Is my Magnifica doing ok?

[Jeff000]

My Magnifica is now a week old.

It has seemed pretty happy for the most part I think. But all day today it has looked.... not right.
Looks deflated.

I've tried feeding it, but it's mouth faces the back of the tank so it is really hard to see if it eats anything, it does grab the food and move it.



This is how it looked just hours after landing.

 

[worm5406]

Ok... Please do not take offense to the next set of questions. Please fill in the blanks:

Age of tank
Substrate
SG
temp
nitrate
nitrite
phosphate
ammonia
pH
Lights (type and cycle)
other inhabitants
Sump type and contents
Flow type and volume/time on
Flow direction in reference to mag

Is that GHA and diatoms in the tank?

Mouth of Mag (what does it look like, I know it is turned but you need to see how it looks)
tentacles (what do they look like?)
Where did you get it? mail, lfs, friend?

 

[bjledbetter]

Mine did that for about 2 weeks after i got it from time to time. I think it was trying to expel bad stuff and has only done it once sense then to my knowledge. I agree with worm we need some more info in order to be able to help you.


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[Jeff000]

Age of tank I had the tank running in the sump for almost a year, all the rocks from my 2 year old 90 before that. Took 2 weeks to put old water into the new tank so it wasn't such a large volume of new water.There is 100lbs of dry marco rock in the new tank with the ~250lbs of aged live rock in the tank and sump. 330g DT
Substrate sugar fine sand, it's new (3 weeks now)
SG .026-.027
temp 79.8 +/- 0.2 degrees
nitrate 4.5ppm
nitrite zero
phosphate zero
ammonia Zero
pH 8.3
Lights (type and cycle) DIY LED blues for 10 hours, blues and whites for 8 hours, dimmed slightly, all my SPS is happy with it
other inhabitants
12 liretails
goldflake
4 semi snow clowns
cheveron tang
sailfin tang
blue throat trigger pair
yellow tang
mystery wrasse

Sump type and contents ~120g water volume in it, and live rock, with the vertex alpha 300 skimmer
Flow type and volume/time on Reeflow barracuda return pump, two tunze 6105's, one 6095, two 6055's. All at about 70% except for the return.
Flow direction in reference to mag foot to mouth flow, with some side to side current right now. It has walked around most of the rock in the week I have had it. I would say it is in moderate flow right now.

Is that GHA and diatoms in the tank? I had a GHA issue when everything was in the sump, it was taken care of, and only trace amounts remain that are dwindling every day. No diatoms, just some film algae on the new sand and where the sand has settled on the rocks.

Mouth of Mag (what does it look like, I know it is turned but you need to see how it looks) I can't see it, even looking top down.
tentacles (what do they look like?) They look deflated, although this morning half looked normal, and half deflated
Where did you get it? mail, lfs, friend? LFS brought it in for me from where ever, I took it still in the bag.

 

[worm5406]

Cool... So a really small mini cycle from the new sand and other new items.

Good...

I had a simular problem with my ritteri last year when I added some more rock that had not cured enough. Almost like it got a breath of bad water and wanted to spit it ALL out as quick as possible. So it deflated to that state. When I moved tanks from one to another it really expelled ALL the old water and pulled in new. It looked thinner than a dime but about a foot around.

The mouth is a real big concern. You may want to see about moving that rock or some how visualizing it.

Food is not an issue yet. Let it determine what it wants to do. It takes a lot of energy to eat and move. And both at the same time will only make it spit it out and waste precious energy.

I'll let some of the others chime in since they have a baseline to look at.

Nice looking picture when you first brought it home.

 

[Jeff000]

Over night it has moved to the under side of the rock....
You can see it on both sides. It looks better today I think. One side looks deflated and the other looks ok. I hope the clowns aren't making things worse.

It's foot is huge, and on three different rocks, so moving it to see the mouth isn't really possible right now.

 

[worm5406]

It almost looks like it is hiding from the light... Acclimation... Are they up to full strength?

Put some window screen over it in a couple of layers will help reduce the light some. This also gives you a chance to remoev one layer at a time to add the light slowly while the light hitting the other items are still at the same strength.

 

[Jeff000]

Lights are about t5 strength I'd say.

 

[Winwood]

If stressed mags can shift around and if they are unable to find a suitable place to plant their foot on they will continue to move and stress. Even if the original problem is resolved. It may be just a case of finding a flat surface it likes to adhere to.

This may not be the case with your animal but I have dealt with this problem in the past with a couple of anemones. Just something to consider I guess.

 

[xtlosx]

Lights are about t5 strength I'd say.

I would be shocked if the issue is with acclimation... Mags are next to Gigs with respect to love of light. Magnificas often times need to be placed on TOP of rock piles directly under a light, and even then they will climb your glass and get as close as possible...

Just my .02 cents.

 

[worm5406]

I would be shocked if the issue is with acclimation... Mags are next to Gigs with respect to love of light. Magnificas often times need to be placed on TOP of rock piles directly under a light, and even then they will climb your glass and get as close as possible...

Just my .02 cents.

True.. but why is it hiding so much in the tank. Looking at the one picture, I assumed the flow was not to much.

 

[xtlosx]

True.. but why is it hiding so much in the tank. Looking at the one picture, I assumed the flow was not to much.

Could be a lot of things, Mags are notorious for moving until they feel comfortable... I myself have never kept a magnifica, but would like to incorporate one in my tank someday...

 

[D-Nak]

I would seriously consider a quarantine with Cipro. Magnifica and gigantea are very similar in the sense that they are both very hard to acclimate. They both exhibit a deflation and inflation cycle, last about a month, then die. I hypothesize that it's a bacterial infection that kills both species, and it occurs from the inside out. The deflation/inflation cycle is the only evidence we see -- other than a refusal to eat -- that there is something wrong.

Deflation is never normal with a healthy magnifica. They also tend to be one of the toughest nems to acclimate since they like very clean water. If there's any way possible to get your nitrates down to zero, I would do so, but you'll need to do it in such a way that doesn't drastically change the water chemistry. Are you running a refugium?

 

[Jeff000]

I would seriously consider a quarantine with Cipro. Magnifica and gigantea are very similar in the sense that they are both very hard to acclimate. They both exhibit a deflation and inflation cycle, last about a month, then die. I hypothesize that it's a bacterial infection that kills both species, and it occurs from the inside out. The deflation/inflation cycle is the only evidence we see -- other than a refusal to eat -- that there is something wrong.

Deflation is never normal with a healthy magnifica. They also tend to be one of the toughest nems to acclimate since they like very clean water. If there's any way possible to get your nitrates down to zero, I would do so, but you'll need to do it in such a way that doesn't drastically change the water chemistry. Are you running a refugium?

QT will not happen. I just do not have the time, energy, space or money for it. I'm pretty sure it is eating, the clowns are feeding it.

The water is clean, nitrates to zero is hard to do.

I have a sump with more live rock. I can't grow cheato.
My build thread shows what I have pretty well.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2269965

 

[Winwood]

QT is not that difficult and with recent success stories, I would give it some consideration. Healthy mags are sooooo hard to come by right out of the box. If you are serious about keeping this species without spending a lot money playing the anemone lottery, take the time to treat it. Especially if it is exhibiting signs of infection.

This is coming from a guy who has killed a lot of mags by providing an optimum environment.