Half my torch is dead or dying, now what?

[45ZoaGarden]

Oh when I added Chaetomorpha to my tank my phos went down, I guess it depends

I have a cheato reactor on my tank. I didn’t notice a drop in po4 but no3 definitely went down

 

[Sosuke]

I don’t necessarily think it’s brown jelly, but I’m worried it will turn into that.

The coral isn't dead it looks stressed though, has anything changed recently in your tank?

 

[45ZoaGarden]

I don’t necessarily think it’s brown jelly, but I’m worried it will turn into that.

I would keep doing what you’re doing and wait 24 hours. Something could’ve bumped into it causing it to close up. If it doesn’t look better tomorrow, I would start dipping.

 

[150 Gallon Reef]

If you ever decide to change salts, I love tropic Marin pro reef. Very consistent levels out of each bucket I've used.

Try moving the torch around a little bit to see if it's the placement he's not happy with. I do agree that the phosphates are a bit high. My torch get smaller when my phosphates and or nitrates start to rise a bit. That's when I know Its time for a water change

 

[Neo Jeo]

It looks like it’s pooping. Mine looks like that sometimes as if it was melting. I would give it some time and it should be fine.

 

[New&no clue]

I'd look at the skeleton around the base of that head and look for any spiroids or any other parasites like aptasia.

I did have vermetid snails Two were on the torch that I pried off.

 

[motortrendz]

I did have vermetid snails Two were on the torch that I pried off.

Give it a dip or 2. And let it be for a bit. See how it does.

 

[New&no clue]

The coral isn't dead it looks stressed though, has anything changed recently in your tank?

just parameters swings, and I did have vermetid snails, 2 where on the torch

 

[SebastianM]

I’ve been using IO Reef Crystals with good luck, I am very fond of them as they keep my numbers stable in my LPS dominant nano, (Alk: 10 Calc: 450 Mag: 1400) and the I love the price compared to other salts. I do a 10-20% water change every Sunday. With your tank, with out the fuge, I’m surprised you don’t have an algae outbreak. I’d recommend getting on top of the water changes, doing 10-15% on Sunday and 10-15% on a Thursday, to help lower those nutrient levels. Then once they level out stick to once a week. I run a bag of Chemi-Pure Blue in my HOB filter, it helps lower phosphates. My filtration is a Aqua-Clear 70 with the stock sponge, bio-media, and I’ve replaced the original carbon pouch with the chemi pure and added some filter floss to polish things up. Here’s a few pics of some of my LPS: 10 Gallon Nano Reef

 

[New&no clue]

I would keep doing what you’re doing and wait 24 hours. Something could’ve bumped into it causing it to close up. If it doesn’t look better tomorrow, I would start dipping.

this didn’t just start today it’s been several days which is why I finally asked

 

[SebastianM]

Give it a dip or 2. And let it be for a bit. See how it does.

Second this, pull some tank water and dip the torch in a Revive or CoralRX mix for 5-10 minutes, blast with a turkey baster or shake with an old strainer to knock whatever you can off.

 

[New&no clue]

I’m surprised you don’t have an algae outbreak.

Me too! I do have a couple small patches of GHA popping up. I do have a monster CUC so maybe they are just keeping it in check.

 

[New&no clue]

Okay everyone thanks for all the responses. I’m thinking it needs a dip. While I don’t think my parameters are helping, I’m also not convinced they are the route cause of this. I would think if it was just a parameter issue why doesn’t the other head show any signs of distress.

For a dip should I do CoralRx or Iodine? I have CoralRx on hand, I would need to go get iodine. Can I do both? Obviously not at the same time.

 

[ADAM]

FME when euphyllia start acting up like you picture appears it’s a water flow issue. A slow or rapid change in water quality should a effect more than just half of a torch. Looks fairly close to the corner and maybe lacking enough flow to keep it happy throughout the day. As my euphyllia have grown I have had several look like yours and normally moving them or bumping up the flow a bit “fixes” them.

 

[philosophile]

My experience is that euphillia are super sensitive to elevated phosphates, and start shrinking/retracting their tentacles in water that has too much phosphate for them.... then they just start dying.

Usually when you lower phosphate, they bounce back pretty quickly. You said you're running phosguard. Have you changed it recently? With high phosphate, it can deplete your media pretty quickly sometimes. And for whatever reason, phosphate tends to persist through standard water changes.

So... my suggestion is one of two things: replenish your phosphate media. Get a phosphate test kit and watch the numbers.... you want it down to .05-.10. In my 90g I had to use a bunch of gfo (almost twice the recommend) and needed to change it out almost a week after I had put it in. note that this did kill my chaeto, and that prolonged the phosphate spike.... so if you have microalgae, keep an eye on it and be prepared to remove it.

2. A series of large and frequent water changes. Aim for 50%, every two days for a week.

Once you have it under control, you might need to add a small amount of phosphate media, to help keep phosphate down, as generally, many ways of exporting phosphate like macroalgae, tend to remove more nitrate than phosphate comparatively. So over a long period of time, phosphates will creep up, and your euphillia will start looking bad again. In fact I keep euphyllia precisely for this reason, as it tells me when to change my phosphate media.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

You could do either or. Iodine is better but carx will work.

 

[Jstn]

If its borwn jelly cut off the bad head and dip the good one in some dip. Sometimes this happens in the most pristine conditions, the key is to save what you have left before it spreads

 

[New&no clue]

So I did a dip in CoralRx and now it’s really mad. It has this white foam all over it. I upped the flow. Should I just wait and see now?

 

[New&no clue]

Here it is this morning. Is this a lost cause?

 

[Twinanoreef]

Definetly a bacterial infection and not a gonner. Do a 3-4 day antibiotic dip ( tetracycline preferably), if not available any wide specter antibiotic will be helpful. Open the capsule and dissolve in a bowl with aquarium water and dip for at least 30 minutes. While dipping use a turkey baster to gently blow off decaying tissue. It will look really bad for a couple of days, but will bounce back. Heres what mine looked like and a 4 days later pic after antibiotic dip. Now its almost fully recovered.