Frogspawn Shriveling and Dying!

[drumlizardo]

Hi all,

I'm new to reef aquariums, and my frogspawn is the first LPS coral I've gotten (so it's important to me!). It looked great for the first two weeks or so"”8 heads"”but has since gone downhill. I first noticed the tentacles on two heads retracting gradually after I split the skeleton so it would fit better in my tank, and the individual tentacles were flattening out and shriveling. After about a week, the tentacles started to die off of those heads, leaving just the skeleton beneath (plus little white "hand" thingies poking out of the middle of the heads, which you can see in my pictures"”these are how the frogspawn filter-feed, right?). I originally thought something was eating them and got rid of two camel shrimp. Since then, though, four more heads have gone in the same way over about three weeks! There's no color change when the tentacles shrivel up, either. I'm including some pictures: You can see that one of the heads is in the process of losing its tentacles, and the other head's tentacles are retracted. I've tried moving the frags all around the tank, but I've mostly stuck to relatively well-lit and strongly-circulated areas. I'm feeding my corals Phyto Feast everyday: 40 or so drops in a 28-gallon tank.

This doesn't look like the pictures of brown jelly disease I've seen, and I don't see any "bugs" on the coral.

If anyone can offer advice, I'd be FOREVER grateful! Maybe I'll send you a frag someday if they recover. ;-)

Here's my tank info.:

28-gallon JBJ Nano Cube

Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: ~0
Chlorine: 0
Alkalinity: ~350
pH: 8.3
Calcium: 460 (I've been dosing, and brought it up from about 360)
Temperature: 80 (I know this is a little hot; I've ordered a fan)

I dose with B-Ionic's Calcium Buffer System daily to keep the calcium up.

2 return pumps on a 30-second wave maker delivering 266 GPH
2 Hydor powerheads on a 30-second wave maker circulating 425 GPH
The lights are 150-watt power compact lights, on for 8 hours a day, plus LED moonlights, on all the time.

I don't have any activated carbon in the tank currently.

I've got 2 clownfish, a Melanurus wrasse, a goby, 2 fire red shrimp, and emerald crab, and assorted hermit crabs and snails, plus some zoanthids and some 'shrooms.

 

[Dapg8gt]

How old is the tank? Are you confident on those test results. Feeding phyto everyday will foul your water extremely fast in that small of a tank. I would recommend you not feed as per the bottle. That's way too much for your tank. Have you tested phosphate? An iMO in that small of a tank you should be running chemi pure or at least carbon.. Good luck figuring it out hope you get someone who can give you a answer for your problem. I just wanted to chime in on my thoughts on your feeding and you should try to test phosphate and magnesium. The magnesium will help calcium and alk stay stable so you might want to look into that.

 

[hollister]

Ok i will respond and only to help. Im only being nice. Though my writings skills do lack.

First these are LPS coral and dont like sand or the bottom. Mid level is the minimum and perhaps higher depending on the light.

They also like high water flow. There tenticals could extend up to 6 inches and looks cool.

Also trying to split them so new isnt good. Give them a few months to recover from new tank stress.

Also seems you have alot of brown algea or diatmos or die off is the tank and they like clean water.

 

[drumlizardo]

Thanks for the responses so far! The tank's about five months old at this point.

For the chemical readings I listed, I used Tetra EasyStrips for everything except calcium, for which I used the Red Sea titration kit.

Also, my salinity is 1.024, +/"“ .005

Regarding hollister's comments: They're only in the sand because that's basically the only place they haven't been before"”I've been moving them around every week or so to see if that helps. Since the tank's shallow, I didn't think the depth of coral placement mattered that much"”there's bright light basically anywhere in the tank. You're probably right that I shouldn't have fragged them so soon. I definitely won't make that mistake again, but I hope I haven't totally doomed this bunch!

Yes, there's a good amount of brown algae on the coral skeletons, but there isn't very much anywhere else in the tank. Weird, no?

What do other people think? How much water flow is appropriate for frogspawn? Should I basically have one of my Koralia Nanos pointing AT the frogspawn? That seems a little excessive to me"”the tentacles would really whip around. Or should there just be fairly constant, gentle movement of the tentacles when they're not retracted?

 

[FINGAZZ]

im no expert and still new to this but i have frogs spawn and was told that there hard to keep that i shouldnt get any well i got a 9 headed one.its doing great on my sand bed.now what i did was point my power head in a angle pointng at the middle of the tank and with that being done gives them enough flow and movement.my power head sits in the back corner.i would also get a beter test kit.api and im sure there others.the other thing i do is add magnisum,and a bottle that says trace eliments on it.every week or after a water change..i also feed with rods fish food.the mag is a must if your not useing it.heres apics of mine.hope i helped you some.

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[afamousjohnson]

Dose strontonium and trace elements for him if he makes it. Had my 1st piece be a hammer coral and he did fine but I was a stocking finatic in the beginning and soon my waterchanges weren't replenishing the level of trace elements needed in my tank. Also many many many of times have I seen frog spawn and such like on the sand with much success. The biggest I have seen though I would have to say are placed somewhat of a center piece in the middle in rock with good flow.

 

[chrisfont23]

I have found that most Euphyllia do best with low to medium indirectflow and medium lighting. I have an array of hammer coral, frogspawn and torch corals in my tank that are thriving. I am not doing anything really super crazy... I feed the tank with oyster feast, cyclopeeze and such every now and then. I think flow is the real key. I used to play with my MP10s speed invariably, ratcheting those babies up the dial. Turns out, the best speed for them is a little less than half and my tank has never looked better.

Here's a shot of my happy hammer:

And my happy torch:

 

[drumlizardo]

Hey, thanks for these great responses! Wow!

I've been moving the frogspawn to areas with different flow amounts in the tank, most of which were what I'd consider medium or high flow. chrisfont23, I'll take your advice and try to keep them in medium-flow areas from now on.

The stuff that I dose to keep the calcium up also contains magnesium, strontium, and traces. I just ordered some test kits for magnesium, phosphates, and alkalinity. But I don't understand how to monitor trace elements: How do you know if they're low in a tank?

One thing I'm wondering about is whether my alkalinity levels might be the culprit here. Someone told me that 350 ppm is WAY too high, and that this could be the main thing that's killing my frogspawn. Does that sound right to people?

 

[Sk8r]

Don't worry about traces. Worry about the big 3, which are not traces: calcium, alk buffer, and magnesium. Don't dose anything but these in pure form, no additives. Use the common scales. Proper parameters are in my sig line.

 

[FNDsalt]

I would have to agree with chrisfont23. Medium to low indirect current. Too much flow and the tissue will recede.

 

[Toadally]

I agree with low indirect flow. Too much and you'll get recession.

 

[chrisfont23]

Hey, thanks for these great responses! Wow!

I've been moving the frogspawn to areas with different flow amounts in the tank, most of which were what I'd consider medium or high flow. chrisfont23, I'll take your advice and try to keep them in medium-flow areas from now on.

The stuff that I dose to keep the calcium up also contains magnesium, strontium, and traces. I just ordered some test kits for magnesium, phosphates, and alkalinity. But I don't understand how to monitor trace elements: How do you know if they're low in a tank?

One thing I'm wondering about is whether my alkalinity levels might be the culprit here. Someone told me that 350 ppm is WAY too high, and that this could be the main thing that's killing my frogspawn. Does that sound right to people?

I use a supplement called CoralVite once a week too. I have always used it (from the days of my 29g tank) and never found / had an issue. It has a lot of trace elements in it. So I feel like I am replacing them.

I also use Two Little Fishies C-Balance. I think it's incredible. It's affordable and I think it makes a huge difference with balancing my parameters. I didn't check my params for 3 weeks and using this kept everything spot on. You might have to do a little calculating - determine how much Alk and Ca you lose in a week and balance that over 7 days, but once you get it going the params stay right in line.

I usually keep my Alkalinity between 9 and 10 and my Calcium around 420. When studying up on this, I used these two articles by Randy Holmes Farley to guide me:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/11/chemistry
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-04/rhf/feature/index.php

HTH

 

[kissman]

I would also ditch the test strips and get good quality test kits. The strips are very inaccurate. Go with Salifert or the New Red Sea Coral or better yet Hanna. The brown I see in the photo's tells me you may have a phosphate issue, a nitrate issue or both.

 

[drumlizardo]

Hey, thanks a lot, everyone!

One more question. This might make everyone go, "Oh, THAT'S what you're doing wrong!"

I just heard from a few experienced aquarists that I've been making a huge mistake by using tap water with Prime rather than RO/DI water . . . and I'm starting to be convinced they're right.

What do people think? Could this be the main reason I'm seeing the frogspawn die?

 

[kissman]

Big mistake buy a ro/di it will pay for itself

 

[Dapg8gt]

I don't think so it's possible though. A friend of mine has been using tap water for years and has no problems. I used it up until a year ago and my tank is 9 years old plus.I wouldn't recommend you continue to use tap but I doubt that's what it is is everything else is fine. I would get a RO/DI as soon as you can.

 

[sam3113]

+1 on light to medium indirect flow.I had the same thing happen to my 1st frogspawn frag.I checked all my parameters and they were all fine.I searched all over the internet and found some other stories of the same with a lot of questions but no answers. The only thing I found(can't remember where) was someone said they were difficult to frag and keep alive but with no reason. Anyway so with all my parameters in check I pulled out more cash and bought a larger colony with 8 heads. I placed it in my tank in the same spot( mid level with light indirect flow) and it is doing great months later.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mavrk]

One thing I'm wondering about is whether my alkalinity levels might be the culprit here. Someone told me that 350 ppm is WAY too high, and that this could be the main thing that's killing my frogspawn. Does that sound right to people?

I don't trust the strips, but if your Alk is at 350 that is really high and out of balance with your calcium. The Alk should be between 125 and 200 ppm. This is the same as 2.5 - 4 meq/L. It is also the same as 7 - 11 dKH.

It is good to know the different ways of measuring so you can understand the recommended range when people post them. if you convert 350 ppm to dKH and meq/L you get:
19.6 dKH
7 meq/L

It seems you are dosing your alk too high relative to Calcium. B-ionic is great to use, the problem is that you are using too much Component Number 1 (Alkalinity). This might mean your Magnesium is not at the right level either. Or perhaps the Alkalinity test is not correct.

That all said, I don't think a high alkalinity will hurt anything as long as you pH is okay (which it seems to be). It will deplete your calcium faster though. It will come down on its own in time. I would stop dosing the alk component for now though. You can still dose the calcium component.

BTW...
[welcome]

 

[Reeferz412]

I use nothing.... Just good water changes, NOT direct water flow, and medium lighting. My frogspawn is a little less than halfway of my rockwork. I dose nothing since I do weekly water changes and the reef crystals do the job in my mixed reef. My frogspawn is going a year and a half strong. It started with one head and now we are head number 8.

 

[LittleCrabby101]

I just had a frogspawn die and what killed it was high alk & high mag ;( I would make sure your tank has adequete room for this piece so the tenticles can extend. I would also recommend using RO water which is also great for top offs. If you can try and get premixed saltwater. I'm not a fan of adding elements to the water. With good water quality and testing you should be able to achieve the goal without adding anything. Iodine supplement is a good thing to add, but don't over do it. Corals and inverts do very well with iodine. The frogspawn should be located about half way down in your tank on live rock up right with moderate to high water flow. Without that water flow the coral can't breathe. Hope this helps