sun coral has spawned

[Twitterbait]

Hmmm...

your PH is low... try to keep it around 8.2
you should not be able to even detect nitrite so i would do a WC soon. Stop adding the essential elements. all of that is added in sufficient quantities when you do a WC. adding more can get toxic quickly especially since most of the elements are heavy metals and will cause problems very easily.

your salinity looks fine at that level. you can take it higher if you want.

Make sure you are filtering your tap water or you risk adding some nasty stuff.

what lighting do you have on the tank?

[ReefChris]

I'll add some seachem 8.2 pH fixer I have ... and which I have not dosed for some time. Also will do another 20% WC (first). I am using filtered water and Instant Ocean to make my saltwater mix.

Will take your advice on the EE. Less is more I guess.

I have standard compact flourescent/ blue actinic lights as supplied with the JBJ 24G Nanocube.

Thanks for your advice!

[Twitterbait]

no prob, sounds like a good idea... good luck!

[ReefChris]

Oh no...

I added a scoop of Proper pH 8.2 late last night (very gradually) with the tank lights off. Then I realised that my plate coral was releasing stringy white mush!

It was too late that I realised because the water current was directing the powder directly down to the corner where the plate coral lives :-(

This morning I can see the extent of the damage. A significant portion of the plate is now bare skeleton...

Will it regenerate?

How will it feed enough meanwhile?

Should I nurse it with feeding directly into the "mouth"?

At least I should of added to the back compartment or premixed in aquarium water whilst water changing. The perfectly healthy plate was pretty much wrecked in seconds... I hope others will learn from my stupid mistake.

Other Corals and fish seem to be fine though.

[ReefChris]

Update:

Plate coral is looking much better and have been feeding it directly just in case.

Water change done and crystal clear. Cyano obliterated (for now) by using ChemiClean before the water change (skimmer off and carbon removed)... I believe the chemiclean is also helpful to clarify water and I can vouch for that!
Also zapped some aiptasia using the direct injection lemon juice method.

[Reefyone]

Pictures, please. I'm confused: branching sun coral, white polyps... Dendrophillia, not tubastrea? Is it your tank - NC24 with chili, yellow gorgonian, capnella and the sun - at the Mac site?

I have tubastrea (orange with yellow polyps, most usual kind) with higher nitrates and phosphates (correcting this all the time), but no nitrites - no problems. Can you add more LR or biomedia and some bacterial culture (not neccessary, but can speed up the process)? It should help with nitrites.

There only two cases, that come in in mind, as a reason for receeding tissue and showing bar skeleton (speaking of tubastrea): starvation and stinging by LPS. A couple of cubes of frozen mysis or ocean plankton every 3rd day is my shedule, sun coral should look plump with thick tissue over skeleton, when closed:

Stinging: I was told, that stung tubastrea should regrow tissue in a days.
Mine is spawning on a regular basis (or same time spawns appear with the months of difference in time), no negative impact on the main colony.


Had you seen Melev's Reef - feeding sun coral article? Step-by-step, illustrated - like it.

On the water chemistry:
API calcium test kit - I compared it's data to the Seachem Reef Status kit - quite a difference, but all the other their tests were good. I'm adding calcium and magnesium to the newly made saltwater (IO salt too). Sould not influence sun coral - it lived very well without it. Randy Holmes-Farley has own forum, he also used IO salt, and adds Ca and Mg to the new water - I started to do the same after reading his posts, corraline started to grow - at last!
The powder additives (sorry, don't know your brand) are usually dissolved in the water, and then added to the tank, slowly. For removing excess of the accumulated metals can be used Toxic Metals Sponge.

[ReefChris]

Initially ... I had no problems feeding the sun coral mysis and arctipods. That's when it was opening OK. Now it won't open ... even in the dark, and when there is plenty of food around to tempt it.

Been to Melev's numerous times ...

The seachem "proper pH 8.2" is what I use. I won't be adding it without dissolving first again! The good news is that my plate coral bounced back and is now looking almost 100 %.

As for the Sun Coral and now my "Kenya tree" nephia coral (which is looking somewhat shrivelled and also not inflating) I am still wondering what's up. It's been an issue for a while now, and from before I had the accident with the PPH8.2 and the plate. I don't think I have toxic heavy metal issues because I only used essential elems twice before I was warned off it. And the water changes would have diluted by now anyways.

I am wondering about chemical warfare now. I do have a leather coral, and it occasionally spews out clouds of white. Looks kind of like "smoke" coming off it into the water. Perhaps the leather is the culprit here?

Mods ... any advice?

[Reefyone]

Again confused: the seachem website lists only Marine buffer 8.3 and Reef Buffer 8.3, I'm using the last one.
Never mind: just finished the search - it's API product, have no experience with it, sorry.

One thing comes in mind: test strips can be not so precise, as API test kits, and the last are the cheap and good, IMHE.

My corals (same kinds, as yours) are at pH ranging 7.8 to 8.4. No shriveling or refusing to eat. On the other hand, if I remember right, you are keeping your corals at temperatures, ranging from 72F to 84F, mine - 78-82F, with very rare fluctuations. Could this contribute to the problem?

About sun coral - it doesn't looks good, and you know the routine - feeding in the container for ~40 min or covered by cut bottle, this way the coral is exposed to the food for a long time, and has a chance to feed.

My Kenya tree is capnella, not nephthya, so what I said earlier may be not applicable.

My best wishes to your corals in restoring their health!

[ReefChris]

Thanks for your input Reefyone.

Yes, sorry, I meant API proper pH8.2 which seems to do it's job.

I will try more intensive feeding of the SC. I stopped the redbrown cyano which was constantly layering over the SC ... but now green hair algae has taken it's place (on the SC). Hopefully my Emerald crabs will see that off!

I am using a 50W fixed temp 78.8 electronically controlled heater. However, the temperature varies 77 to 81 approx due to the cycle of lighting (which is also a heater in a closed Nanocube environment). Seems reasonable.

I have been testing water quality with API reefmaster kit.

[Reefyone]

I misunderstood: you mentioned Mardel test strips and, in Chili Corals thread, temperatue anywhere between 72 and 79, up to 84 in the summer. Sorry.

My 6g cube couldn't handle such bioload, I had to remove the sun coral in a separate ~1g pico tank with 100% water changes. Not that I advocate this way - it's highly inconvenient too, just couldn't think anything better at the moment.




As an emergency, the separate bowl (covered by newspater from the light):


Sorry for being persistent, now I'm out.
Good luck!

[ReefChris]

Um ... not me in the Chili coral thread (haven't even been through a summer with the tank yet!)

Your SC is looking great BTW

Had some success getting the medium to small sized polyps on mine to open by putting an open bottom 1 litre soda bottle over it and then introducing food. I guess it mightn't be a bad idea to just move the coral temporarily along with sufficient water from the aquarium into a feeding container of some kind. Then it would be easier to shield from light whilst easier to drizzle arctipods all over it. Wouldn't risk overfeeding the main tank either.

[Reefyone]

There should be the hole in my head, darn! My deapest apologies, I mixed all up. So many threads on similar topics ...
I had seen the link to website with NC24 (ot this is another memory lapse), and the sun coral has the sharp edges, instead of being meaty, the colony was declining, it just had to be fed...

[ReefChris]

No worries reefyone ... thanks for the thoughts anyhow.

UPDATE:

Trying to get the SC to eat in a separate container now. Some success. Am going to try the clamjuice trick to work up it's appetite before giving it the good stuff. I am noticing lots of new baby polyps by the way. Makes me think I'm just seeing a lifecycle thing on this "branching" type SC.

I think my plate coral is a goner though
It seemed to be OK again for a while but has lost a bunch of tissue again.
I'm blaming another dosage of proper pH 8.2 that I added (predissolved this time) as it seems to react to that. I felt I had no choice as pH was off kilt again. Darned pH!

Also my Nephia Coral expired this week and recently my Blood shrimp got ate!

Dosed the tank to deal with the darned Cyano again...
All my fish are right as rain though.

Meanwhile ... my local LFS delivered the new SW 110G this week which has started cyling with 100 lbs of live rock installed. It's a beauty and I will put it in the new tank thread sooner or later. I intend to keep that tank FOWLR to simplify. For that tank I have a list of marine fish specimens I want to stock... my LFS has some great specimens. It's complete with good sized sump, skimmer, and UV sterilizer beneath.

I'm on a business trip to the West coast soon that will include Monterey. Will stop by their famous aquarium for sure!

Recently did another visit to the Shedd in Chicago to see their new reef exhibit which is very cool.

[numisticman]

That is so cool! My sun had babys about a monyh ago! I see the babys in 9 different areas!
YAHHHH!!

[numisticman]

Opps here is a pic of the proud mother