Trachyphyllia radiata help

[DrChaos619]

My brain has been in my tank for roughly a month now and I began to notice that its skeleton is being exposed on two edges. I realized a few days ago that there was an anemone hiding in the sand in close proximity to it and may have stung the brain upon extention.

When I moved the brain away from the anemone, I noticed that part of the skeleton was exposed where the anemone had not been in contact with. All my water params are ok, water changes regular and b-ionic doses twice a week.

any ideas? this is one of my absolute favorite corals and is the show stopper in my 90 gal. I'd hate to see this die.

 

[Monkey_Bone]

Do you have halide lighting?
What wattage is you lighting?
Is the current very strong over the brain?

 

[DrChaos619]

i have a total of 370 watts of PC. The brain is located at the bottom and reasides directly on the fine grain sand substrate. It has low to moderate flow. I'm considering moving the brain to a higher flow area not neccessarily a high flow but a higher flow then where it is now.

Today I noticed an arrow crab picking food off of the brain. I'm getting rid of the crab soon, but I wonder if he could have anything to do with it aside of stealing scraps from the brain.

EDIT: I just kicked on extra lights that I normally keep off for power conservation purposes. It now has a full 440 watts of PC light

 

[DrChaos619]

upon further inspection, i realized that all the food i feed the brain is picked off by various critters so essentially, it's starving. Its lasted about a month and now

I direct feed finely chopped blood shrimp through a turkey baster but aparently its not good enough. Any suggestions on how i should feed it?

 

[JeRmZ]

You can cut the top of a 2 litre and set it over the brain and put food down into the top of the 2 litre ... think of an inverted funnel. This will keep Hermits, Nas. snails and Cleaner shrimps away while the brain has time to eat!

 

[SWfan]

I've had my various brains in my tank for just about 2 years now. I don't direct feed them anything. They grow and look great. I feed the tank cyclopeeze and DT's Oyster Eggs twice per week, a few hours after lights out. But not direct feeds, just in the water column.

 

[Monkey_Bone]

Sounds like your brain coral may have issues.
Arrow crabs can be pickers at lps though too as well as softies.
Retracting tissue is a sing of a malnutrition as well though.

 

[DrChaos619]

mmh thanks monkey , I thought so. I'm planning on getting rid of my arrow crab but im going to move it to my basement tanks for now.

The latest development is a mucus that seems to be stripping off of the tissue. I'm not sure about the radiata species but upon ingestion of foods, the mucus acts as a net which essentially sucks in the food from the surface of the tissue into the brain for digestion.

I hope this is true because I tried the isolation chamber method of feeding last night and I didn't see it inflate as per usual, so I am hoping the mucus digestion is the reason for this.

I'm still a bit nervous because the edges of the brain coral have become transparent enough to see the skeleton, which i am assuming is a sign of pre-recession of the tissue.

as it stands now, two sides of the coral have exposed skeleton, varying from a half inch to an inch of exposure, side tissues turning transparent, and it is seemingly ingesting the mucus.

any additional info to the fate of my coral would be helpful

I trust the knowlegable people of this forum :bum:

 

[DrChaos619]

If anyone can help me, it'd be appreciated. The mucus is still there. I isolated it to a 10 gallon in my basement with little flow and low light by itself. The mucus that formed is now completley covering alll of the exposed parts of the skeleton. I'm not so sure what this mucus is indicative of. I origionally thought it was part of the digestive process, but im not so sure.

anywho, any help would be appreciated

 

[yardboy]

You probably don't want to hear of this experience but .....
I've had Trachs and Wells for years so when I set up a 20 nano cube I just had to get one. I went out of town on vacation and picked up a beautiful small Trachyphillia to put in the tank. It survived about a week, the first one I've ever lost and it's demise was characteristic of what you described. Clear mucus covering the skeletal areas and soon all tissue gone. Sorry, and I hope you have better luck. I used Seachem Coral Dip and later a Lugol's dip to no avail.

 

[DrChaos619]

heh yeah, the thing kicked it. what can you do. win some, loose some