Duncan Heads Dying Off

cmcimino · Dec 11, 2018

I have a duncan I have had for over 2 years. It started out as a small three headed frag and has grown a lot. It has always done great even while other corals have done bad. All of the sudden I started to see some heads spill out what looks like their guts. Some of the heads are retracting and seem to be dying off. I am not sure what is happening. I haven't had any parameter swings that would cause it, and it only seems to be the smaller heads. I don't think it got stung by anything, it does have a frogspawn and torch somewhat close by, but I have never seen any sweepers get close. Any idea what can cause this?

Parameters:
Alk: 8.25
Calcium: 425 ppm
Mag: 1300 ppm
Nitrates: 0-1ppm (I have been dosing KNO3 to get them up)
Phosphates: undetectable (been trying to get these up to detectable amounts as well)

Could my nitrate dosing have caused this? I still don't really have a detectable amount of nitrates so its not like I overdosed or anything. I am only dosing 1/16th a tsp per day of KNO3 powder. I also pulled it out last night and dipped it in Coral Rx for 7-8 min.

Pictures are taken with lights off so the polyps are not really open

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reef lover · Dec 11, 2018

Do i see the antenna of a shrimp in that pic?? Do you ever see him picking at the coral? Shrimps a notorious for damaging coral while trying to steal food...

cmcimino · Dec 11, 2018

reef lover said:
Do i see the antenna of a shrimp in that pic?? Do you ever see him picking at the coral? Shrimps a notorious for damaging coral while trying to steal food...

Yes, he's a cleaner shrimp and loves to steal food when I feed my corals. I try to shoot a bunch of mysis in his face to keep him busy, but he still likes to steal food. I don't remember seeing him pick at my duncans when I fed them last week though. I do remember him going ham on one of my acans and it came out unscathed. My other thought was my clowns. They host the frogspawn and a hammer in that general area, they may be getting all cozy with the duncan and it doesn't like it. I could try moving it across the tank.

reef lover · Dec 11, 2018

Clowns beating it would be a good guess as well...

Lloyd Williams · Dec 11, 2018

I second clowns. Mine host two black torch AND my Duncans! And they beat me up! Draws blood on me... your Duncan probably worse

cmcimino · Dec 18, 2018

So I think I have proof it is my clowns. These guys have been diving into my LPS lately, and are pretty aggressive about it. They knocked over a hammer that was glued down, and knocked my duncans over. This morning I woke up to my frogspawn which looks like it has been injured pretty good. This is the main coral my clowns dive into. I am thinking they are cutting it on its own skeleton. Gonna try and move them to the other side of they tank and move my anemones over there. Hopefully they will finally host those instead of my corals.

cmcimino · Dec 18, 2018

So I rearranged the tank and put the BTAs where my frogspawn and Duncan were. No luck. The clowns moved to the other side of the tank and are still dive bombing my corals. Hoping they don’t completely kill them both

JoshH · Dec 18, 2018

I've tried endlessly to get my clowns away from my one set head of Duncan's to no avail. It seems once they get an affection for them they will never stop beating on it.