candy cane recession

[Hightower33]

I have a candycane thats been with me for over a year, that was very healthy looking and growing well. It occasionally fed on mysis.

Now it has recessed and looks like its dying. Cant figure out why.
All params are normal, nothing changed. Temp remains 1 deg change with the chiller. All other LPS corals are fine and healthy. There is a small patch outbreak of cyano, other than that everything is identical as a before.

Other than the obvious immediete water change what is happening?

Here are the pics b4 and after

 

[michaeldaly]

Are any other corals showing any signs, if not then it is probably not water quality. have you changed flow patters or placement?

 

[Hightower33]

No, I mentioned b4 everyone else is in great shape. flow pattern was changed quite a while ago, so that doesnt make sense cause it has only started to look like this in the past few weeks.

 

[michaeldaly]

A similar thing happened to mine a while back and it just recovered on it's own a few weeks later.
Is it still extending it's feeding tentacles at night?

 

[Hightower33]

It looks as though as its trying, but there is not much there. They are short and stubby rather than quite pronounced as usual

 

[circusordie16]

how long has it been like that?

 

[Hightower33]

bout 2-3 weeks.

Is there such a thing as shedding its outer layer. Thats what it looks like. The troublesome part is that underneath looks like its going all white, as if the coral is dying?

A shame to lose it, since it was a showpiece for the tank.

 

[Hightower33]

bump

Anyone had this problem or seen it?

 

[cristhiam]

Could that frogspawn be sending swipers? the one I have some times send 4-5" long swipers.

 

[Hightower33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10074577#post10074577 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cristhiam
Could that frogspawn be sending swipers? the one I have some times send 4-5" long swipers.

I have never seen anything very long from the frogspawn even at middle of night. The candy has been beside the frog for about 4 months now, and nothings ever happened b4.

 

[gsellers1245]

when was the last time you changed your lights? just a thought

 

[fvandijk]

I had a similar issue. Flow patterns were changed due to some changes in aquascaping and they were getting too much flow. After making corrective changes, they recovered in a week or two.
Good luck.

 

[csb]

The white you're seeing beneath the tissue is the skeleton that once had tissue on it. I have a similar coral and it recently fell into a rock of mushrooms and the polyps that contacted the mushrooms all receeded just like yours. They're recovering now.

If your frogspawn had put out sweepers (and they do have long sweepers) which contacted the trumpet, only the polyps which contacted the frog's sweepers would be affected. I don't think a coral sting would wipe out the whole colony like that because it looks like the back-side of the trumpet colony would have been inaccessible to the frogspawn's sweepers.

- have you inspected the coral closely for pests?

- Do you have a dwarf angel or other questionable "reef safe" fish which might be nipping the polyps?

- Does your clown show any hosting tendencies on this coral? (remote chance, but hey)

If this is perhaps a delayed response to flow changes in the tank, you might try fragging off a few of the heads and placing them in different parts of the tank to see if any will recover into a new colony.

Good luck!

--csb

 

[Hightower33]

Lights are about 3 months old

I have not seen any pests on it, nor do I have any non reef safe fish. Never seen any peck at anything. All common fish

My clown only hosts the frogspawn.

I guess there is flow change. Its at the far end of a tunze whereas before it was underneath it.

If I place it back will it recover or is it too far gone?


csb: you mentioned to frag it and place different part. Can I just move the whole thing to a little flow area?

 

[hatfielj]

I had this exact thing happen to me when I transferred my bright green trumpet coral over to my new tank. The tissue died back completely exposing the entire skeleton and I thought for sure the colony was a goner. There was a tiny amount of tissue left in the center of the polyp skeletons. Anyway, I was 1 day away from just tossing the whole colony in the trash because I thought it was dead and then suddenly it started to show signs of recovery. Now its completely back to its normal bright green self and growing nicely?
If I were you I would just leave it alone and see if it recovers spontaneously.

 

[cristhiam]

I would move it to a different location or just frag one or two heads and move them some where else. They should recover.

 

[csb]

Yeah... the idea behind taking a few frags would be that you could place each frag in different spots in your tank (different flow environments) to see which one might become healthy again. If you move just the colony to a different spot, and it doesn't like the flow there either, you haven't really gained anything. ... and heck, if you frag it and all the pieces recover well, you'd then have some nice frags to sell/trade.

Good luck... seems the overriding opinion is flow, so go with the flow man!

 

[corals b 4 bills]

I would double check your perams, sounds like low mag or alk. levels, my hammer was doing the same thing.

 

[GobyJohnKenobi]

Any aptasia or hydroids under it?

Sounds to me like it doesn't like the new flow or it is down stream of some kind of chemical warfare.

You could try altering the flow it receives and/or run some carbon.