SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Suggestions on flow amount / preference for a cristata torch?
Got my first torch - how much flow?
- Thread starter SauceyReef
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wculver
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It'll really just be indirect flow enough where they could actually catch something floating by is best. They do better if they can gain on food rather than just light.
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SauceyReef
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Awesome thank you. Sounds like medium flow and some occasional spot feeding will do well.
wculver
Active Member
Just one other suggestion depending on your setup. I run everything with a controller and have settings for feed the fish and feeding the coral. For the coral feeding I let things go slack for 30 minutes with only two small power heads going just to agitate the water enough to waft the food over the coral. In general coral will figure things out but the actual feeding response is important which takes a few minutes depending on the coral in question.
That said, I don't actually spot feed but rather broadcast enough food to move through the column. Though it may be beneficial to some coral others get a little angry with it and "clam" up. My point here don't think everything needs a spot feed, I'd suggest just the ones where visibly you can see a positive response.
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SauceyReef
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Good advice! I typically just let the coral tell me if it is hungry - you normally know pretty quick with LPS
Bad news.. The frag does not look the healthiest. Once I went to pick up the torch I knew it was a bad start when the person told me "It is a really stubby frag and the tentacles just dont extend much." I guess to be expected for a $40 two head frag of a torch. To good to be true. I think it should be okay seeing no skeleton is exposed. It seems pretty close to that point though. Hopefully it makes a big turnaround with some TLC!
wculver
Active Member
Hey if you have the water right it will recover, they are hardy and can recover from just a small remaining head. Keep things steady, keep the food coming and don't let the wastes (nitrate/phosphate) get away from you and it'll re-colonize the dead part.Good advice! I typically just let the coral tell me if it is hungry - you normally know pretty quick with LPS
Bad news.. The frag does not look the healthiest. Once I went to pick up the torch I knew it was a bad start when the person told me "It is a really stubby frag and the tentacles just dont extend much." I guess to be expected for a $40 two head frag of a torch. To good to be true. I think it should be okay seeing no skeleton is exposed. It seems pretty close to that point though. Hopefully it makes a big turnaround with some TLC!
wculver
Active Member
Most of the time I've found that owners who contributed to a torch in this condition cannot correct things in time to turn things around and soon thereafter death follows. I actually have a torch right now that is recolonizing the exposed skeleton that I purchased not too long ago.
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SauceyReef
Valuable Member
LPS can definitely reenvelope the original skeleton if for some reason it died off. I have seen euphyllia do it, acans, Duncans, Fungia. I have a lepto that fell on an anemone and half of the tissue fell off. Now it is slowly growing it back on and recovering.
@wculver thank you for the encouraging words. Hopefully my first torch turns into a success story rather than a new skeleton!
Do you have any tips to try and save a torch doing bad? I bought a hellfire 4 head torch a few weeks ago. It was doing great but now is not extending nearly as much as it was and one head appears to have died. Parameters are good and all other LPS are doing fine including a frogspawn. Flow is enough to have it swaying back and forth but it not blasting it. It's on the bottom so it's not getting too much light. Blasto, cynarina, and fox coral are in the same amount of light and doing well.
wculver
Active Member
Well you seemed to have covered the usual suspects and things we can actually test for. Have you been regularly adding coral to the tank or is the first one in while?
It's the first new purchase in a while but I have moved some corals in from another tank but was a few weeks before purchasing the torch. Tank has been running for a few years. I'm tempted to pull it and move it to my other tank to rule out a fish or shrimp messing with it but not sure if that's wise or not.
wculver
Active Member
Well I ask this because I had a similar challenge in the past and all I can say is "ionic balance" was off. Something that in whole we just cannot test for in part because we don't test for everything and in part because the chemistry only works if everything is aligned. The existing colonies learned to manage the chemistry over time but it was a shock to the new guy.
New question: Do you do water changes? And do you dose trace elements?
Duncan62
Valuable Member
I have a couple of these guys. Both in medium flow and maybe medium to bright light. One is young but doing well. The other in 3 years has went from 1 head to 5 and growing. Never target feed them. Occasionally broadcast roids. Good luck with it.
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SauceyReef
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TYVM! May move it down a bit more but going to give it a week and see how it looks.
@exnisstech From what I have learned the nicer the torch the more sensitive. If you have a shrimp or crab you are thinking could be taking some nibbles I would remove it. The less you can move the torch probably the better the chances. You may want to consider cutting off the dead head if possible if it seems to be going downhill more and doing a restor dip. Maybe a new spot after that as well? Good luck to all of us!
I do 28 gallons once a week it's 200ish gallons total. I only dose kalk via a doser. It was a fresh cut piece that came out of an sps dominant system with aot of acros so maybe it prefers cleaner water? Nitrates were 10.2 and phos 0.1 last test. I have another tank that is running a little cleaner as it has a lot of sps frags and I dose 2 part in that one and change water every 4-5 days and test almost daily. Come to think of it I moved a large Acanthophyllia into this tank where the torch is now and it did great then all of a sudden it stopped inflating. I moved it back to the other tank and within 3 days it was fully inflated again. I think I'll dip the torch again move the torch in there. At least is something rather than just standing by watching it die. I did dip it when I got it and no signs of brown jelly. Thanks for listening.
@SauceyReef Its 180 gallon with lots of rock and caves so removing anything other than the torch would require a tear down to catch anything.
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SauceyReef
Valuable Member
Sounds like moving it to the other tank may be a good decision than! I wouldn't worry about lowering the nutrients any more than you have. I highly doubt that is the issue.
Thanks. Sorry to hijack your thread but I try to not to clutter up the boards with posts about something that is already being discussed.
wculver
Active Member
Of course testing for all this doesn't really happen so I'm just basing this off what you're saying. With a small weekly wc and a well stocked tank your macronutrients are likely very low or zero. The existing coral will survive longer because they lived through the slow decline though keep in mind they may well also end up with issues, just takes a while.
So in short given what you've said may consider the trace elements or at least running an ICP test to make some comparisons. If you do dose do it very slowly.
I actually considered an ICP test a while back but put it off for some reason. I'll probably do one just to see where I am at on stuff I can't test for. The tank has been running for a few years with nothing but water changes and I do have quite a few more coral in it now. For aong time it was just a thought couple softies., nems and fish. Running an ICP would probably be better than sitting back scratching my head and watching stuff deteriorate and not know why. Thanks for suggesting that.
