Do Torch Corals just melt?

[washowi]

Woke up today and one head just melted... Also I have a green cap bleaching from the center out. There were snails on it, thought they may have irritated it but don't know?

I checked all water parameters today.

Nitrite 0
Nitrate <.1
Ph 8.4 ish

Calcium was low at 220
Ka was high of course over 16

All other tests normal

Water is 80 to 82

Stumped other than it life was over.

Todd

[mojo]

I've had heads from frogspawn (also a Euphyllia) melt several times on me. No idea why - it just kindof melts as if it's next to a hot fire...

[goodfortune]

Hey Todd:

IME, extended periods of low Ca can cause the symptoms that you described.

Usually if you haven't supplemented in a while, both Ca and Alk will be low. Has anything changed in your Ca/Alk supplementation routine? Let us know so that we can help .

HTH,
Michael

[washowi]

Nothing out of the norm...maybe not dosing Ca as much obviously, Been attacking the Ph more lately.

[goodfortune]

Hey Todd:

When my Ca reactor crapped out around Christmas, I lost one of my favorite Acro Frags from the drop in Ca over the course of about a week...so I know how it feels. All you can do is learn from your mistakes and shortfalls.

I don't have any torch frags, but might be able to spare a hammer or a frogspawn head if you'd like for a replacement...let me know.

- Michael

[mojo]

Calcium itself shouldn't have any effects on the state of soft tissue. Calcium is of course required for the animal to grow new skeleton, but I don't believe it's used for any type of ongoing polyp maintenance. To my knowledge, you could have a Ca++ level of 20ppm and still maintain corals; they just wouldn't grow. If someone has any evidence to the contrary, let me know.

As for washowi's torch, my frogspawn has melted with a steady 400ppm Ca and 7-8dKH hardness - I think it's something else, but have no idea what...

[goodfortune]

What you're saying make sense...Ca availability should only affect rates of coral growth, and not ongoing polyp maintenance. However, it would be interesting to find out whether individual polyps in an Acro or Monti colony die and are replaced on a regular basis, like our skin cells or sharks teeth. If they do, it would seem that Ca would be needed for overall polyp maintenance.

I have a new theory...with the cooresponding drop in Alk, the water column was not able to maintain a stable pH between night and day. This may be the real reason my corals appeared stressed during my Ca Reactor failure.

A healthy debate is always welcome....let's keep it going

- Michael

Originally Posted by mojo

Calcium itself shouldn't have any effects on the state of soft tissue. Calcium is of course required for the animal to grow new skeleton, but I don't believe it's used for any type of ongoing polyp maintenance. To my knowledge, you could have a Ca++ level of 20ppm and still maintain corals; they just wouldn't grow. If someone has any evidence to the contrary, let me know.

As for washowi's torch, my frogspawn has melted with a steady 400ppm Ca and 7-8dKH hardness - I think it's something else, but have no idea what...

[mojo]

Originally Posted by goodfortune

What you're saying make sense...Ca availability should only affect rates of coral growth, and not ongoing polyp maintenance. However, it would be interesting to find out whether individual polyps in an Acro or Monti colony die and are replaced on a regular basis, like our skin cells or sharks teeth. If they do, it would seem that Ca would be needed for overall polyp maintenance.

But even if polyp tissue is replaced on a regular basis, is Ca actually needed to build these cells? Humans who don't get enough enough calcium simply get weak bone structure over time - does this mean that corals will also get weaker? I'm not sure if people replace bone tissue over time like other tissue; if corals work the same way, then it's plausible that they will get brittle over time.

I suppose the only real way to test the need of Ca in corals would be to actually setup a test tank and drop the Ca to nothing and see what happens. This would be a tough experiement to maintain water quality, etc, but would be very interesting nonetheless.

I have a new theory...with the cooresponding drop in Alk, the water column was not able to maintain a stable pH between night and day. This may be the real reason my corals appeared stressed during my Ca Reactor failure.

That may be more plausible, although my dKh was stable when mine melted. My pH was swinging low back then, though- maybe just below 8.0....

[goodfortune]

Where's Tdwyatt ???

- Michael

[Schwaggs]

Originally Posted by mojo

If someone has any evidence to the contrary, let me know.

As for washowi's torch, my frogspawn has melted with a steady 400ppm Ca and 7-8dKH hardness - I think it's something else, but have no idea what...

I do have first hand experience with the decline of a nice size colony of Blastomussa Merletti. It was in a continuous state of decline until I got a Calcium Reactor. I can dig out some before and after shots if you are interested. In this case, the heads continued to shrivel up and were dieing one at a time. I almost lost it. While it was declining, I had not changed lighting and was trying to dose Bionic to raise CA and Alk. I could get maintain Alk but never CA.

Regarding Frogspawn and other Euphyllias, I find they do not like intense light and are sensitve to rapid light changes. In addition, I find they do better when the heads and stalks are placed perpendicular (rather than stratight up) to the light source initially and allowed to acclimate.

I also seem to remember an infection of some sort that can attack Euphyllias but I have no experience with that...

[hesstondc]

I dose A and B once a quarter if i even think of it then. My torch has never lost a head, as a matter of fact it has grown many.

I think that calcium has nothing to do with torch coral growth, but I could be wrong on that one.

[washowi]

Mike - Thanks for the offer but I have frogspawn out the ass. Grows like weeds for me. Appreciate the offer though.

As for the frogs and torches not likeing light? I may have a hard time buying that. I have a colony that is literaly 5 " from a 400w MH bulb and doing great.

Seems like some good theories though. Maybe the colony just said F-it I am done! Oh well. Still like to know why? And my green Cap bleaching out..

2 wierd incidents this week.....

Todd

[AquaticCo]

I would say it's a combination of both, the calcium to low but more importantly the alk being high. I have often found that when calcium goes down and alk goes up it's bad news unless corrected. I lost a huge mother colony for just this reason when my calc reactor just stopped working.

Todd,

Do not throw the stalk away. It will probably regenerate. Mine did and it looks great now.

I can say that I have been using walt smith's figi gold since saltwater U and my levels are perfect and I have coraline growing up the wazoo.

Doug

[washowi]

Second head is melting...one left

[gwen_o_lyn]

Sorry to hear Todd