Kryptonite Candy Cane shriveled and receding

[ReeferWarrant]

Getting worried about my Candy Cane, it is receding and starting to turn a brown color in the spots where the skeleton is exposed. I would just like to know if there is anything I can do to make it have a better chance of recovery. Parameters have been fairly stable for the past 2 months and lighting/placement havent changed since it was first introduced.

How I got to this point is I had GHA on the stalk of it, I used watered down peroxide and a q-tip to put on the stalk avoiding the corals flesh as much as possible. The GHA disappeared but it started to show exposed skeleton where the two heads were splitting. Now about a month later the polyps havent extended at all like they initially did and now the opposite side of the polyp is receding and changing color. I can see small forms of algae on the initial exposed skeleton.

Current actions I have been doing are dosing vodka to lower my Nitrates and using Phosban to remove Phosphates from the tank. Those two parameters were way too high (Nitrate 40 ppm and PO4 .25 ppm).

Parameters:
Ca: 460 ppm
Alk: 8.6
Mg: 1280 ppm
Nitrate: 15 ppm
Phosphate: .03 ppm

Thanks in advance!

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Whats throwing me for a loop is the Red Candy Cane behind it is absolutely fine with no issues.

 

[snowhite]

I've got a small one like that and it has been very finicky. Never expands much beyond it's base tube for months. It keeps gaining, but it's been really slow with it.

 

[Apotack]

Mine likes higher light

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Whats throwing me for a loop is the Red Candy Cane behind it is absolutely fine with no issues.

I have a candy cane like that and it doesn't matter what is upset it is always open. Terrible indicator coral because it's always happy.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

I would try a few 20% water changes to deal with whatever is in the water it doesn't like. My kryptonites love clean water and high aminos.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

I would try a few 20% water changes to deal with whatever is in the water it doesn't like. My kryptonites love clean water and high aminos.View attachment 1715127

I did a 20% and 2 10%’s 3 days in a row trying to reduce the Nitrates. Went from 40 ppm now to around 10-15 ppm. Yeah mine used to look like yours and now just angry and closed

 

[ReeferWarrant]

I mean everything else is happy too, and the others I’d assume are “harder” to care for

There’s neon maze, frogspawn, hammer, and Goniopora all extended and happy

 

[DWPhilli]

I have green and blue candy canes. I put them on the sandbed by each other and the blue took off while the green struggled.
I moved the green up higher and it is much happier now and starting ro grow quite a bit

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

It sounds like you should keep doing more frequent water changes. I doubt it's only a nitrate problem. Does you water have a smell to it? Possible it's a bacteria problem, or some other contaminant we don't test for.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Possibly, I've been dosing Brightwell Microbacter7 since I had the GHA outbreak. Just seeing small signs of algae now. I have been debating doing one of those mail in tests to see if anything else is off as well.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Debating dipping it in Coral RX, I have some MediCoral coming in the mail this weekend. I just worry its a bacterial infection with the brown patches that are forming where it is receding. Any thoughts on that?

 

[DWPhilli]

Debating dipping it in Coral RX, I have some MediCoral coming in the mail this weekend. I just worry its a bacterial infection with the brown patches that are forming where it is receding. Any thoughts on that?

When I moved the green one up, I also put it on a new plug and did a Coral RX dip at the same time. So the dip and/or the increased light helped a lot.

 

[hllb]

The two corals which did not like peroxide treatment in my tank (and I did not treat them directly) were my hammer and my green trumpet. They both recovered (the hammer took a couple of months).

 

[Double monti 61]

Possibly coral chemical warfare?

 

[Double monti 61]

I would not use peroxide on myself or my coral!