GSP CRISIS!!!!!!

[mr_X]

my tank is flourishing, despite all my corner-cutting. as of yesterday, everything looked open and healthy, and happy.
tonight i got home from work and saw my green star polyp dying, or being eaten, or something. i hope you can give me some info from the pics, but it appears that the inside group of polyps (i'd say about 70%), are all shriveled and/or covered with some sort of brown cyano or something. i don't understand what could have happened.
anyone seen this or heard of this before?

my parameters are fine. i had just done 2-30 gallon water changes, one yesterday, and one the day before.

2 new adds to the tank:
first i added another rock tower- fully cured in a seperate tank, and even had some zoos on it, which were not harmed by any hitch hiker organisms.

secondly, i had alittle red slime on my sand bed that was introduced about a month ago by a piece of rubble with some zoos on it, so i tried a supposedly "completely harmless to everything but red slime" additive.
-this was the reason for the 60 gallons in 2 days water change.

i'm guessing this strange ailment was not due to either one of these things, because:
1. the rock tower is way on the other side of the tank from the GSP, and any predatory creatures would have to pass 5 or 6 other corals before coming to the green star.
2. the red slime remover would have effected the whole coral evenly, and also other corals (i have a second star polyp colony that is unscaved as of yet)
any help would be appreciated.

 

[mr_X]

i forgot to mention- this slime remover stuff is called red slime remover by ultralifereef products.
and it was added 4 days ago.

 

[mr_X]

39 views and no one comments?

guesses are welcome also!

 

[Anonymous]

Did you drip any undissolved salt on them during the water change, or maybe knock some salt creep off the edge of the tank?

Maybe they are burnt?


I would just blastem' with a turkeybaster and try to get all the slime off.
If your GSP do not recover 100% (they are tough buggers), I'll email you some of mine

 

[Anonymous]

The blast em with a turkey baster idea gets a recommendation from me as well. Helps clear the debris and sometimes can be a big help.

There is some kind of tube worm in the middle there, it seems the polyps are retracted to an area that those tentacles an reach, has that worm always been there? I usually don't have trouble with those things but I find it suspicious that the tentacles are spreading out over the retracted polyps.

 

[mr_X]

i'm going to remove the tube worm, and try and clean off the brown stuff..see if that does anything.
when the gsp was healthy, you wouldn't be able to see if that worm was always there or not- it was very full and the polyps were long. (below is the "before" pic
as for the salt creep, no, i mix my salt the night before in another container- it never goes in unmixed, and it's not in a position to be effected by salt creep.
thanks to both of you for the replies.

 

[mr_X]

here it is as of tonight- i blew all of the brown stuff (i assume cyano), and distanced it from the small offspring colony next to it. here it sits, all shriveled and ugly. it it distressing me.

 

[Anonymous]

It will be fine!

It does not look like any of the purple mat is rotting - that would be a bad sign.

 

[mr_X]

hmm...then what the heck caused this? are these usually more sensitive than the rest? i would have expected the hard corals to be effected by an issue faster than something like a green star. :?

 

[Anonymous]

I still think you had something acutely bothering the GPS, and not a systemic issue. I think that the brown goo was what was left of the irritant mixed with whatever the GPS was doing to protect itself.

 

[mr_X]

that brown goo, came right off when i shook the colony. if that was a microalgae, it would not have come off that easily i don't think.
you don't think it was that little tube worm do you?

 

[Anonymous]

If it makes you feel better, yes.





But not really

 

[mr_X]

thanks for your time. i do feel better actually. :wink:

 

[AF Founder]

i forgot to mention- this slime remover stuff is called red slime remover by ultralifereef products.
and it was added 4 days ago.

That product contains a strong antibiotic, which may have caused a system wide bacterial change, which in turn caused an outbreak of a bacteria before held in check that now bothers the coral. GSP rae pretty tough and may come back when the annoying bacteria returns to its normal state. Just a guess.

 

[ihopss]

if you have a lot of small snails, that chemical you put in their, could've killed them and now you have a lot of ammonia. it happened to me and my star polyps were first ,keep an eye on your core line mine started bleaching,and could indicate not enough current , keep doing large water changes lots of carbon if you have microalgae look to see if it's falling back this is just a thought

 

[mr_X]

my snails are fine so far. macroalgae is not effected. all other corals are fine as well. this is an antibiotic. why would it kill snails?
besides, if my snails all dies at once it still wouldn't make an ammonia spike strong enough to effect anything else.
this system is 180 gallons. with 150+ pounds of live rock. and 30 gallon water changes once a week.
since i have added the slime remover, i've changed 120 gallons of water in a week.

 

[Anonymous]

My guess would be the red slime remover. I've used that a long while back and it destroyed some stuff.

 

[ihopss]

Well maybe it is a flow issue ,check your temperature, if everything else is fine, it could just be a natural process , I will stand aside now and follow this thread. luck has nothing to do with it so I won't say good////.

 

[mr_X]

speaking of flow, i had to send back my koralia pumps for replacements, and meanwhile i am using 2 powerheads that are less than half the flow. however, judging from the blowing of the soft corals, i'd say that it's not an issue.

 

[The_Orca]

Hey X. Did this all start after your water hit 85 degrees? Last time I saw your tank it looked great. Plus you have a 75 gallon fuge. I don't think it's red slim algae. If you think so, send send me a pic. I had it for almost a year until I put a fuge in and got rid of that crushed coral crap. Go sand not crushed coral. It traps debris that house Cyno. What was the water temp before these problems? I would think that way. It's just strange that you starting having these issues when you haven't had them before. I'm just trying to have us think what has changed recently to cause this.