Euphyllias receding

Hey all,

Lately I have been noticing some problems with my euphyllias. It started when I changed my water flow. At first all of my LPS seemed to not mind and it hugely benefited my SPS corals PE, but then about a week later I noticed that my gold torch wasn't opening as much. Noticing this I tested my water and saw that nothing was out of the ordinary. I figured that i would give it a few days and see what happens.

A few days later I was looking at the now partially exposed skeleton of my gold torch and I saw what I would assume was brown jelly. Around this time I also noticed that my blue hammer wasn't opening as much as it was a few weeks ago. I decided to iodine dip my gold torch and lightly brush the brown algae like growth off the skeleton. The brown growth has not came back since but it has continued to not open the way it once was.

Now I am noticing that one head on my purple torch is not opening as much as it was either. I'm not sure what could be going on in my tank. The strange thing is that my parameters are good every time I test and my SPS are growing great and have great PE.

My parameters from two days ago:

No3 elos- undetectable
Sg refractometer- 1.025
alk- 8
Ca- 420
Mg- 1400
temp- 78
ph- 8.1 - 8.3

My parameters have been solid over the past few months so I don't think its anything that I can measure. I dose a variety of different supplements including:

2 part
Magnesium
Strontium chloride
Potassium
Potassium iodide
Amino acids
Vodka
KZ macro elements

I hope someone has an idea of what might be the problem. I don't want to lose any corals.

Thanks in advance.

 

Vodka could be stripping your tank of too much nitrate. I haven't used the Elos Nitrate kit but I just got the Red sea kit because I wanted a lower range NO3 kit to see where I really stand. I am at zero nitrate. My API nitrate kit just doesn't go low enough. I use Prodibio and believe it stripped too much nitrate out of my system. I have a couple SPS that got a little too white while I started the Prodibio for the first couple of months. I am now getting the reefbooster and other coral foods in there and color appears to be coming back a little. I only have a couple LPS and couple rics so without a little nitrate and PO4 they probably won't make it if I keep the tank too clean. Even SPS need a little nitrate. I have some really neat caterpillar algae that hitchhiked in and they appear to be dying. I actually wanted to keep them .
So anyway it's just a thought:
Maybe ease up on the vodka.
Check out the Red sea nitrate kit if the Elos doesn't measure low range. The Red sea will tell you increments of 0, .25ppm .5 1ppm and I think through 4. Unlike the API kit which goes from 0 straight to 5,10 ect.
Maybe feed more.
Maybe unplug skimmer occasionally.
If you don't have potassium test kit maybe look into that or stop dosing that.
As far as the flow.. yeah that could kill some fleshy LPS.. I'm sure you can tell by looking at it if it's too much flow though.

 

+1

As for dosing Potassium, I would say the same for the Strontium and Iodide, and do you even know what is in the KZ? Seawater is a delicate balance of minerals, elements and compounds that can easily be thrown off kilter. You should not dose anything unless you can test and prove a need for it.

 

+2 It could very well be too much flow as well. Mixing sps with euphylia can be tricky.

 

Those damn euphyllias!!!

I had the same issue starting last year around this time. Upgraded my flow for koralias to vortechs. I had a wall frogsapwn, a wall hammer, 2 branching frogspawns, and a branching hammer. They did NOT adjsut well to the new flow and looked like crap for what seemed like ever. My wall frogspawn didnt open up nearly as much as it used to for the previous year and seemed to recede, the wall hammer receded terribly and got overrun with algae, the branching hammer didnt open right, the one branching frogspawn slowly died, and the other branchign frogspawn last 2 of the 5 heads and looked terrible. I added another branching hammer during this time which did not suffer the same stress for some reason. I ended up iodine dipping EVERYTHING to make sure it wasnt disease. I lost the wall hammer and the one branching frogspawn but everything else pulled through. After a few months thinks started looking right again and fast forward to now and my wall frogspawn is bigger than ever, the branchign frogspawn that lost 2 of 5 heads has splti and is now 5 or 6 again with many baby heads, the branching hammer split is multiple heads, and the newest branching hammer that never shwoed signs of stress went from 3 to 6+ heads with many baby heads.

Long story short, they seem to HATE change in flow patterns esp if you are increasing flow intensity. Back off the pumps and ramp them up slowly and remember that once showing signs of stress it takes many months for them to recover and heal. Hang in there, watch them carefully, and minimize movign and handling as it will only add mroe stress. The 2 pieces I lost were ones I kept movign around trying to make them happier while the others I left in place slowly recovered

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm taking a lot of the factors mentioned into consideration. I would also like to share this photo. I noticed this growth on the side of my purple torch. It is located on the side of the coral that seems to have something wrong with it. The other head is still doing beautifully.



perhaps its some sort of infestation?

 

it looks like filter feeders to me - not sure though

 

Those looks like Spinoid worms. I think they are considered a good thing.
Xtalreef - Reef Saltwater Aquarium