Indophyllia assistance

[forestsofkelp]

I have two indophyllia and a cyanaria. The cyanaria has always limped along, the indos have been healthy and fully expanded for 8months.

For the last 10 days they have been shriveled tight as can be, right up against the skeleton. I’m worried they will start necrosis/losing tissue if they haven’t soon.
I have a trachyphlia that’s been doing the same but to a lesser degree for 2 months (but it’s always been fickle)

This was preceded by adding some wrasses, a bristle tooth tang and a powder blue. All my other lps are big and happy. My alk has also recently dropped last week from 8.5 to 7.5 up to 7.9…after they shriveled up.

My elegance coral did something similiar, then recovered.

Any ideas? Not sure why these guys are so angry.

They are spot fed every month or two.
Don’t extend at night.
Parameters: 1.0265, 8.0, 460, 0.06 (with algal growth), 0, recent ICP similiar to my prior ICP no heavy metals and missing random a few random trace (molybdenum etc) that are always hit or miss. Flow is low where they are.


Haven’t spotted anything that would cause just these two to rapidly be unhappy.
Maybe the alk?

Any experience or ideas?

 

[KrisReef]

Bump

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

I have two indophyllia and a cyanaria. The cyanaria has always limped along, the indos have been healthy and fully expanded for 8months.

For the last 10 days they have been shriveled tight as can be, right up against the skeleton. I’m worried they will start necrosis/losing tissue if they haven’t soon.
I have a trachyphlia that’s been doing the same but to a lesser degree for 2 months (but it’s always been fickle)

This was preceded by adding some wrasses, a bristle tooth tang and a powder blue. All my other lps are big and happy. My alk has also recently dropped last week from 8.5 to 7.5 up to 7.9…after they shriveled up.

My elegance coral did something similiar, then recovered.

Any ideas? Not sure why these guys are so angry.

They are spot fed every month or two.
Don’t extend at night.
Parameters: 1.0265, 8.0, 460, 0.06 (with algal growth), 0, recent ICP similiar to my prior ICP no heavy metals and missing random a few random trace (molybdenum etc) that are always hit or miss. Flow is low where they are.


Haven’t spotted anything that would cause just these two to rapidly be unhappy.
Maybe the alk?

Any experience or ideas?

My indo gets moody occasionally.
Try spot feeding more often.
I feed mine every 10-14 days some pellets & a little reef roids mixed into a paste with tank water.
They really do like to eat.
Whenever mine has a shrinking incident I feed it & it does the trick.
I've also noticed that mine gets upset when magnesium is low.
What kind of flow is it in?

 

[VintageReefer]

I spot feed all my Cynarina and donut / meat corals 1-2x weekly. They are big corals with big mouths, they are designed to eat food regularly

 

[forestsofkelp]

My indo gets moody occasionally.
Try spot feeding more often.
I feed mine every 10-14 days some pellets & a little reef roids mixed into a paste with tank water.
They really do like to eat.
Whenever mine has a shrinking incident I feed it & it does the trick.
I've also noticed that mine gets upset when magnesium is low.
What kind of flow is it in?

really soft flow. They were fully extended like the beautiful ones above then all of a sudden tanked. One is just straight skeleton the other is stating to puff a little more. Not sure if they will make it.

Maybe it was poor feeding but not sure why they just died all of a sudden. It was basically overnight from full to closed.

 

[VintageReefer]

really soft flow. They were fully extended like the beautiful ones above then all of a sudden tanked. One is just straight skeleton the other is stating to puff a little more. Not sure if they will make it.

Maybe it was poor feeding but not sure why they just died all of a sudden. It was basically overnight from full to closed.

They slowly starve and try to get by from light alone which is a supplement but not full diet. Eventually, they become so hungry, they basically get sick. There’s a short timeframe to get them to eat before they feel too sick to eat more. Then you are in short timeframe for survival. Same thing happens in cats

You need to entice them to eat at night after lights out. Stop flow, put meaty food right on that mouth and wait. 15-30 min and they should open and eat it. In time they can recover and they will start eating on a schedule if you feed them regularly. Once a month won’t train them into anything. 1-2x a week and they will start opening nightly for feeding. You won’t even have to stop flow once they are on a schedule. Many of my Cynarina now open and eat in the daytime from training. You don’t want to feed more than once every 2-3 days. It takes time for them to digest…and same plumbing in as out…need to wait for digestive processes to finish, for them to go to the bathroom, before more goes in. Otherwise excess food builds up inside and can rot, or, worse, you cause a “road block”

It takes 24-48 hours for digestive processes to complete. Many say feed once weekly but twice weekly is ok also, especially if one is food deprived and in recovery. Aim for 3 days for now. Hopefully you can get it to open the mouth and feed. Then a few pieces of mysis, reefroids, or similar should suffice as a meal

 

[forestsofkelp]

Awww man so I killed them. I’ll try and save my survivor. I’d like to insert about 10 curse words here but don’t want to get banned. So mad at myself. I thought they’d be ok. Curse word again.

 

[VintageReefer]

Awww man so I killed them. I’ll try and save my survivor. I’d like to insert about 10 curse words here but don’t want to get banned. So mad at myself. I thought they’d be ok. Curse word again.

Cynarina are tough. They recover slow, but they can recover. Other meat/donut corals are more difficult.

I just had a Cynarina make a good recovery. Was showing bone and skeleton poking through flesh. Low flow and consistent target feeding and after about 6 weeks I have full recovery.

 

[Mr. Acantho]

Awww man so I killed them. I’ll try and save my survivor. I’d like to insert about 10 curse words here but don’t want to get banned. So mad at myself. I thought they’d be ok. Curse word again.

How did you kill them?

Check par - 110 & below

I thought your alkalinity was too low. Try to get to 9 - 10+

Feed 1x a week with mysis shrimp

 

[forestsofkelp]

How did you kill them?

Check par - 110 & below

I thought your alkalinity was too low. Try to get to 9 - 10+

Feed 1x a week with mysis shrimp

I didnt feed them. Like at all. I thought they were like my other corals...can live off light and whatever is in water column, but dont require spot feeding.

I will start feeding tonight.

Interesting about the alk. It seemed they did poorly right when I had an alk drop. What makes you say they are that alk sensitive eg lower end of normal = death.

Just wondering, my alk is being raised from 8.5 to 9.5 again..corals seemed to do better but my consumption was so high.

Hopefully I can recover those who remain...

 

[Mr. Acantho]

I didnt feed them. Like at all. I thought they were like my other corals...can live off light and whatever is in water column, but dont require spot feeding.

I will start feeding tonight.

Interesting about the alk. It seemed they did poorly right when I had an alk drop. What makes you say they are that alk sensitive eg lower end of normal = death.

Just wondering, my alk is being raised from 8.5 to 9.5 again..corals seemed to do better but my consumption was so high.

Hopefully I can recover those who remain...

Bare minimum is 8 dkh for alkalinity. 10 is where my corals are at, which is in the middle and gives me a buffer in case it gets below that.

In general, Alkalinity helps build flesh & calcium builds skeleton.

All meat corals (acantho, Indophyllia, cynarina, etc) should be fed at least 1x a week and preferably target fed for guaranteed consumption and tender loving care.