heliofungia on sand alert

[hobogato]

well, over the last three weeks, i have lost all four of my plate corals that were on my sand bed. nothing fell on them and they looked VERY healthy and colorful right up until they peeled away from their skeletons starting on the bottom and coming right up over the edge. i have one other that is in my rockwork that has show no signs of issues. i think there may be something in the sand bed that is preying on the undersid of the plates, because when i took one out of the tank just after noticing it was peeling back, the entire underside had this foul smelling junk where the tissue used to be.

have tested all perameters and nothing is out of whack, all other corals from softies to other LPS and SPS are doing great.

[GaryP]

Was it having sand blown on it? The only time I have ever lost one was due to blowing sand or a fish that was digging in sand.

Everyone says not to put a plate on rock becuase it is easily bruised by rock.

[Bill S]

Ace, man, you seem to be having a string of bad luck...

Gary, that's what I've heard as well. I've only tried one ever, and that was about a year ago. Was doing well on a rock, then I heard it was bad for them, moved it to the sand and... well it's gone.

[GaryP]

Mutant heliofungia red bugs?

[Richard]

I don't know why but we always had problems eventually by putting them on the sandbed. Once we started putting them on little rocks so they were elevated a little off the sb then they did fine.

[hobogato]

now ya tell me. :roll

[CoralHQ]

I have always had great success with plates. My secret is to lay them on a SMALL piece of pvc on the sandbed, this is because they can inflat with water and actually "move" often running into rocks and damaging their tissue. The PVC will stop them from 'scooting' across the sandbed. HTH.