The rapid death of a coral...

[ChadTheSpike]

OK, a little background.

Last week, I had what I think was a contamination issue with my tank, not positive, but I think. Here is what happened: I made up two 5 gallon buckets for a water change which I always do by using a mag 18 to mix the water for a couple of hours before I let it sit 48 hours prior to use. On one of the two buckets, I notice the water was cloudy and a light grey color, which was odd. After some thought/investigation, I came to the conclusion that there may have been a little sand in the bucket that acted as an abrasive on the pump impellor (it was about that color grey). I dumped the water out and made new water and did my water change, but I think the second bucket could have had the same issue to a lessor extent that didnt color the water.

The same time I did my water change, I fragged a paly colony that, for some reason, has never done well in my tank (I cant keep nuclear greens from melting, third try... the rest all seem to do fine), so I fragged the healthy part off and discarded the unhealthy portion (all out of the tank).

The next morning (Sunday) all of my LPS looked really unhappy and had mesenterial filaments showing so I added a large bag of carbon to the sump, turned my skimmer on, did a 25% water change, and added a polyfilter. The next couple of days most corals began to recover, although I did lose a couple, a couple I think I am going to lose, and a couple look like they probably will recover, but dont look right yet.

I figured there are two issus that could have led to this: either the water change water or the paly fragging. Oddly, the problem was limited to LPS; gorgs, softies, and zoas were unaffected and had normal polyp extension.

This morning I would have listed this acan in the "may recover" category, it didnt look quite right, but certainly didnt look like this, with tissue sloughing off:



This happened over the course of today, and almost looks like a second problem altogether (parasitic sponge or something)... perhaps it hit the coral when it was in a weakened state.

Just thought I would share.

Lesson learned: Make sure there isnt any sand in mixxing buckets (I think!!).

[Kamel]

Ouch, that sucks. Thanks for sharing your experience, hope I don't have to experience something like this myself, and your sharing helps prevent that.

Did you inspect your impeller for damage?

BTW my name is Chad too heh.

[beastrx]

It looks like it may be brown jelly disease? From the picture at least

[ChadTheSpike]

Yea, I think it probably is brown jelly or a bacterial infection that took it. It certainly progressed rapidly enough to have been brown jelly.

I did inspect the propellor, but didnt notice anything out of the ordinary, clean looking, but that was it. The sand that I suspect could have been in the bucket would have been super fine so I am not sure it could have left scoring marks.