Hi there! I've been a lurker and procrastinating on my first post here, sad that it had to be a cry for help! :'(
We've had our duncan coral in our 40 gallon reef tank for 3 months and it's been the happiest little trooper, readily receiving artemia when spot-fed, putting out plump tentacles and growing new baby heads... Last week my partner and I went away for 4 days: we had a family member over to housesit with specific instructions (e.g. allocated amounts of artemia feeding, feed the fish pellets first, etc). There was one day when the housesitter noticed that the tank was noisy, and we walked her through the RO water topping up process on the phone. When we returned everyone in the tank looked fine, except for the duncan - it was all limp and retracted. The skeleton has also lost some of the green fluorescence, and looked wrinkled.
I did a 20% water change immediately after we got home (I had done a 10% the week before)... it has since been a full week and it had pretty much stayed retracted and miserable with no improvements the entire week. I did another 20% water change yesterday with KH and Mg dosing, and this morning I think there has been a slight improvement (tentacles a bit further out??) but it is still very limp and unhappy compared to how it was before.
(before)
(after 20% water change upon return, 1 week ago)
(this morning)
We had our water tested at a LFS a week before our trip, and also yesterday (after another 20% water change), and here are the parameters:
1 week before trip:
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.9
KH: 7.7
Nh3/4: 0.1
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 8
PO4: 0.2
Calcium: 465
Magnesium: 1108
Yesterday (after another 20% water change):
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
KH: 7.3
Nh3/4: 0.2
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 11
PO4: 0.2
Calcium: 473
Magnesium: 1125
(Our LFS have advised us to dose up on KH and Mg after water changes, since they seem to be dropping steadily.. we don't have an automatic dosing machine but we are doing it manually)
Current tank inhabitants (tank is over 2 yrs old):
2x Ocellaris clownfish (paired, has zero interest in the Duncan)
2x Pjama Cardinals
1x Rainford Goby
1x Sandsifting starfish
3x hermit crabs (less than 1 inch in size)
4x Astraea snails
+ Codium fragile (macro algae)
+ unaccounted number of bristle worms (have not seen any fireworms so far)
Corals:
1x Duncan
1x Sinularia
1x Toadstool
1x Alveopora (on the other end of tank)
Zoas (5x frags, various)
Fireworks clove polyps (2x frags)
GSP (1x rock)
We can't figure out what's wrong, and any advise or suggestions would be helpful!! Thank you so much
We've had our duncan coral in our 40 gallon reef tank for 3 months and it's been the happiest little trooper, readily receiving artemia when spot-fed, putting out plump tentacles and growing new baby heads... Last week my partner and I went away for 4 days: we had a family member over to housesit with specific instructions (e.g. allocated amounts of artemia feeding, feed the fish pellets first, etc). There was one day when the housesitter noticed that the tank was noisy, and we walked her through the RO water topping up process on the phone. When we returned everyone in the tank looked fine, except for the duncan - it was all limp and retracted. The skeleton has also lost some of the green fluorescence, and looked wrinkled.
I did a 20% water change immediately after we got home (I had done a 10% the week before)... it has since been a full week and it had pretty much stayed retracted and miserable with no improvements the entire week. I did another 20% water change yesterday with KH and Mg dosing, and this morning I think there has been a slight improvement (tentacles a bit further out??) but it is still very limp and unhappy compared to how it was before.
We had our water tested at a LFS a week before our trip, and also yesterday (after another 20% water change), and here are the parameters:
1 week before trip:
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 7.9
KH: 7.7
Nh3/4: 0.1
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 8
PO4: 0.2
Calcium: 465
Magnesium: 1108
Yesterday (after another 20% water change):
Salinity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
KH: 7.3
Nh3/4: 0.2
NO2: 0.1
NO3: 11
PO4: 0.2
Calcium: 473
Magnesium: 1125
(Our LFS have advised us to dose up on KH and Mg after water changes, since they seem to be dropping steadily.. we don't have an automatic dosing machine but we are doing it manually)
Current tank inhabitants (tank is over 2 yrs old):
2x Ocellaris clownfish (paired, has zero interest in the Duncan)
2x Pjama Cardinals
1x Rainford Goby
1x Sandsifting starfish
3x hermit crabs (less than 1 inch in size)
4x Astraea snails
+ Codium fragile (macro algae)
+ unaccounted number of bristle worms (have not seen any fireworms so far)
Corals:
1x Duncan
1x Sinularia
1x Toadstool
1x Alveopora (on the other end of tank)
Zoas (5x frags, various)
Fireworks clove polyps (2x frags)
GSP (1x rock)
We can't figure out what's wrong, and any advise or suggestions would be helpful!! Thank you so much