Golden Torch

[lucky_snapper]

I have a nice gold torch coral that has been in my system for about a month now. It has about 6-7 heads on it and the skeleton is like a wall hammer. Everything else in my system is growing like crazy but I have noticed several heads have been inflating and then deflating and one of them died about 2 days ago. I check my water parameters and they all look pretty good.

Temp 78
Salinity 1.025
Nitrate 5ppm
Phosphate .25ppm
Amonia 0
Calcium 500
DKH 12

Any Ideas ?

This was taken about a week ago Before

The clowns host my Hammer and occasionally goto the Torch but for the most part they leave it alone. I'll try to get an after shot tomorrow.

 

[lucky_snapper]

Here is how it looks now

 

[rogersb]

Was the rock under it touching the heads, possibly irritating them to the point where it damaged the torch and killed the heads?

 

[Fin Mike]

I have seen this before too. I had a piece that was very well established and had grown from four polyps to 16 polyps in two years. One day the polyp in the middle of the coral just died off. I never could tell what did it, but it lost several other polyps before it was all said and done. Total bummer.

Recently, I purchased a brown one with golden tips. I lost one of its polyps to a sponge that eventually took over the whole branch. This took a good amount of time to happen though.

I would scrutinize the coral for a long period of time. Look for anything out of the ordinary, ie. nudi's. flatworms, snails, bristle worms to mention a few. Let us know if you find anything. Your parameters look fine, so I'm thinking it is either bacterial/ viral or predatory/pest situation. Long periods of observation may be required to find out which.