Hi all! I've been browsing this forum for a little while, but have not yet posted. I hate for my first post to be a "I have a problem, please help" post, but that's unfortunately the case.
I purchased a very nice candy cane coral about a month ago. It has looked great since I purchased it. I was out of town from Thursday of last week until Tuesday night of this week. When I got back, I seemed to have lost a few heads! Four heads are literally gone! Al that is left is skeleton. Two more heads are half gone - meaning that the "flesh" is slowly disintegrating. One more head looks as if its starting to go. Finally, of the remaining 12 or so heads, about half of them look great! The other half are no longer extending their tentacles at night and seem as if they have retracted a bit.
I feed each head a small piece of mysis shrimp or a little squirt of cyclopeez every night (except while I was out of town, of course). [I feed all of my LPS corals a little bit each night] The badly damaged heads don't, of course, take any food at this point. The half a dozen or so that look a bit retracted take food, but not as readily as before. The heads that still look great wolf down whatever I give them.
This tank is still relatively new (four months or so) and I've been battling a bit of a red algae problem. I've cut my photoperiod down to about 7 hours of actnic (65 watts) and 6 hours of full spectrum (65 watts). This is over a 29 gallon tank. My tap water is a bit high in phosphates, so I've been running Phos-Guard in my hang-on filter. The destroyed candy cane heads had red algae on them when I returned; I removed this by gently blowing water on them with an eye dropper.
Interestingly enough, my PH and KH dropped while I was away (see below for specifics). I'm wondering if that could be part of the problem. My calcium levels also went down quite a bit over the six days I was gone. Being that this is a relatively new tank and I've only had LPS corals in it for the past month and a half or so, I've not yet determined what the normal calcium depletion rate for my setup is, but 50ppm in six days seemed a bit high to me.
One other interesting piece of information. When I got home Tuesday night, one of my astra snails was hanging out on top of my candy cane! I had an astra snail tear across my blastomussa once and the coral retracted to the extreme. A few days later it seemed to bounce back and has looked great ever since. Could the snail have done permanent damage to this coral?
I did a complete water check when I returned, parameters are posted below.
My bubble coral has not fully opened since I've been home. It is taking food well at night, but never fully opening during the day. I'm not sure if this is related.
Everything else in the tank (see below for list) looks great.
Hopefully I haven't gone overboard with info in this post, but I'm completely at a loss here. Being new to this hobby, this is my first "sick" coral and I'm finding it rather depressing. I've been doing freshwater for a long time and while losing a $2 fish is upsetting, watching a $60 coral die is a bit more disconcerting.
Water parameters -
Salinity - 1.023 (dropped this slowly to 1.022 while away and upon return was about 1.0235 due to evaporation; slowly dropped back to 1.023)
PH - usually 8.3, but somehow dropped to 8.1 while away
KH - usually 14 dKH, but dropped to 12.5 dKH while away
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <1 ppm
Calcium - I keep CA at 380 - 400 ppm; was at 400 when I left, at 350 upon return
Livestock in the tank -
1 nice colony of zoanthids
1 blastomussa welsi
1 nice colony of blue mushrooms
1 nice colony of green hairy mushrooms
1 bubble coral
1 kenya tree coral
1 small green star polyp colony
1 Sally Lightfoot
1 Bicolor Pseudochromis
2 Peppermint Shrimp
couple astra snails
couple margarita snails
half a dozen or so zebra hermit crabs
I purchased a very nice candy cane coral about a month ago. It has looked great since I purchased it. I was out of town from Thursday of last week until Tuesday night of this week. When I got back, I seemed to have lost a few heads! Four heads are literally gone! Al that is left is skeleton. Two more heads are half gone - meaning that the "flesh" is slowly disintegrating. One more head looks as if its starting to go. Finally, of the remaining 12 or so heads, about half of them look great! The other half are no longer extending their tentacles at night and seem as if they have retracted a bit.
I feed each head a small piece of mysis shrimp or a little squirt of cyclopeez every night (except while I was out of town, of course). [I feed all of my LPS corals a little bit each night] The badly damaged heads don't, of course, take any food at this point. The half a dozen or so that look a bit retracted take food, but not as readily as before. The heads that still look great wolf down whatever I give them.
This tank is still relatively new (four months or so) and I've been battling a bit of a red algae problem. I've cut my photoperiod down to about 7 hours of actnic (65 watts) and 6 hours of full spectrum (65 watts). This is over a 29 gallon tank. My tap water is a bit high in phosphates, so I've been running Phos-Guard in my hang-on filter. The destroyed candy cane heads had red algae on them when I returned; I removed this by gently blowing water on them with an eye dropper.
Interestingly enough, my PH and KH dropped while I was away (see below for specifics). I'm wondering if that could be part of the problem. My calcium levels also went down quite a bit over the six days I was gone. Being that this is a relatively new tank and I've only had LPS corals in it for the past month and a half or so, I've not yet determined what the normal calcium depletion rate for my setup is, but 50ppm in six days seemed a bit high to me.
One other interesting piece of information. When I got home Tuesday night, one of my astra snails was hanging out on top of my candy cane! I had an astra snail tear across my blastomussa once and the coral retracted to the extreme. A few days later it seemed to bounce back and has looked great ever since. Could the snail have done permanent damage to this coral?
I did a complete water check when I returned, parameters are posted below.
My bubble coral has not fully opened since I've been home. It is taking food well at night, but never fully opening during the day. I'm not sure if this is related.
Everything else in the tank (see below for list) looks great.
Hopefully I haven't gone overboard with info in this post, but I'm completely at a loss here. Being new to this hobby, this is my first "sick" coral and I'm finding it rather depressing. I've been doing freshwater for a long time and while losing a $2 fish is upsetting, watching a $60 coral die is a bit more disconcerting.
Water parameters -
Salinity - 1.023 (dropped this slowly to 1.022 while away and upon return was about 1.0235 due to evaporation; slowly dropped back to 1.023)
PH - usually 8.3, but somehow dropped to 8.1 while away
KH - usually 14 dKH, but dropped to 12.5 dKH while away
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <1 ppm
Calcium - I keep CA at 380 - 400 ppm; was at 400 when I left, at 350 upon return
Livestock in the tank -
1 nice colony of zoanthids
1 blastomussa welsi
1 nice colony of blue mushrooms
1 nice colony of green hairy mushrooms
1 bubble coral
1 kenya tree coral
1 small green star polyp colony
1 Sally Lightfoot
1 Bicolor Pseudochromis
2 Peppermint Shrimp
couple astra snails
couple margarita snails
half a dozen or so zebra hermit crabs
