Help, torch corals keep losing heads/dying.

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

I've lost some torch corals in the last few months with them losing heads and dying off, even one which seemed very hardy and grew like weeds in my nano eventually lost it's heads and died. Bought 2 new torch corals the other day and a day later both seem to be receding and 1 has already lost a head.

I really don't think flow is an issue as they aren't being battered and the more delicate LPS seem to puff up nicely.

I'm starting to think it's probably some torch coral killing bacteria in my water column or something . If one torch starts receding and losing a head is it then a contagious thing?

Water as of yesterday:

Nitrate: 10
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: 0.03
KH: 8.3
Calcium:
430
Magnesium:
1320
Pic of tank for better perspective.

xaflatoonx · Jun 30, 2017

Brown jelly coming out of it?

cjd · Jun 30, 2017

I believe you have a a360 10 inches above the water at 40% intensity and lowered it to 35% intensity . Still think that is way too much light for your tank at 16 inches deep .

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

xaflatoonx said:
Brown jelly coming out of it?

Nope

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

cjd said:
I believe you have a a360 10 inches above the water at 40% intensity and lowered it to 35% intensity . Still think that is way too much light for your tank at 16 inches deep .

lol you stalking me jk. 35% too much? It's crazy because some say Kessils are very under powered and set there's to 100% and then some say they are very powerful, leaves me confused.

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 30, 2017

cjd said:
I believe you have a a360 10 inches above the water at 40% intensity and lowered it to 35% intensity . Still think that is way too much light for your tank at 16 inches deep .

I concur. Especially not knowing if you have a long photoperiod.

Are you manually dosing cal and alk? Or just water changes..

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
I concur. Especially not knowing if you have a long photoperiod.

Are you manually dosing cal and alk? Or just water changes..

I only do water changes and may start dosing AcroPower to see if it makes a difference, I do feed at least twice a week with mysis or Goniopower.

Exact photo period.

Colour Intensity

11:00 0% 5%
13:00 15% 15%
15:00 50% 35%
18:00 50% 35%
20:00 30% 25%
21:00 0% 0%

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 30, 2017

1Clown said:
AcroPower

acropower is food, not cal and alk.

the period is not long, but you may consider lowering intensity.

stony corals do pull a LOT of cal and alk out of the water. What prompted me to ask was your discolored coralline on the back wall as well as the lack of coralline on the rocks typical of lower light levels and good levels of C/A?M.. With higher, or perfect light levels, the coral will try to make more bone. if its limited it could cause problems I suppose.

you could consider stepping up WC to help or dosing the big three.

my .02 anyway.

cjd · Jun 30, 2017

1Clown said:
lol you stalking me jk. 35% too much? It's crazy because some say Kessils are very under powered and set there's to 100% and then some say they are very powerful, leaves me confused.

That is what the courts call it!! ...I saw your other post and was going to chime in about the lighting schedule. I am a kessil user and find them very powerful. I have no idea how people run any leds at or close to 100% . But thats just my experience. I try to listen to my corals about the amount of light needed , if they shrivel up and receed i tend to think its being blasted with light. Obviously it can be a number of things , but if everything else is doing good in the tank except that piece, i look at moving it to the sand to see how it reacts and decide from there.

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 30, 2017

^^^^^^Agreed. They make the power like that so you can put them on different tanks.
Folks who say kessel are underpowered probably had the wrong model. a kessil is not under powered. a 160 on a 60 cube is.

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

cjd said:
That is what the courts call it!! ...I saw your other post and was going to chime in about the lighting schedule. I am a kessil user and find them very powerful. I have no idea how people run any leds at or close to 100% . But thats just my experience. I try to listen to my corals about the amount of light needed , if they shrivel up and receed i tend to think its being blasted with light. Obviously it can be a number of things , but if everything else is doing good in the tank except that piece, i look at moving it to the sand to see how it reacts and decide from there.

Shall I lower the intensity further to 30% and see how it goes? Also do you think my max photo period which is of only 3 hours is too little? I think my water is fine, flow is fine so lighting is probably all I can try and change to see if it makes a difference.

1Clown · Jun 30, 2017

saltyfilmfolks said:
acropower is food, not cal and alk.

the period is not long, but you may consider lowering intensity.

stony corals do pull a LOT of cal and alk out of the water. What prompted me to ask was your discolored coralline on the back wall as well as the lack of coralline on the rocks typical of lower light levels and good levels of C/A?M.. With higher, or perfect light levels, the coral will try to make more bone. if its limited it could cause problems I suppose.

you could consider stepping up WC to help or dosing the big three.

my .02 anyway.

I don't mean to sound ignorant or whatever but I recently sold my 60 cube along with my doser and was extremely close to getting out of the hobby all together. So I just set up this nano and wanted to keep it simple with just water changes. I've seen people with WAY more corals and larger tanks that survive on just water changes. Prior to neglecting this tank I was doing 50% wc every week and still had issues with my torches dying, I think maybe the culprit is my lighting intensity as that's the only thing I never really adjusted.

saltyfilmfolks · Jun 30, 2017

1Clown said:
I don't mean to sound ignorant or whatever but I recently sold my 60 cube along with my doser and was extremely close to getting out of the hobby all together. So I just set up this nano and wanted to keep it simple with just water changes. I've seen people with WAY more corals and larger tanks that survive on just water changes. Prior to neglecting this tank I was doing 50% wc every week and still had issues with my torches dying, I think maybe the culprit is my lighting intensity as that's the only thing I never really adjusted.

It's cool. Were trouble shooting and spit balling.
I hope we can get something to stick.

cjd · Jun 30, 2017

Depending on your color percentage you are running. If you only ran the bluest setting you may be able to get by with 30%. Looking at the pic you have it on a whiter percentage, so personally I would run it probably lower than 20% . Again we are just spit balling here, but that's a lot of light for a little tank. I have more coral struggle with to much light than not enough.
Example...i recently switched over to a kessil ap700 from a 6 bulb action my 75 gallon. My ap700 is at 25% 15 inches above the water line right now for the peak day hours. And everything is swollen and looks happy. I do have 2 t5's in a floating canopy and they are on for 4 hrs to help with any shadows when I start to add more sps.

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 1, 2017

A lux meter is easier. It faster for sure to.

Estimate the par range you want in the tank like you with a par meter.
Estimate thebrang from top to bottom.

Then set Lux meter on the top of the tank and turn the light on at a 1:1 ratio.

For most led set with this spectrum the lux par conversion constant is 60.

So every 6000 lux is approx 100 par.

More blue and less white make the conversion a higher number. Like 65 and 70.

A 20 in deep low light tank I would set at 300 par to start

So 18000 Lux

So then make the color ratio the way you like it. It's now less than 300 par.

That's good to acclimate the tank to imo.

Now if you want to add more par just increase the intensity. You can increase in lux of 3000 and 6000 lux as that's just under 50 and 100 par.

BantyRooster97 · Jul 1, 2017

Just a thought but have you ever seen your clown nip at them? I had a clown that didn't like the fact that I placed a brand new Aussie Gold too close to his nem and he nipped the heads off until he eventually killed it, even after I moved it to the other side of the tank..... he just didn't like it.

cjd · Jul 1, 2017

Side note , I like the nano. Looks real good. When you get the light dialed in and things take off it will be a stunner!!!!

1Clown · Jul 1, 2017

Not looking good, signs of brown jelly disease. What's the best course of action to try and get it not to spread to my other LPS? Throw them both out? Also is bjd something which stays in the water column, how long before I can get a new torch? I have also ramped my light intensity down to 30% starting from today.