just at the base of the Hydno, only one I can find that looks like it is a Hermodice Carunculata, not sure but it looks just like him. I posted a pic below but couldn't get it to straighten out, it kept curling up in a ball. I removed the Hydnophora and got three frags from it, I will see how they do. Now I gotta figure if theres anything else wrong with the tank.

That's a mean looking dude!

Nasty lookin' critter... hope the frags make it.

Sounds like the same thing I was dealing with if it starts at the tips. I ran across another post on RC that sort of backs up the idea about the low phosphate and alkalinity;

It's alk definately. You are running pellets as well. Anything over 9 IME you start losing SPS, probably mostly acropora. If you aren't steady in the 7.5 range then that's your culprit gauranteed. If your birdnest and LPS type corals are doing okay I would again say it's your alk without question.

Gabe
Its not that it started at the tips but the tips would blow up like a ballon and then sluff off. The main tissue was coming off from the bottom up. as for the other sps, just turning white, man I don't know what it is but looks like I may have a lps, softie tank soon. Its really a shame, knock on wood, the little pico is looking better than the nano.

So I just decided... I'm going to do two part instead of kalk drip. Just sayin..

Good luck donnie! Keep us posted. If you need to store any frags let me know. I can put the frag rack in for ya.

matt_longview wrote:So I just decided... I'm going to do two part instead of kalk drip. Just sayin..

Good luck donnie! Keep us posted. If you need to store any frags let me know. I can put the frag rack in for ya.

Thanks Matt but I'm just gonna ride it out and see what happens.