frogspawn brown jelly!!!

my favorite coral seems to be expelling what looks like brown strings. i increased the flow on him a little bit and it blows the strings right off but i would like to know what i should do to save this guy. the frogspawn isnt at all retracted and none of the brown stuff is sticking to him. he appears to be in great shape except for the occasional spitting out of this brown stuff. what should i do?

 

It is either expelling zooxanthellae (symbiotic algae) or dropping a deuce. How's your lighting?

 

power compact, 1-24w 10000k, 1-24w true actinic. its the biocube 14 stock lighting. water params are all good.

 

Probably just pooping then. Mine does that from time to time. As long as it doesn't start fading, losing color, tissue receding or skeleton showing, it should be fine.

However, in the case it is expelling zooxanthellae, it may be replacing with another strain - doesn't always mean death, just watch the color, but I personally wouldn't be worried. Mine has done that a few times, and has actually gotten darker since I got it and has nearly doubled in size.

Make sure you keep your MG and CA up. You said params are fine though so I assume you have tested for that.

 

no he still looks great. thanks, that gave me a real scare.

 

every thing alive takes a dump lol when i saw my shrooms do this i panicked too

 

So true.

You never know with some corals until you monitor them and keep them and wait and watch. I panicked too. I was also pretty scared when I saw the tissue recede on one of my frogspawn heads. The next day, I saw the development of two mouths. A few days later, it was as puffy as ever, with two heads instead of one, and no signs of stress. These are interesting creatures.

 

on the topic of frogs, how quicly do they grow and sprout heads and whatnot? also, should i be feeding him? i placed a small piece of krill near the bigger of the 2 mouths and it just ended up floating away.

 

Good question. How fast do they grow? I have a 6 head green tip frogspawn and have had him for about 6 months. Hasn't split yet. never seen it poop either. Probably not growing any because my clowns molest it all day. But it will readily accept raw chopped shrimp from the grocery store. place a small piece on the mouth of one of the heads and it will eat it. I only feed mine once a month because I never really had a clear idea of how often i should be feeding it. Some don't feed theirs at all.

If it was dried krill, its not going to be as appetizing to it as frozen krill. I dont think they are really voracious eaters.

 

It really depends on water parameters / lighting / feeding. If you have high nitrates and phosphates growth will be slower. Get your PO4 down to 0 and low nitrates, keep calcium and MG levels up, and spot feed from time to time, and adequate lighting, don't bombard them with high flow, and they seem to grow faster and are happier. Mine now has 3 baby heads with miniature tentacles as well.