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View Full Version : Possible leather infection? Help


medic29
04/12/2007, 07:39 AM
Good morning.

I've got a mystery I need some help with. I've had 2 separate soft corals suffer the same fait that the cause is a mystery currently and I need some help solving it.

It didn't happen to them at the same time either. It happened to one. Then a couple of months later, the other suffered the same, or at least a very similar problem. I'll post some pics showing what happened.

Below are a couple of pics of when my colt coral was doing really well.
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/colt1.jpg
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/colt2.jpg

Then here is a couple of pics showing what it looked like a couple of months later. Now to be specific, it looked like normal, then within about a day it looked like this:
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/colt3.jpg
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/colt4.jpg

Yesterday I noticed my nepthelia (sp?) had suffered from the same affliction.

Here is is a couple of months ago:
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/nepth1.jpg
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/nepth2.jpg

I had been noticing that it was really happy and extending its polyps and looking really good lately. I was really happy with how it was doing.

Then yesterday I noted it had basically died; under the recommendation of a friend at my LFS I removed it immediately from the system. This is what it looked like after removing it from the system:
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/nepth3.jpg
http://medic29.home.insightbb.com/bnarc/nepth4.jpg

It has been suggested this may be a bacterial infection. Both of these corals were sitting down in contact with the sandbed. My other leather and soft corals which are up on the live rock all look good, but all my other soft corals looked good a couple of months ago when my colt coral was affected.

At that time a friend suggested I bring the colt over to his system in case it was something in my system that was attacking it. It continued to decline in his system until he finally pulled it. He told me one of his soft corals (a leather) has suffered a similar problem.

This continues to make a good argument that it could be some sort of infection that affects soft corals.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Any ideas? I've been considering pulling all of the leathers from the tank and putting them in a separate tank by themselves. Could this be some bacteria or something in the sandbed that is affecting these corals? I will be setting up a new larger display tank here soon and was going to bring all of the live sand and live rock from my current display tank and put them in the new display tank, now I'm wondering if this is going to be a good idea or even possible. I don't want to bring some type of infection into the new tank.

Again, I'm open to any ideas??

Thanks!!

medic29
04/12/2007, 08:12 AM
Sorry, I probably should have put that in the post as well.

pH 8.28
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ca+ 440
Alk 9.3
Phos 0
Mg 1290
Sp Gr 1.025

epon
04/12/2007, 09:05 AM
just another reason to ditch the softys :)

medic29
04/12/2007, 10:06 AM
well that helped!! LOL

Horace
04/12/2007, 10:57 AM
No clue, though I doubt its some kind of infection. If it is, there is unlikely anything you could/can do anyway.

My softies have died in the past when there wasnt enough food available. Since feeding the tank more, they have done alot better than I want them to lol. I actually am about to start selling my leathers off.

Anyone want to make a bid on my super rare neon green devils hand? :P

I have never seen one other than mine.