Torch coral disintegrating before my eyes with

[JayFish4004]

Just make sure it doesn’t also shoot back up too quickly

I don’t have any reactors - was using Phosguard in the back media chamber in a bag.

 

[JayFish4004]

If it keeps receeding then yes you can get brown jelly infection and spread to all your healthy euphyllias, just raise po4 slowly and it it keeps receding then cipro asap

Okay - yeah dosing of any kind and dipping corals have been my 2 biggest fears. Im afraid if I dip a stressed coral it may just make it worse and ruin any shot it had to recover, plus I’ve never done it so odds are good I may do it incorrectly.

 

[JayFish4004]

If it keeps receeding then yes you can get brown jelly infection and spread to all your healthy euphyllias, just raise po4 slowly and it it keeps receding then cipro asap

Would you mind instructing on how I’d do a cipro dip correctly?

 

[Randy’s reef]

Okay - yeah dosing of any kind and dipping corals have been my 2 biggest fears. Im afraid if I dip a stressed coral it may just make it worse and ruin any shot it had to recover, plus I’ve never done it so odds are good I may do it incorrectly

3 gallons tank water, 500mg pill cipro , let dissolve with powerhead , place torch leave for 4-5 hours with a small heater or room temp .

 

[Randy’s reef]

3 gallons tank water, 500mg pill cipro , let dissolve with powerhead , place torch leave for 4-5 hours with a small heater or room temp .

Repeat every 2 days until recession stops

 

[JayFish4004]

3 gallons tank water, 500mg pill cipro , let dissolve with powerhead , place torch leave for 4-5 hours with a small heater or room temp .

The other odd thing - why is the purple torch right beside him seemingly unaffected. Out fully - no curled tentacles.

 

[JayFish4004]

Repeat every 2 days until recession stops

What is benefit to this over something like CoralRX? It makes me nervous as hell doing anything longer than an hour tbh - I don’t think I have it in me for a full 6 hour excursion unless it truly is that much better.

 

[JayFish4004]

8.( sorry I see now, that shouldn’t be that much of a swing to cause death tbh , you should cipro dip all euphyllia and you should use another no3 test just to make sure

So to this point I did test the alk in my mixed saltwater again - and it was also about .7 under what it was a week ago (9.1 vs 9.8).

I was also using a brand new bottle of Hanna PH checker reagent - so theres a good chance either the old reagent or the new reagent is off and at least my alk values are stable.

Additionally - whatever this is is only impacting the euphyllia I have sitting in the sand - my frogspawn is thriving but not in sand. I think if this truly was alk I’d be seeing issues with other coral too…

Leading me to wonder - when I do my weekly water changes I will stir the sand up a bit to remove some of the pockets of algae near the glass. I’m wondering if its maybe the sand getting stirred up that is both irritating the coral and causing an infection in the soft tissue?

Thoughts?

 

[MERKEY]

What is benefit to this over something like CoralRX? It makes me nervous as hell doing anything longer than an hour tbh - I don’t think I have it in me for a full 6 hour excursion unless it truly is that much better.

Coral rx is not an antibiotic.

3 gallons tank water, 500mg pill cipro , let dissolve with powerhead , place torch leave for 4-5 hours with a small heater or room temp .

Great advice! Only things I'd do is remove the heater and add a sponge filter and remove the powerhead after the pills dissolve. One main thing a lot of people over look is that bacteria grows at certain temperatures. Keeping the temp 70-74 is ideal for the baths.

OP You have dropped your p04 too fast as others have mentioned.

Your alk moving how it is won't hurt anything by itself.

How long are you storing your salt mixed water? If sitting for a while it can lose potency. Alk drops is what happens in stored saltwater. Red sea pro brand say mix and use within 4 hours or this can happen.

Stirring up the sand may be releasing some p04 and n03.

 

[MERKEY]

Anybody have experience with this? Haven’t changed a thing outside of using Phosguard to drop my phosphates from 2.1 to 0.3.

I change 20-30% water and measure alk weekly - always stable around 8.5-8.9. Somehow this morning Im reading 7.9.

Over the last few weeks my torches and hammers have been unhappy as well. My big green torch which has never been unhappy in the year Ive had him now seems to be losing flesh and you can almost see the flesh flaking off. His tentacles are also curling inward which I haven’t seen before.

What the heck is happening here and how do I fix? Do I need to add some sodium bicarbonate to get my alk back up to 8.5? Also should I stop the phosguard?

rest of param’s:
Salinity: 1.025
Nitrates: 23ppm
Phosphates: 0.3ppm
Alkalinity: 7.9

Here’s a couple photos showing the tissue recession between the heads and the curled tentacles.

View attachment 2825852View attachment 2825853

I don't see any new recession to be worried about to be honest.

I know there is the area between the heads but sometimes mine do that when they are splitting.

I can see where you are worried but don't chase numbers as it could make it worse.

 

[JayFish4004]

Coral rx is not an antibiotic.


Great advice! Only things I'd do is remove the heater and add a sponge filter and remove the powerhead after the pills dissolve. One main thing a lot of people over look is that bacteria grows at certain temperatures. Keeping the temp 70-74 is ideal for the baths.

OP You have dropped your p04 too fast as others have mentioned.

Your alk moving how it is won't hurt anything by itself.

How long are you storing your salt mixed water? If sitting for a while it can lose potency. Alk drops is what happens in stored saltwater. Red sea pro brand say mix and use within 4 hours or this can happen.

Stirring up the sand may be releasing some p04 and n03.

I think I have ruled out alk - I have noticed a lack of tissue growth on hammers in the past as well, so I think this is something bigger I need to figure out.

My hammers have always gradually lost tissue, but the torches never really were impacted. Now I’m seeing it in both species. I don’t believe it to be flow because they’re typically always fully out, they have plenty of nutrients, so what are the odds its bacterial and slowly spreads from sand bed when it gets stirred up? Or is it likely something else?

 

[MERKEY]

I'd send off an icp to rule out metals at least.

But still sounds like the drop of p04 if all are affected.

We don't see affects for a while and then they take a while to fix.

Bacteria is in all of our tanks. Keeping our coral healthy is the key to helping them fight of all kinds of bacteria.

Swings in p04 or alk or any nutrients or temp or salinity are things that can weaken the coral and let bacteria take over.

 

[JayFish4004]

I'd send off an icp to rule out metals at least.

But still sounds like the drop of p04 if all are affected.

We don't see affects for a while and then they take a while to fix.

Bacteria is in all of our tanks. Keeping our coral healthy is the key to helping them fight of all kinds of bacteria.

Swings in p04 or alk or any nutrients or temp or salinity are things that can weaken the coral and let bacteria take over.

I sent an ATI ICP test out this morning so should have results back in a few days - but I suspect its going to show solid numbers and Ill still have tissue recession in my euphyllia. I have a green hammer that has lost all color and withered down to nothing in the span of about 8-9 months. Just gradually loses tissue until it gets to a point of no return.

 

[MERKEY]

That's a sign of long term high p04 or nutrient imbalance.

How old is your tank and has your p04 always been 2? Or did you just start testing?

 

[MERKEY]

What par is everthing at?

 

[JayFish4004]

That's a sign of long term high p04 or nutrient imbalance.

How old is your tank and has your p04 always been 2? Or did you just start testing?

Tank is about 1.5 years old now.

I run monthly ATI tests so I have a solid handle on trends. Up until March of this year I had undetectable phosphates and nitrates around 10ppm - for the first 8-9 months I was only feeding mysis shrimp to the fish.

In March I bought a couple mandarin gobies that require TDO pellets - so in March phosphates were .05 with 27ppm nitrates.

in April phosphates were up to .1 with 31ppm nitrates.

Between April and July they shot up to 1.7ppm with 40 nitrates.

I have now brought nitrates down to 20ppm through increased weekly water change volume and cleaning the sump. This had no impact on the phosphates, so I used Phosguard to get those down to .3 over the course of 6 weeks or so.

 

[JayFish4004]

What par is everthing at?

I have not been able to measure - but another user provided this chart of his measurements with same tank and light. I am running right around the red numbers (64% blue, 9% white).

My hammers are on bottom left and torches bottom right. Guessing they get somewhere between 90-100.

Here is shot of tank in better days (April 27)

Here it is now (lights almost out so some stuff is heading in - but check of difference in the green hammer. The duncan, frogspawn and birdnest meanwhile have quadrupled in size.

 

[Tcook]

Did you use the whole bottle of phosguard? How often did you change it. Phosguard will drop PO4 much faster than gfo. As a comparison, I only use 1/3 of a bottle of phosguard for my 120. Sounds like your sand and rock have bound all the PO4 they were going to bind by 8 months so your levels started to rise.

 

[JayFish4004]

Did you use the whole bottle of phosguard? How often did you change it. Phosguard will drop PO4 much faster than gfo. As a comparison, I only use 1/3 of a bottle of phosguard for my 120. Sounds like your sand and rock have bound all the PO4 they were going to bind by 8 months so your levels started to rise.

Nope I used the recommended amount for my tank size - they have a pack that treats 60 gallons and I used half of that in my all-in-one’s back chamber next to my carbon. I put one in and removed after 4 days with plenty of gaps in between.

I would say it was fairly gradual going from 2.1 to 0.3 in 48 days - its not like I dropped it all in a week or two.

That’s dropping .03ppm per day on average or .25/week. Felt like I was going at a steady pace there.

 

[Tcook]

Nope I used the recommended amount for my tank size - they have a pack that treats 60 gallons and I used half of that in my all-in-one’s back chamber next to my carbon. I put one in and removed after 4 days with plenty of gaps in between.

I would say it was fairly gradual going from 2.1 to 0.3 in 48 days - its not like I dropped it all in a week or two.

That’s dropping .03ppm per day on average or .25/week. Felt like I was going at a steady pace there.

That's not an abrupt drop. Has to be something else.