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...

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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...

 

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

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...

 

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....

 

Where's Tdwyatt ???

- Michael

 

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...

 

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.

 

Mike - Thanks for the offer but I have frogspawn out the ***. 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

 

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

 

Second head is melting...one left

 

Sorry to hear Todd

 

Hey Todd:

Another possiblity is brown jelly infection; Euphyllias are esp. prone to them.

Do you have any pics of the melting frogspawn?

- Michael

 

Todd,

Do you need some place to take it to try to save it. My tank is open if you need help.

Doug

 

Nah I can take a picture in the AM.What's left of it. I hated the thing anyway. It was huge and stinging the hell out of everything around it.

However, I like that brown jelly thing....what is it. cause it looked like stringy brown jelly.....

 

Todd,

Do you need some place to take it to try to save it. My tank is open if you need help.

Doug

Thanks Doug, but it is pretty far gone now...You can have it if you want to try and save it though..

If not he goes to the graveyard in the sump.

Todd

 

Very interesting discussion, guys. My guess would be a "brown jelly" infection, but I'm not sure of the cause of this - does anyone know the explanation?

FWIW, I lost a few Euphyllia after adding leathers to my tank. Unfortunately, it was only after their "unexplained" deaths that I realized the source of the problem (I was running carbon at the time, but monthly changes weren't enough).

 

Carbon couldn't be the problem. My tank has never not had carbon in it. 24/7. However I have noticed that my huge leather coral has not poylped out in a couple days. Normally, it it out 24/7.? And it is right above the torch.

I have no idea what I am saying. just looking and observing.

BTW head 2 is completely gone now. One head left, it's looking ok still.

I am going to take a wild guess. Based on the coral being perfect for so long and has never had a bad day. And what I was doing to the tank and then seeing what has happened since. I am going to say that these torches and the like do not like Ph above 8.4. I have dosed pretty hard and have been at the 8.5 range for a couple days.

I noticed my tank was always around 7.9 to 8.1 so I buffered up slowly for a week.

Torch was never the same since. That's my hypothosis, high Ph and torches do no Like each other. Open for discussion.

Todd

 

I've had two torches simply melt away, and I was never really sure why it happened either. That's an interesting hypothesis. I'm checking my water tonight...wonder what my pH will be?!?!

 

Head three holding strong. Ph is 8.3 and holding....Torch doing OK. Maybe I am on to something here? The final head is not out fully, but it shows no signs of stress either. Let's check and see what happens Friday.


I guess I could dose hard again in a few days to see if I could kill it with a Ph above 8.4? That would be the ticket to see if my hypothosis holds water. ..Maybe


Professor Todd