Torches looking ticked off, help (pic)

[924er]

Hello,

I have 8 torches in my tank and its all been well until about a few days ago. About 5 of them havent been opening extending so im suspecting something is up. There is no tissue loss or recession, they just look mad. The rest of my corals are fine (frogspawns, hammers, brains, acans).

first off, there has been no changes to their location or lighting or flow, so im suspecting an issue with water chemistry. I feed reef roids and red sea AB 3/4x week.The torches respond to feed well. I am suspecting the issue being low nitrate.

temp- 78f
alk- 9.4
cal- 430
mag- 1420
salinity- 1.026
phos- 0.04
nitrate- 1ppm
ammonia- 0
nitrite- 0

I am suspecting low nitrate being the issue. I am having trouble raising it the past few days despite heavy feeding and I have shut down my chaeto light. I am considering dosing neo nitro to raise to 10ppm. I hear LPS love nitrates

any advice ?

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Was there a sudden drop in nitrates or do you normally run this low?

Do you run a skimmer? If so, dump some of your skimmate back into the water. That'll get you NO3.

 

[924er]

Was there a sudden drop in nitrates or do you normally run this low?

Do you run a skimmer? If so, dump some of your skimmate back into the water. That'll get you NO3.

normally low around 5 but its been dropping to 2, I also rechecked phos and its 0 so that might be a problem...

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Neither of those should cause this in what I have seen with mine.

 

[924er]

Neither of those should cause this in what I have seen with mine.

ughhh i hate when this happens.. My paramters are fine so what the heck is it? I just submitted an ICP test.

I agree with you. Ive bottomed out on nutrients before and this didnt happen.

Now my open brain and acans are deflated.. There is no recession of tissue or brown jelly which is good news but something is upsetting them for sure.

 

[Poseidon03]

Hello,

I have 8 torches in my tank and its all been well until about a few days ago. About 5 of them havent been opening extending so im suspecting something is up. There is no tissue loss or recession, they just look mad. The rest of my corals are fine (frogspawns, hammers, brains, acans).

first off, there has been no changes to their location or lighting or flow, so im suspecting an issue with water chemistry. I feed reef roids and red sea AB 3/4x week.The torches respond to feed well. I am suspecting the issue being low nitrate.

temp- 78f
alk- 9.4
cal- 430
mag- 1420
salinity- 1.026
phos- 0.04
nitrate- 1ppm
ammonia- 0
nitrite- 0

I am suspecting low nitrate being the issue. I am having trouble raising it the past few days despite heavy feeding and I have shut down my chaeto light. I am considering dosing neo nitro to raise to 10ppm. I hear LPS love nitrates

any advice ?


View attachment 2693922

Do not do swift changes. How's the flow for them? Do they "dance" or just sway? The nitrates being 1 should not cause them to shrink like that. What do you check your phosphates with? If you want to raise the phosphates naturally, reef rapids does wonders (from personal experience).

 

[Lavey29]

ughhh i hate when this happens.. My paramters are fine so what the heck is it? I just submitted an ICP test.

I agree with you. Ive bottomed out on nutrients before and this didnt happen.

Now my open brain and acans are deflated.. There is no recession of tissue or brown jelly which is good news but something is upsetting them for sure.

If your nitrates have been low over an extended period of time LPS will be slowly starving to death but not show outward signs of stress until multiple months have past. Perhaps you have reached that point now.

 

[Jedi1199]

Was there a sudden drop in nitrates or do you normally run this low?

Do you run a skimmer? If so, dump some of your skimmate back into the water. That'll get you NO3.

Whatever you do, DO NOT add skimmate back to your tank!!!! If you wish to increase your nutrients, take your skimmer offline for a few days. DO NOT under ANY circumstances add skimmate to your system!!

I have personally experienced skimmate killing off half my FOWLR tank, and have a friend who accidently knocked his skimmer over into his sump and consequently wiped out 4 of his frag tanks. Skimmate is LETHAL!!!

 

[924er]

Do not do swift changes. How's the flow for them? Do they "dance" or just sway? The nitrates being 1 should not cause them to shrink like that. What do you check your phosphates with? If you want to raise the phosphates naturally, reef rapids does wonders (from personal experience).

They were just swaying and sometimes dancing. I didnt alter with flow for several months. I Would say its on the low side for torches.

I used hanna checker and its reading 0.00

I agree that reef roids works to raise phosphates, I ordered more. For now I was able to raise nitrates to 7ppm and I also increased the flow a bit to see if the torches respond. Otherwise I havent made any other changes. I do think my nitrate and phosphate need to increase

 

[924er]

If your nitrates have been low over an extended period of time LPS will be slowly starving to death but not show outward signs of stress until multiple months have past. Perhaps you have reached that point now.

My nitrates have always been around 5 but the last 2 weeks its been getting lower to 2. My phosphates are reading 0 now... Its been like this for several months, maybe they are starving although I do feed red sea AB+ and they respond to it. I also feed my acans and open brain regularly with reef frenzy, This is very puzzling. I have an ICP test pending.

 

[924er]

Whatever you do, DO NOT add skimmate back to your tank!!!! If you wish to increase your nutrients, take your skimmer offline for a few days. DO NOT under ANY circumstances add skimmate to your system!!

I have personally experienced skimmate killing off half my FOWLR tank, and have a friend who accidently knocked his skimmer over into his sump and consequently wiped out 4 of his frag tanks. Skimmate is LETHAL!!!

I dont run a skimmer, its a nano

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Whatever you do, DO NOT add skimmate back to your tank!!!! If you wish to increase your nutrients, take your skimmer offline for a few days. DO NOT under ANY circumstances add skimmate to your system!!

I have personally experienced skimmate killing off half my FOWLR tank, and have a friend who accidently knocked his skimmer over into his sump and consequently wiped out 4 of his frag tanks. Skimmate is LETHAL!!!

I disagree and know of multiple, very large systems that do this from time to time when needed. I also said, dump some, Not dump 3 weeks worth of accumulation back into your system.

What is lethal in it? Everything that has come into your collection cup is coming out of your water and is now concentrated. Everything that is in your collection cup is already in your water. This is an old school trick that has been used for a long time and still works today.

Sorry but this just does not pass the smell test. Especially since nitrates won't get lethal to fish until almost 4 digits.

 

[Lavey29]

My nitrates have always been around 5 but the last 2 weeks its been getting lower to 2. My phosphates are reading 0 now... Its been like this for several months, maybe they are starving although I do feed red sea AB+ and they respond to it. I also feed my acans and open brain regularly with reef frenzy, This is very puzzling. I have an ICP test pending.

LPS like nitrates at 10 and phosphate. 05 to .1. Perhaps you have had slow decline that is now becoming visible stress.

 

[Jedi1199]

I disagree and know of multiple, very large systems that do this from time to time when needed. I also said, dump some, Not dump 3 weeks worth of accumulation back into your system.

What is lethal in it? Everything that has come into your collection cup is coming out of your water and is now concentrated. Everything that is in your collection cup is already in your water. This is an old school trick that has been used for a long time and still works today.

Sorry but this just does not pass the smell test. Especially since nitrates won't get lethal to fish until almost 4 digits.

You said it yourself.. EVERYTHING in your collection cup is concentrated. In my own experience, even the drippage from the overfull cup proved lethal to my tank.

Here is a tank that had previously been running flawlessly for over 8 months. All of the sudden I lost half the fish that were in the system. Nothing new added, no changes to feeding ect ect.. the ONY difference, the skimmer cup overflowed with skimmate.

Cleaned out the cup and boom.. back to normal.. coincidence? Possibly, but I doubt it.

 

[Lavey29]

You said it yourself.. EVERYTHING in your collection cup is concentrated. In my own experience, even the drippage from the overfull cup proved lethal to my tank.

Here is a tank that had previously been running flawlessly for over 8 months. All of the sudden I lost half the fish that were in the system. Nothing new added, no changes to feeding ect ect.. the ONY difference, the skimmer cup overflowed with skimmate.

Cleaned out the cup and boom.. back to normal.. coincidence? Possibly, but I doubt it.

I don't doubt your incident but pretty much everybody with a reef tank has had a skimmer over flow at some point or another and the results were nothing to impact the tank. Mine has overflowed multiple times with no coral or fish damage. Certain chemicals treatment require the drain plug out in the skimmer too so the skimmer keeps going for tank 02.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

You said it yourself.. EVERYTHING in your collection cup is concentrated. In my own experience, even the drippage from the overfull cup proved lethal to my tank.

Here is a tank that had previously been running flawlessly for over 8 months. All of the sudden I lost half the fish that were in the system. Nothing new added, no changes to feeding ect ect.. the ONY difference, the skimmer cup overflowed with skimmate.

Cleaned out the cup and boom.. back to normal.. coincidence? Possibly, but I doubt it.

I think you should place a poll on the main page and ask how many people's collection cups have overflowed.. If you had a skimmer longer than a year, I think it'll be 100% at some point. I think you'll find very few if any others that have had the same result as you.

Did you happen to test this water afterwards?

In my experience multiple times, I have overflowed full collection cups and never had an adverse effect. I think the normal is closer to me. Than you. Calling that lethal I think is wrong

 

[Jedi1199]

I think you should place a poll on the main page and ask how many people's collection cups have overflowed.. If you had a skimmer longer than a year, I think it'll be 100% at some point. I think you'll find very few if any others that have had the same result as you.

Did you happen to test this water afterwards?

In my experience multiple times, I have overflowed full collection cups and never had an adverse effect. I think the normal is closer to me. Than you. Calling that lethal I think is wrong

I am not going to debate this. If no skimmer was on the system, the same level of toxins would be present. This is undeniable.

I related my personal opinion and experience. I would be amiss to do less than that. In MY OWN experience, skimmate is lethal to the system it was allowed to fall into.

Is this true of EVERY system? Perhaps not. If you KNEW, FIRSTHAND that it is possible, would you advise adding it? Or, would you STRONGLY advise NOT adding it??

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I am not going to debate this. If no skimmer was on the system, the same level of toxins would be present. This is undeniable.

I related my personal opinion and experience. I would be amiss to do less than that. In MY OWN experience, skimmate is lethal to the system it was allowed to fall into.

Is this true of EVERY system? Perhaps not. If you KNEW, FIRSTHAND that it is possible, would you advise adding it? Or, would you STRONGLY advise NOT adding it??

If I thought that one in a thousand times, a collection cut might have concentrated something that could be lethal, I would still advise it and do it myself when somebody bottoms out nutrients and needs to add some back in a pinch.

I'm unsure why it has to be pushed into anything other than a conversation.

"DO NOT under ANY circumstances add skimmate to your system!!" This is a very strong statement, When you are unwilling to have a conversation about its merit.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Have you ever overflowed a skimmer collection cup?

And as a follow up, if you have overflowed a collection cup, was it Lethal to your system? Were there any fish deaths, coral deaths, algae blooms you attribute to it?

www.reef2reef.com

Let's discuss!

 

[924er]

LPS like nitrates at 10 and phosphate. 05 to .1. Perhaps you have had slow decline that is now becoming visible stress.

I didnt see a decline visibly but maybe you cant see it. I raised my nitrates to 5ppm and tomorrow ill take it up to 10ppm. Still working on phosphate, still reading 0. The torche tentacles look small and fat like they are going to blow up. its weird. Usually when are stressed they recede into their skeleton, just an observation.