Need help to save my Frogspawn...

[jdewolftx]

Yesterday I noticed that a 1 cm2 chunk of my frogspawn coral was missing and a trail of slime was left behind. I immediately suspected my new, beautiful Flame Angel that I introduced last week who happens to live right near the frogspawn. I spent the next hour chasing him and re-arranging all my rock. He now is cooling in my refuge.

I need advice on two key questions...

1) What should I do now to try and save the frogspawn? Dips? Move lower in the tank? Etc.

2) Did I over-react with the Flame? I remembered that I also introduced a Sri Lankan Fire Shrimp with the Flame who also lives underneath the frogspawn. Also, today I noticed that almost an entire lobe of the frogspawn is gone. I am not sure if this is just the after affect of yesterday or if something is still eating it. My kole tang got more aggressive once I introduced the Flame angel. Could it be him? The tank is a 90 gallon mixed reef with a fire fish, Kole Tang, and a long nose hawk.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

-Jeff :headwalls:

 

[jdewolftx]

Frogspawn Help...

Frogspawn Help...

Here are a few photos....sorry for the photo quality

[/url]IMG_1189 by Jeff Dewolf, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url]IMG_1192 by Jeff Dewolf, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Tweaked]

May or may not be the fish and or the shrimp. An eye witness account is the only confirmation for that. As far as the frog, yes, a dip and move lower for now. You can even make a box out of light diffusing screen (basic frag rack material) to help protect the coral for now.

 

[jdewolftx]

May or may not be the fish and or the shrimp. An eye witness account is the only confirmation for that. As far as the frog, yes, a dip and move lower for now. You can even make a box out of light diffusing screen (basic frag rack material) to help protect the coral for now.

I guess I will need to setup my drop cam and start reviewing video footage!

I have some iodine dip. Do I need something special like Revive?

-Jeff

 

[jdewolftx]

I did the dip last night and I moved the frogspawn down low. However, the tissue loss continues. It has now taken and entire lobe and is moving along one edge of one of the adjacent lobes. And in its wake is just a long stream of slime.

Is this typical? 3 - 5 days and the entire colony gets wiped out? Could this have all really been propagated by a fish taking a bite out of the polyps? I don't have a lot of experience with Frogspawn / grape coral.

-Jeff

 

[jdewolftx]

Does anybody know what kind of frogspawn this is? It doesn't have heads like I have typically seen. Just lobes that form a sort of X.

Also, I have checked my APEX and my temp is rock steady between 77.0 and 78.0. It is controlled with a chiller & heater feedback loop. The rest of my parameters are fairly constant except that I had been raising my KH. It was typically at 8.5 - 9.0. It had dipped to 8.0 and my calcium was dropping so I started dosing 2 part B-Ionic. My KH overshot last weekend to 12.2. Calcium came up to 410. Could the KH have precipitated this?

-Jeff

 

[jayball]

Need help to save my Frogspawn...

There are three euphilla that are referred to as frogspawn. The common thin branched, the thick branched, and what you appear to have that is similar to a wall hammer. They are three distinct species.

Check it out here http://coral.aims.gov.au/info/factsheets.jsp

 

[jdewolftx]

Thanks Jayball for that. I couldn't figure it out.

I broke down and made the hard call. It had lost part of the next lobe so I took it out and cut it with some bone cutters. Basically I have half the coral left but it now seems happier and is starting to extend its polyps. My hope is that I left behind whatever was killing it and the second half might be spared.

We'll see....

-Jeff

 

[jayball]

How is it making out? I have always avoided wall euphilla for this reason

 

[jdewolftx]

Sorry I was gone for a while.

Sadly, it only lasted another week and then it started deteriorating. I even moved it into a hospital tank to try to isolate it from anything that could be irritating it. I dipped it as well to try to stave off further infection. Once the RTN starts, it seems like there is almost no way to stop it.

-Jeff