Duncan issues

[Danny_B]

Ive had this duncan for 8 months, its show piece, very branchy and started with 12 heads... it now has approx. 5-10 new heads on every main head. Its been doing great, all heads always fully open, favorite coral.

The last 4-5 days it hasnt opened and each and every head is closed. Every other corals looks great, lps, sps, and softies all happy.


Things that have changed recently..

Started running GFO 2 weeks ago. in a TLF reactor, with BRS regular gfo, used 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) as recommend starting dose. (water volume totals 31-32 gallons)

Started using ROX carbon about 5-7 days ago. Previous carbon use was here and there, but never with ROX carbon, always used cheap carbon pellet.

got a flame angel 4 weeks ago, I have never seen him nip.

Started dosing kalk in my ato about a month ago.

A week ago raised LEDs a little higher above tank (4 inches)

Lowered flow on mp10 a little a week ago.


List of livestock:
Fish
flame angel
Starry Blenny
purple dottyback

SPS
several acros (smooth and regular)
milliporas


LPS
Welso brian
krpto Candy canes
frogspawn
hammer
torch

SOFT Corals
GSP
pulsing xenia
zoas
palys
mushrooms
Tyree Toadstool
Green nepthea

CUC
conch
hermits
snails

chaeto in sump

tank parameters:

NH3 0
NO2 0
NO3 0
PO4 .25
SG 1.026
ph 8.2
alk 8
cal 480
mag 1440

5 gallon water change weekly, RO/DI water from my spectrapure unit, verified 0 TDS verified by my handheld meter. red sea coral pro salt.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[kurt_n]

Hmmm... quite a few things changing over the last month, so it's tough to really know if any single one of those things is the cause.

Here's the things that stood out to me, in the order I noticed them...

1. Flame Angel - yeah... you haven't *seen* it nipping. Doesn't mean it's not, though.

2. Torch and hammer - not sure how close these are to the Duncan, but it sounds like you have a small tank so I'd be worried about the torch not playing nice with others. Unless the torch is at the complete opposite end of the tank as the Duncan, I'd worry about that. I had a beautiful torch that I made the mistake of making the centerpiece of my small 46g tank. It had a couple tentacles that could literally reach a 12" radius around the center of the tank. That didn't leave many "safe areas" for other corals. One of my LFS was the happy receipient of that torch once I realized it had to go.

3. PO4 of 0.25 - really? That's really high, but then you probably know that as you've started using GFO. Any idea how it got that high? Have you verified that number with a different test kit? Are you feeding the corals anything? Not sure if high phosphates could cause the duncan to close up, but perhaps whatever is causing those high phosphates are also causing other problems you're not aware of... which are causing the problem with the duncan.

4. Duncans just plain get finnicky from time to time, and close up for days on end - only to come back just fine. At least that's been my experience.

 

[philosophile]

Flame angel.

But yes... duncans sometimes just close up and won't open up for a while. But... really... Flame angel.

 

[Danny_B]

Thanks for replys

1. Yes... i know flames can nip, just stating i hadnt seen it, but i know its an absolute possibility.

2. Torch is on far left side, duncan is on far right side. I dont know if its torch or not, but it is some type of Euphyllia. Never have seen sweepers from my Euphyllia.

3. PO4 is at .25 according to API. Yes i know it isn't regarded as a great test or one with high enough resolution in the low part of the scale, but without a good job for the moment, it is what i have. PO4 was 1 and 2 ppm, before starting GFO. Duncan always looked good thru high nitrate or high phosphate.

BACKSTORY why phosphate is high...


So my tank has been setup for a year, and I always had nitrate problem. I didn't know I had a nitrate problem until i put the Duncan in about 3 month old tank. It wouldn't open. I test my water, everything is good, nitrates under 10, all other test fine, hammer, gsp, frogspawn all ok.

So I do a water change, duncan opens right up. Long story short, nitrate test kit was bad. New test shows double or more on nitrates compared to old test. I double check this with friends tests.

So now to find out why I have high nitrates. I don't feed everyday, I don't overfeed, I don't have a high bioload, I do weekly water changes and water comes from my spectrapure RO/DI verified 0 TDS with handheld meter.

I would do a 25%-75% water change every week, nitrates would dropped exactly the amount they are supposed to. (if i did a 50% WC, nitrates would drop by 50%) But the next day or two, they jumped back 40-60ppm+ (from 20ppm after 50% h20 change) This goes on for months.

So i start changing things.

I changed substrate, salt, skimmer, ATS, Chaeto, I only had 2 occ clowns, a hectors goby, got rid of the fish. None of this helped. So at that point all original fish were gone. I put one tiny purple dottyback as the only fish.

Finally i changed the only thing left, the live rock. I took ALL live rock out (35 lbs) and got 35lbs of Cured live rock(this was July 4th). BANG. No more nitrates.

Now i have phosphate leaching from rocks. GFO dropped it, chaeto growing gang busters.

 

[kurt_n]

OK... good to know the backstory on the nitrates. Sounds like you were pretty methodical in trying to reduce the nitrates, so I'm thinking you'll eventually figure out the duncan issue.

I'd probably wait a week and see if they don't open up again on their own before condeming the Flame. But even if it isn't the Flame *now*, always keep an eye on it!

 

[Danny_B]

Thanks for the words, lights are coming on, some heads are open a little, something is definitely irritating them...I will definitely will always keep an eye on flame. For some reason I have a gut reaction about the carbon is doing it for some reason, but I've never heard of that...

 

[Danny_B]

ok...I'm starting to say flame angel...candy canes look horrible, welso also....Grrrrrr.

 

[kurt_n]

Have a quarantine tank up and running? Maybe a couple weeks in timeout might tell you if it's the culprit.

On the flip side, it could still be the result of something else in your tank. All corals don't react the same way at the same time to things. When I had a powerhead self-destruct in my tank and leach invisible nasties into the water, some corals were really ticked, some corals looked dead, and others looked like they could care less.

Nobody said this stuff was easy.

(But I still don't trust the flame. )