Losing torches, other euphyllia ok

[mjw011689]

I’ve lost a couple torches recently and I’m trying to figure out what’s causing this. Both ended up with brown jelly, but both were not looking great right before that (not opening fully).

I’ve got a large frogspawn very close to where the torches were and it has never shown the slightest bit of care. Opens up nice and fat every day. Now I know torches can be more finicky but still…

Parameters are mostly ok, couple things maybe a tad low?

Alk- 7.7
Calcium -405
Mag-1275
Nitrate 12.5
Phos - 0.09
pH- 8.0
Salinity - 1.025

I know alk cal and mag are slightly lower than where I want them, but are those numbers low enough to cause that?

Softies and gonis, galaxea are all doing great, as well as an encrusting monti and purple stylo. Plenty of growth on the sps lately for that matter. But I’m struggling with torches, my zoas almost never fully open and lose their color. There’s one green toadstool in there that has not extended its polyps in about 8 months, just stays shriveled, but doesn’t die either?

For what it’s worth, both torches were wild ones I’m sure, but one was in my tank doing great for 8 months and the other died within the month I added it. Does this play any part?

 

[Formulator]

I just had the same problem with my torch. Apparently they can be pretty fickle and its not always obvious the cause. My other euphyllia are fine and lots of other LPS and “difficult” SPS thriving. No apparent chemistry issues, but the torch perished. My leading theory is that mine had been physically abused to death by my sand sifting goby stirring up sand near it, and/or my clowns trying to host it.

I don’t see anything jump out regarding your parameters. Do you keep yours on the sand bed? Any clown fish? What kind of lighting do you run and do you know the approximate PAR it was getting?

 

[mjw011689]

I do have clowns but they don’t touch it, nor do any of my other fish. As far as par, they were getting around 100. Last I checked I was just under 100 at the sand and a little above 100 a few inches up. and neither was on the sand bed. Both a few inches above.

 

[Formulator]

Hmmm. How close to other corals? Could it have been stung by something? I also think I’ve heard they prefer higher magnesium, close to 1400, but I highly doubt that would kill them.

 

[mjw011689]

I’ve also heard that about mag so I was wondering if that’s what it was but again, doesn’t seem like it would have been that low.

I really don’t think it was stung. The closest coral is a frogspawn that was about 8 inches away, and I’ve never seen that thing throw any sweepers. It’s kind of a fat puffy frogspawn that doesn’t really reach much. And as a side note, every single coral in there has been dipped, ran a week in an observation tank, and then transferred to this tank…. I’ve never seen any kind of pest at all so I don’t think anything is eating them.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I know my torch, at one point, decided to be fickle. Now? It is normal, I didn't change anything in my tank except for raising alk and calcium

 

[twentyleagues]

Even if the frogspawn was touching it I doubt it could or would hurt the torch probably the other way around if anything. Some torches can and will sting other torches. While I have heard and observed higher mag help torches I dont think your level if correct would harm them. I recently lost a few torches and frog spawn to bjd but hammers and Duncans are fine. I have done cipro dips and it seemed to be good for a while then I lost another head and cipro dipped them again this time I dipped them 3 days out of the week for a couple hours each time keeping temp and flow steady. Been a couple weeks now so far so good. I really dont want to dose the entire tank.