Frogspawn Help

[kpcollins31]

I'm looking for some suggestions - I picked up a frogspawn last weekend from Union Aquarium. It seemed to be doing great for about 5 days, and then one morning one of the heads was completely retracted. The other head looked perfect so I was not too concerned, but this morning both heads were totally retracted.

I did see my peppermint shrimp climbing around the retracted frogspawn in the morning - could that be the cause? All the other corals look great. The larger of the two heads is slowly coming out again, but it really does not look well. Any thoughts?

Temp ~81
Ammonia 0
Nitrate <5ppm
Nitrite 0
Salinity 1.026
Calcium 450

 

[michaelg]

if the coral is healthy, then the pepps crawling on it arent a problem. likely they are attracted to something that isn't healthy. but, maybe not. when the coral is retracted, how does the flesh going off the head and onto the skeleton look? that is where I usually look at them- not so much polyp extension. how did you place it relative to light?

 

[xian]

I believe that peppermint shrimp ate a torch coral on me. I never witnessed it but it dissappeared, one head at a time when I added the shrimp, I removed them when I moved and I haven't lost a Euphylia in that manner since.

I can say this. When I had the shrimp there was no retraction, the heads vanished one at a time right down to bare skeleton.

 

[kpcollins31]

The flesh where the skeleton meets seemed fine but not having any previous experience with frogspawn, I'm not sure if I could spot a problem there if there was one. I placed it about mid height in the tank under T5s - roughly the same elevation as my Xenia which are pumping like crazy. Current I would call low to medium in it's current location. It looks the same this morning as it did yesterday - no real improvement.

 

[xian]

What is the temp and salinity in your tank?

 

[kpcollins31]

Temp is about 81F and salinity is 1.026.

 

[xian]

You may be starting to get to the temp where they are unhappy. Mine doesn't like too much water flow either, just enough to make it sway gently.

How does your alkalynity look?

BTW I didn't mean to be redundant about the temp and salinity jus that this time of year it can shift.

 

[kpcollins31]

I think the temperature swings I saw over the previous week may have been the culprit. Even with air conditioning, temperatures in my tank did rise to ~84 degress. I retested everything over the weekend...

salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.4
nitrate - 5ppm
ammonia - 0ppm
nitrite - 0ppm
alkalinity - 100mg/L (5.6 dKH)
calcium - 480ppm

Alkalinity is a little low so that could be an issue. I will bring that up a little.

Thanks.