Nutrition issue?

[Zbutcher]

Hey folks,

Got a weird problem I am hoping you guys can assist me with.

So for the record I have a 110 gallon reef, only 8 fish, more focusing on farming coral with it and I love it and its thriving.

My gf however is also in the hobby and she has a Red Sea Reefer 250, sand substrate, lots of LifeRock (not live rock), 5 corals and they are softies and zoas. one of them is some cesptiularia and its surviving but the ends of the arms tend to always be closed. I have not really understood why. She has a light to support SPS , so we put this small frag of SPS in and it ended up just staying closed. Me being in the hobby as well knowing my system is doing well I put it in my tank and seen some signs of life coming back. So it hopefully it makes a come back.

Now she has gotten her water tested at the LFS and everything comes up fine. Does anyone know the potential issue? She uses RO water. only has 5 fish in the tank. Even with me I use tap water with prime and my corals and clam and fish and are as happy as can be. In here sump she has allocated one section as a refugium and it has giant ball of chaeto in there with a emerald crab to keep it trimmed back. She also does weekly water changes.

All I can possibly think is she will need to add a skimmer here to take out any stuff in the water column causing these issues, does anyone have a better resolution?

Thanks folks.

 

[GHogg]

Hey! I’m not super familiar with cesptiularia, but these are some guesses based on some cursory reading from liveaquaria and my own knowledge:

first it sounds like the coral may just have been exposed to too much light. You can always move it up or down or into shade to test it’s light tolerance.

since you asked specifically about nutrition, there’s two specific mentions from liveaquaria that I could see being problematic:

Primarily “For continued good health, the Blue Cespitularia will require the addition of iodine and other trace elements to the water.” I know you said you tested her water, but often trace elements aren’t accurately assessed in a standard water test, especially not iodine. It’s possible that the coral thrives in one tank until the water was stripped of key trace elements, and then perked back up after being introduced to another tank with the elements in tact. If your girlfriend doesn’t perform regular water changes, the only way to introduce more iodine is through specific dosing.

I know nothing about maintaining iodine levels in a tank though, just my $0.02

finally you could try target feeding some plankton, but I think one of the other two above issues are most likely the culprit.

 

[Zbutcher]

Hey! I’m not super familiar with cesptiularia, but these are some guesses based on some cursory reading from liveaquaria and my own knowledge:

first it sounds like the coral may just have been exposed to too much light. You can always move it up or down or into shade to test it’s light tolerance.

since you asked specifically about nutrition, there’s two specific mentions from liveaquaria that I could see being problematic:

Primarily “For continued good health, the Blue Cespitularia will require the addition of iodine and other trace elements to the water.” I know you said you tested her water, but often trace elements aren’t accurately assessed in a standard water test, especially not iodine. It’s possible that the coral thrives in one tank until the water was stripped of key trace elements, and then perked back up after being introduced to another tank with the elements in tact. If your girlfriend doesn’t perform regular water changes, the only way to introduce more iodine is through specific dosing.

I know nothing about maintaining iodine levels in a tank though, just my $0.02

finally you could try target feeding some plankton, but I think one of the other two above issues are most likely the culprit.

Honestly that makes a lot of sense. She does do regular water changes however, she is using RO because she lives on an acreage. Since she uses RO water it wouldn't have iodine so that explains a lot about what's going on with the cesptiularia. However, in regards to the SPS (it is a purple stylo for the record) I'm not sure if the lack if iodine would cause this issue. I am starting to think it actually might be beneficial for her to use either her well water or my tap water from my house.