Any Echino Experts here?

[rdonchann]

I have an alien eye echino that I can't seem to make happy. It is receeding and I can't seem to help it. I was told that indirect light was best for it. I kept it under an overhang for a long while (maybe 6 months). It never showed any growth but seemed to be ok. Then it started receeding. I found other sources that said to give them light. I moved it half way up but that doesn't seem to help either. I am out of guesses.

 

[^CelticReefer^]

I wouldn't call myself an expert

I wouldn't call myself an expert

I have never found them to prefer indirect lighting. Unless maybe you have some crazy amount of HID lighting. I run VHO's and the assortment of Echinophyllia's I have all are under direct lighting. Some a few inches away from the top of the tank. They all love it. You could try target feeding it at night with cyclopeeze. Mine will all eat at night, the only one I've been able to "train" to eat during the day is my watermelon- which I guess is a good thing. Given food and the right water conditions I have found they heal fairly quickly. My heater recently fell on one of my larger pieces and left a nice quater size piece of skeleton exposed. It healed in about a month, right around and over some algae that was growing on the skeleton.
If you have yours in direct light now after having it shaded that might not be helping either. If it continues to get worse try fragging it to save yourself at least some of it.
Good luck- Hope this helps

Brian

 

[JenDub]

What is your alk and calcium levels? Salinity? Magnesium?

 

[All Delight]

I'm everywhere on this one. Some of mine do great in light, some like less light. Some I just can't keep, some grow fast. I notice I have more problems with red ones. Also seems like they like more light. The red ones that I had under direct strong light did great. Others I had in the sand bed started to fade and show skeleton.

 

[nmprisons]

I had mine for about 6 weeks and it showed absolutely no growth and didn't puff up for me at all. On Monday, I added a bit more flow to my tank and since then it has been increadibly happy. Noticible growth in the past week and it is puffed up all day and night.

Try and give it a bit more flow and see what happens

 

[rdonchann]

410 ca 9-11 alk .025 salinity magnesium is something I have never tested for. I am counting on water changes to keep it in the ballpark.

I have twin 250 halides in a 75 tank.

 

[ReefMonger]

Check your Mg levels ASAP. Almost guarantee they are low. I lost alot of my colonies before I figured it out. As soon as my mag levels were boosted I got a 1/4 inch growth on most my echinos in a month

 

[rdonchann]

I have never seen a mg test kit. That's prolly why I never tested it. I have read that if you are not getting stains at the water line in the sump the level is ok. But you can read about anything you want to on here. How do you raise magnesium anyway?

 

[neyugn0w01]

Your best bet is to move it. I always start mine low in the tank, then moved them up slowly. I have also notice the red ones to like more light. Both my red watermelon and pink watermelon are in the middle of the tank (about 12" from the light). I notice Hugo's tank (watermelon fame) has his no more then 6-8" from the top. However, my Tub's Alien eye loves to be on the bottom and grows extremely fast, so I sold it.

 

[rdonchann]

I have it about half way up now. But I just did that a few days ago. If it does come out of it, will it reclaim the skeleton or is that toast forever?

 

[JenDub]

The skeleton needs to be trimmed off, preferably cutting into good flesh when you trim. Was the frag in the sand? Try mounting to a rock to keep it out of the sand on the edges. Also, the alk seems a bit high for lps, things like echinos are much more prone to this type of problem with higher alk =)

 

[calero]

i keep mines ( like 12 pieces, different colors ) completely in the shadow, but most important IMO under good ( almost heavy ) flow, three of them were loosing color and receding sometime along the way and when i changed them to shady places with good flow, they come back amazingly fast, i dont target feeding them, the grow rate i think is medium, not so fast, i have 1 MH 250W 20K and actinics PC in a 110 gls walk around tank.

 

[jessp]

i have a super bright pink echino that has shown good growth since i got it like 1/3 of it's original size in three months. it is at the top of my tank under 130w pc's. I was super happy that it did not lose any color when moved into the pc's from mh. I had another dull pink piece w/ maroone mouths that had two pieces that got damaged, i purchased this real cheap for that reason. I kept that piece high up in my tank also and the damaged areas that had tissue lose have grown back good as new. the key to the good tissue regeneration was keeping the exposed skeleton free of algae.

 

[GreshamH]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8467329#post8467329 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JenDub
The skeleton needs to be trimmed off, preferably cutting into good flesh when you trim. Was the frag in the sand? Try mounting to a rock to keep it out of the sand on the edges. Also, the alk seems a bit high for lps, things like echinos are much more prone to this type of problem with higher alk =)

What Dkh do you recommend?

 

[JenDub]

I'd recommend 8-10

 

[rdonchann]

11 is probably my high and 7 is probably as low as it ever gets. So I don't think I am too far off. Far as I know, everybody's varies. Kind of like the opinions here. Some say frag, some say not to frag. Some say lots of light, some say lower light. I know lower light wasn't helping this one so maybe more light will. I just hate it when a piece heads downhill! Had a hammer that did that about a year ago. Nothing I could do would turn it around. I read lots of stories about nursing something back to health but I have never been thay lucky. Hopefully this will end differently. I don't lose something very often but when it happens, I sure get irritated.

 

[slojmn]

If your alk is wandering around between 11 and 7 that is a huge problem. Alk needs to be pretty stable. 90% of the time when my sps start showing little issues my alk has dropepd a bit to much. The lps seem to be more forgiving in my system with some alk fluctuation, but I am talking from 8 down to 7.2. I would really get that alk stabilized at a number and keep it within .5 of that number. Your corals will be much happier.

Salifert has a magnesium test kit that I use. I notice my mag fluctuates so I am never really sure what is going on. I have not added any mag flakes due to the fluctuations in mag readings when I test, when I get a 1200 reading I start to think about ordering then I re-test a few days later and it is 1300, which is fine. I have never had my alk stay in the 1200-1240 range for more than a few days and most often it comes out around 1300-1350. So I don't know what to think. I would recommend getting the mag test kit and testing a couple times in a week and see what you get. Test your make up water as well and see what it is.

 

[rdonchann]

It may be a magnesium shortage. I tried to find a test kit local without much luck last night. So does everybody's alkalinity stay that stable? From one weekend to the next mine may go from a 9 to a 7. or a 10 to an 8. Is that not normal to lose a couple of points in 7 days time? I thought that was the whole idea behind people having a drip.

 

[slojmn]

The whole idea of having the drip is to avoid the alk swings. If you have your calcium reactor or your two part additive doser tweaked right it should replenish the alk and calcium as it is used up throughout one day, day after day. If you wait a week to add alk or calcium to the system you will definately get a drain and the numbers will drop until you boost it up again. This kind of drop and rise is really hard on the corals.

 

[rdonchann]

I didn't realize that a couple of degrees would have much of an effect. I assumed as long as it was kept in the window it would be ok. So is the only way to be successful is to have a drip or to manually add every day or two?