The Time has Come

[Kip]

A lot of people know thru posts here, etc that I've been having acro troubles since Feb this year. My acros have been painfully, slowly wasting away 1 by 1. The latest coral to become ill was my purple monster. I acquired this frag at ~ 1/4 " and it had grown to be a little larger than a golf ball since feb '06.

Today I decided I'd had enough and the illness was spreading throughout the base of the colony so that I felt this was my last opportunity to save it. I pulled it and fragged a dozen pieces.

Here are some pics of the sick coral... you can see in the shots the receded areas as well as the clipped areas for the frags. Hopefully the frags will pull thru and grow. They've been placed in another system I have running at my office.

Now that this coral is out of the system, it will be interesting to see which acro that i have left will become sick. I've already lost my huge cali-tort... i am betting my decent sized oregon tort will be next.

Shots of the sick/hacked purple monster parent:

Underside view from where recession started


"Healthier side" from which frags were taken


Top View showing how the recession had spread throughout the base of the coral

[Creetin]

Man thats a bummer i have been following your thread for a little, and that is truely a sad case.
I hope this clears up for you!!!

[Kip]

i have been hoping for a loooong time

i guess when my acros are completely gone... i will go acro-less for about 3-4 months... then try one again

but at the slow rate this illness has been wiping out my acros... it will be another 6-8 months before the very last acro is gone.

its been a looong slooooow road

[Kip]

here is a shot roughly 2 wks ago when the damage was more at the bottom of the base area

[Kip]

10-23-07- sorry for the bad pic

[Kip]

shot just after the coral became ill (10-5-07)



and then.... the last fully healthy monster pic i have... (9-11-07)

[Kip]

frag at 1 year old....



and lastly.... for fun... frag when I got Feb '06

I guess this thread turned into a reverse timeline

[rharr21]

Kip, I am sorry about your acros. I hope I never go throught the pain you have. I think it would push me over the edge.

[slojmn]

Kip,
I am so sorry to hear that you had to frag that nice PM colony. I hope the frags make it in your other system. Stay the course, keep the faith, and know when the time is right to come back to acros...after the losses run their course...you have plenty of friends here to fill a tank for you .

[gasman059]

kip sorry to hear that !

[acrylic_300]

I have one acro (millie). Iv'e turned down several offers for free acro frags. I have a dozen different Montipora, but the Millie seems to be outdoing them all...it seems very robust.

Of course I have the urge to collect more and more acros....at this point I think I will stop while I am ahead though. Nothing else is going into my tank.

[ssavader]

Kip, hang in there. You are doing what needs to be done and will not regret it. Give the tank 3-4 months so that any acro eating pests will die- just be sure to watch your other corals closely, as any pest going after your acros might change to a different coral if their primary source is gone. Question- were all your acros from the same source?

[lechee12]

good luck with the frags, recently lost my PM also none of the frags i made survived

[fishdoc11]

Sorry to hear Kip I lost my PM colony as well recently.
Hopefully your troubles will stop soon.

Chris

[Kip]

Joe saw something and PMd me... saw a brownish spot in the first pic and wanted a closer look. i'd resized the original file, so i had to re-snap a pic of the area. I used a 100mm macro lens.

First thought... AEFW eggs... but i'd seen those come in from shipments before and this was much more tiny. Upon further inspection... it just looks like acro tissue to me that has turned brown. Kinda like brown jelly disease (protozoan). So here is the pic for everyone to see and offer their .02c . I thought i had a picture stored of AEFWs to compare size, but I dont. When you look at the picture... and eggs come to mind... zoom in and then think about how close up you are looking.

i wont img tag the pic... just click to see it...

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/e...ggsOrJelly.jpg

[Kip]

someone had posted this pic on my site of aefw eggs for cross reference to my pic

[Kip]

more pics that were shared on my site for aefw egg reference

[CAreefer]

Kip, I didn't realize you were experiencing continued losses. I'm truly sorry to hear that. I know many have already offered, but when you're ready and my replacement tank is settled in, I got a replacement for your PM frag. Nobody should have to go through what we've endured.


Those pictures are all to familiar. The protozoan theory sounds very plausible, and worthy of more research for sure.

CAReefer

[Kip]

thanks for the replacement offer ... that pic makes me dream again

as of today (after pulling the monster)... there are no corals showing signs of these problems.... i went thru a lull a few months ago... no signs after pulling sick corals... then like 2-3wks later... i had 3 break out at once ... lemme see if i can find those pics... they lost tissue in the middle of the coral instead of from the base.

[Kip]

some of these were in other threads

but here is a lime table with pink tips that i lost... it was grown from a 1" frag

[paradoxycal]

so kind from post above, so sorry for the losses... im sure something will come up and it will work out...
AL

[Kip]

here is a shot showing where the problems started on that last pic

[Kip]

sick tricolor

[Kip]

no sick shot... but this was a tough one to lose... lotsa folks said it was the most blue turaki they'd seen


sarmentosa.... this is the only one that lost color as it became sick




really large yongei colony... small branch shooting off the main brain first to be affected (the recession seems to start randomly from coral to coral)






i dont have a shot of this one receding... it was the fastest to go... took about 5 days (most of the others take weeks to a month or so) this was a really tough loss... havent seen many like it (and unfortunately, i hadnt fragged and distributed it)



i could go on and on, but i wont... there is plenty here to see..... the problems all started in my frag tank after receiving corals/frags from a few shipments

here is a bucket that i filled with dead stuff from the frag tank... (all acros... no other genus affected) ... i think i ended up emptying this bucket twice and then quit filling the bucket and sent dead corals straight to the trash



2007 has been a horrible year for "Kip's Reef"

[mano1192]

my condolences, thats hard to endure, but build it bigger and better the next time around