Is my Trachyphyllia dead?

[rogeragrimes]

A few weeks ago I bought three Trachyphyllias for my new reef tank. All three were doing pretty well, although, for two of them I never see them send out tentacles ever (even when spot checking at night) so I don't know how to feed them. But they puff up and have great color, so overall I'm not worried about them.

The other one wasn't sending out tentacles either at first, but then for a few days began sending them out, and I fed once or twice. This particular one I could see lots of activity (seemed more active than the other two). But after seeing the clearing tentacle, my wife and I decided it was too close to one of the other Trachs, so my wife decided to move it. While moving it with an ungloved hand, the Trach stung her hard. She said it lit her whole hand up. She had moved it once or twice before and was surprised, and now warned, that these things sting. But since then, that particular Trach, which used to look awesome has lost most of it's color. It's mostly white (see included photo), but maybe 5-10% of it's color remaining. We haven't seen it move or grow.

Is it dead, or does the remaining color mean it's living and might come back?

 

[Shaummy]

It doesn't look dead yet, but it does look pretty bleached. Is the new spot that it's been moved into get more light than the others?

If you see the feeders come out after the tank lights have gone out, you can try to feed it mysys or similar to help it.

 

[rogeragrimes]

It doesn't look dead yet, but it does look pretty bleached. Is the new spot that it's been moved into get more light than the others?

If you see the feeders come out after the tank lights have gone out, you can try to feed it mysys or similar to help it.

I think the old and new spot probably have about the same amount of light, but perhaps slightly different flow. Overall, lighting in my tank is too low. Lighting is on my short list of things to fix, but I was concentrating on getting the rest of the tank stable (which is is)...unfortunately, I have to switch out tanks soon because one of my wall seals is failing.

I've tried feeding my trachs mysys before, but 2 of 3 have never extended anything that could grab the food and it just floats away. The third, that is having a problem, didn't really grab anything with its tentacles the one time I really thought I had an opportunity...and now I'm fighting the bleaching.

Thanks for your response. Perhaps I'll just try moving it back closer to the original position and see what happens.

 

[rogeragrimes]

Update: It's alive!

Update: It's alive!

Been months since it show any signs of life, but today if finally, out of nowhere, puffed up and put out a tentacle.

View attachment 341674

 

[garyinco]

So, what changed? You change your routine, start/stop any supplements, change out any equipment that was making contact with the water, lighting?

 

[rogeragrimes]

Nearly everything, unfortunately. My original tank, put in on Thanksgiving day, had a seal issue, so I replaced it about a month ago, and in doing that, I also replaced the sump, overflow, powerhead with a gyre, more live rock, better plumbing, etc, giving better flow and filtering. All those changes happened and finally stopped changing just a few days before the trach started to get better. So I don't know. All I can do is speculate. I'm guessing it was increased flow, because the last thing I changed out, just three days prior was the sump and pump, but I went from inefficient filter floss (the way it was setup in the prior sump) to two socks, which for sure are capturing everything. The new pump is rated for double to triple the flow and although I don't think I'm getting all that, I'm certainly getting more than the old flow. Or it could have been that I stopped mucking with the tank...but it had sat unchanged for 5 or so days before, before I changed things. Possibly the nitrate cycle. After the tank change, the tank went through a mini-cycle and nitrates were staying high and I was doing frequent big water changes...and then after the new sump install the cycle finally finished. I don't want to say it was the cycle finishing alone, because the cycle was finished in the old tank before I changed it out and the trach still looked dead. Sorry for the long reply, but it's all the information I'm considering in my head. So the short story is that I changed nearly every variable so I have no idea what helped, and it could have just been enough time passage for the healing process to get far enough along so he finally felt good enough to puff.

Of course he still has white everywhere and he was a brilliant red before he stung my wife...so we're not out of the woods yet. But I was recently considering removing him from the tank because I assumed after months of inactivity that he was dead. The only reason I didn't, is because I had perceived some additional color during nighttime lighting, but it was so minor and gradual that I wasn't even sure I wasn't just imagining things.

 

[Treasure Coast]

Awesome, pays to have patience!