My pagoda cup isn't doing good... (1 Viewer)

[shaggy]

Well in the past 24hrs I have lost a good section of my cup. It has turned from blue green to a maroon slim on a section. On the outer rim it is disappearing in to just the skeleton. Here are a few pics. Is there anything I can do? I just did a 15gallon water change yesterday. The tank is a 72bow with T5's.

 

[devonian]

try to provide better flow? have you been feeding it?

 

[shaggy]

yeah, I've been feeding it mysis and brine shrimp. its in a med flow area. Ive had him for about 5 months and hes beeen doing good up until the last couple days.

 

[devonian]

add anything new to the tank? it just seems like a strange onset, ... sorry t o see it

 

[AquaNerd]

how long has it been in the tank? did you acclimate it properly?

 

[Scott]

Ive had him for about 5 months ...

 

[cstewart79]

What did you add recently???

 

[AquaNerd]

Ive had him for about 5 months ...

oops, don't know how i missed that.
what are your water parameters looking like?

 

[MarkieB]

If you have had this for 5 months doing fine, it would not take a turn for the worst that fast unless something was critically wrong.

Thoughts,

Not doing regular water changes?
Added a new coral?
Changed salt mixing containers?
Cleaned house recently?
Children feeding fish?
Spill in tank?
New power head or equipment- stray voltage?

They are pretty hardy and when they do bad generally will takes weeks to wither away. They fact you say this is going down very fast would tell me something happened in the tank.

Think hard about what happened around the house or tank in the last week. How often do you do water changes and how much? Have you added or removed anything recently?

 

[shaggy]

My parameters are good exept the nitrates are at 20ppm . I just checked them and my cal is a little low its a 360ppm.
The only thing Ive really changed is that I add grape caulerpa to my sump and I noticed that my sea urchin had died in the fug. so i did a water change on sunday, because of this.
Im now going to do abother water change cause of the nitrates.
When i do water changes its 15gallons every2 weeks, I havent changed my salt brand and still use well water.

 

[AquaNerd]

how long was the dead urchin in the tank?

 

[shaggy]

it was atleast a day, could have been acouple. due to me working nights i dont see eveverything right away. I pulled the cup out and put it in my qt tank and its not doing any better. I dont think its going to last much longer, more than half of it is gone now.

 

[texasmckanes]

To save it, you could consider fragging it within the area that remains healthy. You can't do it just at the line between what is dying and what remains healthy. You have to do it within the healthy tissue. I'm not sure what's happening to it, but if it has a necrotizing infection that should stop it from progressing into the unaffected area.
-B

 

[AquaNerd]

^^^i agree...frag off the healty portion just as described and hopefully it will recover.

 

[shaggy]

how do you frag it? do i use a hacksaw? lol or would just using pliers to break it off work?

 

[AquaNerd]

i'd go with a small hacksaw or something that can cut. don't use a motorized saw as it will really heat up the tissue and that's not what you want to do.

 

[texasmckanes]

Use something very sharp like a razor to cut the tissues down to the skeleton so that the wound is a clean one. Use the blade to scrape away some tissue on the throw away side to allow for the kerf of the blade. If it is all torn up, it will have a harder time healing. To cut the skeleton, a hack saw would actually do it and give you a decent cut. Powertools will make short work of it but aren't necessary. Alternatively, you could consider a chisel to fracture the skeleton along whatever cut you make. Ohh, and don't try to salvage the part you are removing. It'll just foul your water and make more problems for you.
-B

 

[shaggy]

thanks i'll give it a try when i get home in the morning.