Torch trouble

[jeffesaurusrex]

I got a piece of torch recently, 2 weeks ago. It was doing fine where I put it and then I redid my rockwork and relocated it to different spot. The new spot has more random flow and a little bit stronger light. All the other heads are doing better than ever since the move, but this morning I noticed one head had completely retracted into the skeleton. I'm including a pic from the top and through the glass.

Is this a normal behavior or something I should look into? Paramaters seem fine, although I don't have a good PH reading because I think my apex probe is bad. It reads anywhere between 7.6-8.0 but the reagent tests say a little over 8.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[chrisfont23]

My torch likes indirect subtle flow. That recession could be from a bunch of things. Would make sure for starters, you aren't hammering it with flow. Secondly...make sure that there is nothing picking at it. Shrimp are notorious for putting my torch in a shrunken state.

 

[jeffesaurusrex]

That head has since died. But what is puzzling is, none of the other heads ever retracted like that. As a matter of fact, they have gotten bigger still. When I got it, the tentacles were pretty short but now they are getting a little longer every day. It also never retracts at night, the tentacles just deflate a little and inflate again when the lights come on. Is this all normal or a sign of stress?

What are signs that the remaining heads are "content"? My concern now is that water quality somehow killed, because I have no idea what signs I'm looking for.

The flow is indirect - it doesn't have anything blowing directly on it but there is about 2000-2400gph of flow in the tank altogether so it does get some random turbulence and it has nice movement, the tentacles never lay down and are always waving. I do have a scarlet cleaner shrimp. Other inhabitants are all fish I would never think of as coral nippers - hippo and sailfin tang, lawnmower blenny, 2 clowns, and a pink spotted goby. There's also a tiger snapping shrimp but his camp is all the way across the tank, he never goes past the halfway mark.

 

[chrisfont23]

I doubt anything nipped it. Theres always the brown jelly disease that could affect it but i cant tell without a picture. Are ur corals all LPS? FWIW - I have maybe half of that flow in my tank. Both of my mp10s are barely half way. I see a lot of yang about 30x flow for corals...need to be definitive and specific. Not for LPS trust me...just check out my video.

 

[jeffesaurusrex]

I'm just beginning to slowly add coral, this and a piece of galaxea are the only two LPS pieces I have. Everything else is soft so far, and in the future it will likely be predominantly LPS with a couple of SPS pieces and some softies too.

You said brown jelly disease. There was a little brown stinky stuff that I figured was just a decayed remains of the soft part of the coral after it had died. It smelled like a dead animal. There is nothing left now, just the skeleton. Should I take a pic of the bare skeleton or how would you need one in order to know?

Edit: as far as flow goes, I actually mistyped. I have 2 Koralia 1400s and a 900gph return with a couple hundred gph of head loss, that makes for 3500gph... I planned on getting an MP40, but haven't done it yet. Should I set these up alternating or something on the Apex to reduce flow? The torch isn't getting "blown around" by any means. It just sort of gently waves in the flow. It looks quite nice, but maybe this is too much flow?

 

[chrisfont23]

You said brown jelly disease. There was a little brown stinky stuff that I figured was just a decayed remains of the soft part of the coral after it had died. It smelled like a dead animal. There is nothing left now, just the skeleton. Should I take a pic of the bare skeleton or how would you need one in order to know?

Just google it. You will know best, since no pic. Could also be "poop" - corals poop from their mouth and it's brown and stringy.

Edit: as far as flow goes, I actually mistyped. I have 2 Koralia 1400s and a 900gph return with a couple hundred gph of head loss, that makes for 3500gph... I planned on getting an MP40, but haven't done it yet. Should I set these up alternating or something on the Apex to reduce flow? The torch isn't getting "blown around" by any means. It just sort of gently waves in the flow. It looks quite nice, but maybe this is too much flow?

I dunno... I am kind of old school. I think a lot of talk about flow rates serves the hard core SPS farmers. LPS really don't need a lot of flow... as long as they are moving, they'll be fine. So I aim for 12-15x in my tank and it varies of course with the use of two MP10s on ReefCrest.

 

[audacious1]

you should frag that dead head off asap.

 

[Michigan Mike]

I got a torch from an online guy and it looked good at first then on day ive I noticed the head was coming off the skeleton on one side, the next morning I considered it dead and removed it. It was getting good indirect flow and was close to my hammer and frogspawn. I have no real answers but I won't be buying online anymore. I'm not sure but the guy may replace it if I order again but I'm jot sure if I want to anyway.

 

[sqwat]

Its the clownfish hosting in it i bet .torches dont like it so much have you seen them in it?