Wilsoni Coral Care (avoiding lighting overexposure)

[andrewkw]

I see a lot more spots. Looks like it’s on the mend?

There is a lot of new zooxanthellae. I would still say its at least a year away from full recovery, probably more like 2. 3 years to get a coral back to original health is a little much. As I mentioned earlier I did ignore the coral for some time but even if I did not it would likely still be a ways away. Since it's such a huge colony if it actually does recover its colour and flesh I could just trim the skeleton a bit but that is so far in the future I'm not going to worry about that for now. I'll keep feeding it and see what happens.

 

[living_tribunal]

There is a lot of new zooxanthellae. I would still say its at least a year away from full recovery, probably more like 2. 3 years to get a coral back to original health is a little much. As I mentioned earlier I did ignore the coral for some time but even if I did not it would likely still be a ways away. Since it's such a huge colony if it actually does recover its colour and flesh I could just trim the skeleton a bit but that is so far in the future I'm not going to worry about that for now. I'll keep feeding it and see what happens.

The tissue will definitely take a very long time as they are very slow growers. As for the color, at this pace, it will have full zooxanthelle back in 2-3 months and then be at it’s final color in about 5 months.

Once it has it’s zooxanthelle back, it will be able to finally regrow tissue. So just keep doing whatever you’re doing and focus on the zoox recovering. Looks like you’re doing a good job so far. It’s really regaining zoox fast by the looks of it.

 

[gotmesalty77]

How is he able to get the roids into his mouth? Since the particles don’t have weight, I just don’t see how he can clump them together and move into his mouth.

It’s been bad every time I’ve tried, going to just stick with pellets.

For 15 min all interior circulation is turned off. M2 only runs so sump doesn't back fill. I use Blunt tip syringe to coat it in Thick roid paste. This is while I'm feeding everyone so there's time for it to get sucked in. I can't get it to eat mysis at all.

 

[living_tribunal]

For 15 min all interior circulation is turned off. M2 only runs so sump doesn't back fill. I use Blunt tip syringe to coat it in Thick roid paste. This is while I'm feeding everyone so there's time for it to get sucked in. I can't get it to eat mysis at all.

I gave mine about 20 minutes to consume it and he looked desperate trying to slurp it in. Maybe it’s just mine but with how stringy and light roids is idk, I don’t know how it’s possible he consumes most of it. Going to just stick with pellets, it seems the easiest for him.

How large is yours in terms of inches?

 

[gotmesalty77]

The tissue will definitely take a very long time as they are very slow growers. As for the color, at this pace, it will have full zooxanthelle back in 2-3 months and then be at it’s final color in about 5 months.

Once it has it’s zooxanthelle back, it will be able to finally regrow tissue. So just keep doing whatever your doing and focus on the zoox recovering. Looks like you’re doing a good job so far. It’s really regaining zoox fast by the looks of it.

Sure wish I could speed up zoox coming back. I seriously think the aminoos at night half targeted is working wonders

 

[living_tribunal]

Sure wish I could speed up zoox coming back. I seriously think the aminoos at night half targeted is working wonders

I’m sure you’ll be getting spots soon. It just takes one and then you know you’re on the path to recovery. Once they start coming in, it ramps up fast.

 

[gotmesalty77]

I gave mine about 20 minutes to consume it and he looked desperate trying to slurp it in. Maybe it’s just mine but with how stringy and light roids is idk, I don’t know how it’s possible he consumes most of it. Going to just stick with pellets, it seems the easiest for him.

How large is yours in terms of inches?

He's the size of half of a baseball easy. I use life spectrum pellets and formula 2 type

 

[living_tribunal]

He's the size of half of a baseball easy. I use life spectrum pellets and formula 2 type

It may be easier to target the roids on his mouths at ~4-5”. I have to like gently waterfall it cause mine is ~7” across. I’ll try aiming the baster a little better.

 

[gotmesalty77]

I’m sure you’ll be getting spots soon. It just takes one and then you know you’re on the path to recovery. Once they start coming in, it ramps up fast.
[/QUOTE
2020 over only lost 2 bad off rescue frags. So I'm hoping the next batch of rehab patients does well too, BUT I REALLY want to find another distressed wilsoni

 

[gotmesalty77]

It may be easier to target the roids on his mouths at ~4-5”. I have to like gently waterfall it cause mine is ~7” across. I’ll try aiming the baster a little better.

My tank is only 16" talk so ya that's easy for me to do

 

[living_tribunal]

My tank is only 16" talk so ya that's easy for me to do

There are almost brown spots in every section of mine now. About 5-7 sections now have very fluorescent zoox. About 10 sections are completely brown. Just keep looking for spots. I think you’ll start noticing them after putting in direct light. The zoox needs to start stronger photosynthesis.

 

[Kevan Sharp]

Hey All,

I just swapped some torch heads for an Australian Wilsoni coral that I've been eyeing for a bit at my LFS. Currently, It's under an overhang out of direct lightning per recommendation from my LFS. I have two Hydra 52 HD suspended ~12 in over the water line on a reefer 425xl running the saxby setting (- 5 percent of blues at each respective peak). I'm afraid of overexposure-as I hear this is the main culprit in losing these animals. Does anyone have any tips / insights into keeping these long term?

Current tank parameters:
15 ppm nitrate
440 CA
9.0 DKH
.01? Phosphate (Trying to Eye the salifert color chart is hard sometimes)

Feeding Schedule:
2x daily Frozen LRS Food broadcasted for fish
1x daily pellet/flake food for fish
Amino/Reefroid/lps pellets 2x week, target fed with baster.

Thank you!

I've struggled with both the Duncan and Elegance coral, but at present, I have a 3 head Elegance coral that seems to be happy. It is on the tank sand bed, medium flow. I was told that they like their water to be a bit more dirty (higher nitrates) and direct feeding. I think direct feeding is what is making the difference. About once a week I feed with polyplab.
I'm also using the Saxby lighting, but have modified it slightly, reducing the white intensity and time to only 2 hours per day. It is not under a rock, but on the bottom which helps reduce the PAR that it is receiving. I also feed reef energy 2-3 times per week. about 7ml per day.
I'm struggling with nitrates being too high and working to deal with that as other corals are not happy, I've lost 2 SPS and I believe it is the nigh nitrates. Getting that balance of nitrates at 5-10 is where I am trying to be. When I bought my first Duncan, my lfs did not say anything about the lighting recommendations and I mounted it up midway in the tank and it retracted its 'tentacles' within a few weeks, and they never came back out. Despite direct feeding, it did not come back.

This time, I am trying to make sure I direct feed it at least once a week. I consider it my 'canary' in the water. When it looks unhappy, I immediately test water parameters and make whatever adjustments are needed.

 

[living_tribunal]

I've struggled with both the Duncan and Elegance coral, but at present, I have a 3 head Elegance coral that seems to be happy. It is on the tank sand bed, medium flow. I was told that they like their water to be a bit more dirty (higher nitrates) and direct feeding. I think direct feeding is what is making the difference. About once a week I feed with polyplab.
I'm also using the Saxby lighting, but have modified it slightly, reducing the white intensity and time to only 2 hours per day. It is not under a rock, but on the bottom which helps reduce the PAR that it is receiving. I also feed reef energy 2-3 times per week. about 7ml per day.
I'm struggling with nitrates being too high and working to deal with that as other corals are not happy, I've lost 2 SPS and I believe it is the nigh nitrates. Getting that balance of nitrates at 5-10 is where I am trying to be. When I bought my first Duncan, my lfs did not say anything about the lighting recommendations and I mounted it up midway in the tank and it retracted its 'tentacles' within a few weeks, and they never came back out. Despite direct feeding, it did not come back.

This time, I am trying to make sure I direct feed it at least once a week. I consider it my 'canary' in the water. When it looks unhappy, I immediately test water parameters and make whatever adjustments are needed.

Research shows high nitrates stunt coral growth while higher phosphates lead to higher levels of calcification, polyp extension, and zooxanthelle efficiency/densities.

Phosphate deficiency promotes coral bleaching and is reflected by the ultrastructure of symbiotic dinoflagellates

Enrichment of reef environments with dissolved inorganic nutrients is considered a major threat to the survival of corals living in symbiosis with dinoflagellates (Symbiodinium sp.). We argue, however, that the direct negative effects on the symbiosis ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Kevan Sharp]

I've struggled with both the Duncan and Elegance coral, but at present, I have a 3 head Elegance coral that seems to be happy. It is on the tank sand bed, medium flow. I was told that they like their water to be a bit more dirty (higher nitrates) and direct feeding. I think direct feeding is what is making the difference. About once a week I feed with polyplab.
I'm also using the Saxby lighting, but have modified it slightly, reducing the white intensity and time to only 2 hours per day. It is not under a rock, but on the bottom which helps reduce the PAR that it is receiving. I also feed reef energy 2-3 times per week. about 7ml per day.
I'm struggling with nitrates being too high and working to deal with that as other corals are not happy, I've lost 2 SPS and I believe it is the nigh nitrates. Getting that balance of nitrates at 5-10 is where I am trying to be. When I bought my first Duncan, my lfs did not say anything about the lighting recommendations and I mounted it up midway in the tank and it retracted its 'tentacles' within a few weeks, and they never came back out. Despite direct feeding, it did not come back.

This time, I am trying to make sure I direct feed it at least once a week. I consider it my 'canary' in the water. When it looks unhappy, I immediately test water parameters and make whatever adjustments are needed.

also ... I would feed them more often as other suggest, but I'm fighting the nitrate problem. I'm putting in an algae reactor and hopefully that will solve my nitrates, and then I will have to deal with not enough nitrate... finding the balance.
I do as the others suggest for all of my direct feed creatures (lobo, hammer, torch, trachy, zoa, and scoly). I turn off all pumps (skimmer first), including gyre, and then do a thicker paste directly on to whatever has polyps that are out. I have my gyre set at 30 minute pause and it kicks in automatically and when it does, I turn everything back on except the skimmer. I leave that off for a few hours.

 

[living_tribunal]

Another update, and I apologize for posting a lot recently, I did want to see if anyone has experienced this however.

Here is a two week progress pic:

January 16th:

This morning:

As you can see, he’s really started to ramp up growing his zooxanthelle densities.

He has also recessed a little bit it appears. I have some thoughts. I believe he initially killed off his tissue to where you see it now but it took a while for the tissue to come off/be consumed from his skeleton. It kind of looks like he’s building the tissue up. It also looks like he’s repairing the dividers between the polyps. I’m not sure. Only way to really make sure he’s capable of growing tissue back is to of course keep encouraging zooxanthelle growth. Hoping I can start to see progress on the tissue front soon.

Another thing, I posted here about trying to get my lights at the level they were before acclimation became too intense. He seemed to get stressed during peak hours after turning off acclimation and setting lights to the approximate levels they were during acclimation.

I’ve since lowered them by about 5% and will keep it there for another week to see if that helps.

This has been the one thing plaguing me since he’s started to recover, I CANNOT keep him happy for the full day. I feel like it’s a battle between keeping him happy to encourage zooxanthellae growth and preventing him from expelling zooxanthelle. He seems to poop a lot during peak hours when he gets stressed so I believe he is indeed expelling zoox.


What makes things more confusing is he is always happy for the first two hours of peak lighting. So maybe it’s the duration of the higher par? My par is very low at this point, rb and blues only at 49% and everything else under 15%. I’m just not sure.

Trying to balance making small changes very slowly while trying to figure out what exactly he wants.

If anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

 

[living_tribunal]

I guess this is my #honestinreefing moment. Things seem to have taken a turn for the worse.

All was great, color was (still is) coming in very fast, and I thought I was finally on a stable path towards recover. The tissue recession has sped up however.

I don’t know if mine will be able to make it.

It’s so bizarre, his color is returning at a very fast pace. I’d say 20-30% of him brown or even has strong fluorescence. What I believed were spots on the left hand side was actually his skeleton. I then thought it was him creating his divider but that’s proven not to be the case.

Trying to determine what’s going on but it’s a very tough problem it seems. Logically, if a coral is relaxed enough to invite zoox back, and the zoox densities are growing, surely he’s relaxed enough to not recede his tissue, right?

I now have my lights wayyyy down, to the point that I don’t think I can go much lower without causing harm to the rest of my corals. Ph is stable, flow is very light, everything is good. I just can’t seem to figure out what’s going on. Maybe it’s amphipods again. Who knows?

Feeling really stressed and confused about how to proceed.

Here is a picture 7 days ago, take a mental snapshot of the area within the circle:

Here is a picture today, compare the previous picture to the area in this pic:

Wish there was someone out there who experienced something similar :/ I don’t really care much about reefing aside from this wilso at the moment.

 

[gotmesalty77]

That is horrible news but it is certainly important information. I think you should get him out of the light and try and put him in indirect light. Have you considered dosing heavier on aminos. To me that is one of the most important things i do NIGHTLY.

 

[living_tribunal]

That is horrible news but it is certainly important information. I think you should get him out of the light and try and put him in indirect light. Have you considered dosing heavier on aminos. To me that is one of the most important things i do NIGHTLY.

I dose a lot of aminos daily. I don’t think that would help. I’m considering adding to shade but my lights are so incredibly low that I don’t think those are the issue either. I’m all the way down to nearly 20% on rb.

Since color is returning I think the only logical conclusion is something external is causing the tissue recession like a disease or the stupid amphipods again. Going to dip him again tomorrow. His recovery went full gear last time I dipped him so maybe that will help.

Still wish I could conclusively find what’s going on.

The one bright spot is that the four polyps that nearly have full zoox have not receded so maybe he’s reallocating his tissue? The four polyps are thicker as well so that’s a possibility I guess. He really can’t regrow tissue until he has zoox so color is still the priority but preventing any further recession is quickly becoming the focus.

The amphipods are for the most part gone. I also had an issue with my hermits walking all over him so I have moved all of them to my frag tank.

I’ll just give it a week and report back on what happens.

 

[gotmesalty77]

I dose a lot of aminos daily. I don’t think that would help. I’m considering adding to shade but my lights are so incredibly low that I don’t think those are the issue either. I’m all the way down to nearly 20% on rb.

Since color is returning I think the only logical conclusion is something external is causing the tissue recession like a disease or the stupid amphipods again. Going to dip him again tomorrow. His recovery went full gear last time I dipped him so maybe that will help.

Still wish I could conclusively find what’s going on.

The one bright spot is that the four polyps that nearly have full zoox have not receded so maybe he’s reallocating his tissue? The four polyps are thicker as well so that’s a possibility I guess. He really can’t regrow tissue until he has zoox so color is still the priority but preventing any further recession is quickly becoming the focus.

The amphipods are for the most part gone. I also had an issue with my hermits walking all over him so I have moved all of them to my frag tank.

I’ll just give it a week and report back on what happens.

I use this app to document everything i put into the tank or action i take with my tank, it took a while to get into the habit and is really extra for the most part but i like that can go back and look at things that i did and see what or what didnt work.
My tank pulled a lord of the flies this weekend and killed my melanurus wrasse. I dont understand it and ive never seen anything like it. I got him QTd fast too. Hes been in the tank for quite sometime. RIP Voodoo

 

[living_tribunal]

I use this app to document everything i put into the tank or action i take with my tank, it took a while to get into the habit and is really extra for the most part but i like that can go back and look at things that i did and see what or what didnt work.
My tank pulled a lord of the flies this weekend and killed my melanurus wrasse. I dont understand it and ive never seen anything like it. I got him QTd fast too. Hes been in the tank for quite sometime. RIP Voodoo

I’ll have to check that app, I’ve always just used my phones notepad.

The tank giveth, the tank taketh!

I still have a hunch that my wilso is changing his tissue structure. If you look at most wilsos, they all have the ridge divider and it’s sunk in. I think mine is building his real polyps. Just a hunch, still freaky. Time will tell. My gut says to dip and let be for another month.