Had a water issue from a bad barrel of salt. Caulestra worst affected, had shrunk off 'fins' of skeleton, come down to a center plastered hard to the skeleton.
Got new salt, switched to Instant Ocean, and the coral began to puff up a bit. 4 days on, it's really recovering, and is puffing out over the abandoned 'fins' of skeleton, and extending now over the old structure. It's been gratifying to watch.
As for exactly the trouble, the only out of norm readings were super high mg and a high alk. No coral was happy until I got new salt. Now it's beginning to perk up.
After a tank change, I'm now restoring the coral reef, and had bought fairly modest and scruffy little pieces that ordinarily I can get to grow like mad---no joy in Mudville, with the salt problem. I came close to losing all of them (acan, hammer, frog, caulestra) from tissue retraction and failure to eat. Frog and acan showed the toughest under the conditions, hammer just sulked, caulestra was fading fast. Still can't figure what the problem was with that barrel of salt, but I'm doing daily 10% water changes for this and next week, and so far it looks like they're on the road to full recovery and growth.
Got new salt, switched to Instant Ocean, and the coral began to puff up a bit. 4 days on, it's really recovering, and is puffing out over the abandoned 'fins' of skeleton, and extending now over the old structure. It's been gratifying to watch.
As for exactly the trouble, the only out of norm readings were super high mg and a high alk. No coral was happy until I got new salt. Now it's beginning to perk up.
After a tank change, I'm now restoring the coral reef, and had bought fairly modest and scruffy little pieces that ordinarily I can get to grow like mad---no joy in Mudville, with the salt problem. I came close to losing all of them (acan, hammer, frog, caulestra) from tissue retraction and failure to eat. Frog and acan showed the toughest under the conditions, hammer just sulked, caulestra was fading fast. Still can't figure what the problem was with that barrel of salt, but I'm doing daily 10% water changes for this and next week, and so far it looks like they're on the road to full recovery and growth.
