Open Brain mouth gaping/not inflating

[Hawkaholic]

I’ve had difficulty adding a new welso to my tank. I have had an open brain coral for around 10 years and it looks amazing. However, I added two new ones from a shop and neither did well - one died and the other has bleached, but is now inflated and maybe slowly recovering. I thought maybe the care that livestock was given was the issue so I purchased another small welso and after a few days it stopped inflating and is just looking tough with its mouth gaping. Would love to hear any suggestions.

PAR 115 on the bottom next to the Welsos - I moved the little guy into a shaded area for a few days with no positive effect - now it’s back under direct light.

Other readings are a little low due to a couple previously clogged dosing tubes. I am slowly bringing up alk, calc, and mag.

this guy puffed up real big when I first got it. Now this is it. Looked a little better when I pulled it out and tried to feed with ab+ and mysis - it did not accept the mysis shrimp.

 

[Hawkaholic]

The bleached coral I’ve been feeding TDO chroma boost. The healthy open brain I’ve never direct fed in decade or so that I’ve had it. ‍ I pull them to feed so my cuc doesn’t harass the corals - hermit crabs and coral banded shrimp.

 

[Tcook]

What is your PO4, NO3, and SG? How different are these from the lfs? What is that coral to the right of the smaller one? Is it stinging the new coral?

 

[Hawkaholic]

What is your PO4, NO3, and SG? How different are these from the lfs? What is that coral to the right of the smaller one? Is it stinging the new coral?

0,0 - there must be a little though as a touch of algae is growing.

34.6

I live in timbucktoo the fish stores I bought these from where 6 hours away in opposite directions. KC/Denver at reefstock - maybe from Wisconsin. I have no idea what their water parameter are. edit

coral to the right is another welso. In front is a monti, but not touching.

 

[Tcook]

Low nutrients not good for lps. Try to get your nitrate 5-10 and PO4 0.03-0.1. More prone to bleach with zero nutrients. The bleached wellso will recovery. One of mine bleached in observation to translucent. A year later it is deeper red and yellow than before. I’d be worried about the monti stinging at night. Your par is perfectly fine. No need to feed these directly at the moment.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Low nutrients not good for lps. Try to get your nitrate 5-10 and PO4 0.03-0.1. More prone to bleach with zero nutrients. The bleached wellso will recovery. One of mine bleached in observation to translucent. A year later it is deeper red and yellow than before. I’d be worried about the monti stinging at night. Your par is perfectly fine. No need to feed these directly at the moment.

Monti isn’t as close as it looks in the picture.

 

[Tcook]

Ok. Work on slowly increasing NO3, PO4, and Ca

 

[Hawkaholic]

Low nutrients not good for lps. Try to get your nitrate 5-10 and PO4 0.03-0.1. More prone to bleach with zero nutrients. The bleached wellso will recovery. One of mine bleached in observation to translucent. A year later it is deeper red and yellow than before. I’d be worried about the monti stinging at night. Your par is perfectly fine. No need to feed these directly at the moment.

It seems to only be this welso truly hurting. My other lps looks good and is growing strong. I haven’t tested phos or N in a couple months as it’s always near 0. - I’ll do that now -Hanna checkers. Had a horrible algae problem 6 months ago likely due to higher nutrients and not enough beneficial bacteria on surfaces as well as too low of lighting. I really don’t want to repeat the algae bloom.

fish get fed they poop quiet a lot - in that tank - large 12 year old tang, 6 year old blue hippo tang, 2 clownfish, and a banner cardinal. In a connected tank - a huge half moon anglefish (would like to re-home him) small yellow tang, purple tang, melaranus wrasse, small flame anglefish, flame hawk fish, 2 clownfish.

I have a fuge with algae, but the bulk of the export is thru coral consumption and water changes.

No corals are close enough to directly sting it. Could it be chemical warfare? I have a ton of softies in the tank as well. I’ll put in some new activated carbon - not a big fan as it dings up the blue hippo tang every time.

 

[Hawkaholic]

Ok. Work on slowly increasing NO3, PO4, and Ca

Ca and mag are being raised. Dosing tube was clogged up.
Thanks

 

[Hawkaholic]

Ok. Work on slowly increasing NO3, PO4, and Ca

If it was nutrient related would you expect a slow decline in heath? It was looking awesome - fully inflated during the day, tentacles out at night - for 3-4 days then it completely deflated for the last 10 days. No kinda looking meh, just fully healthy to nearly dead.

Just ran a test the N (high range test shows zero) and P 0.02. I have a hard time believing it though - I had a medium sized healthy yellow tang drop dead for no apparent reason a week ago - found his skeleton 3 days ago and nitrates and phos test zero! Bacteria could be scavenging all the nutrients I suppose, but they would in turn feed the coral.

I kind of wonder if it’s a deal of the dealer fed it amino acid or something similiar (ab+ etc) to artificially make it look healthier than it is. Lots of reefers do this. It’s like buying a plant at a nursery that’s been over fertilized to make it green and pretty, but when you get it home it has no roots and needs extra care to actually become as healthy as it appears.

I also have a ton to learn as a reefer. My nutrient levels were higher earlier in the systems life 10-14 years ago. (I had poor lighting then). They’ve stayed near zero the last 10 years or so (switched to radions) with an exception when I set my lights too low (mobius stinks) - corals quit growing and n and p built up causing a nasty algae bloom. - fixed the lights and the coral started growing like mad and nutrients are low again. Seems perfect for all but these new Welsos.

Thanks for your advice. I appreciate it. Nitrates are low. Everything else tests pretty close. Curious that my old welso looks fantastic and the new one looks like it’s going to die. What if the tests are incorrect. What would be the most likely culprit to cause a sudden change? pH too high it can swing over 8.4 during the day if no one is home. 2 part dosing too heavy, it’s dos controlled but still too much per day? Bacterial infection from my tank? - My corals always react poorly to chemiclean (some die every time I use it, so I don’t) - is that a sign of something?

 

[Tcook]

I don’t think it is running a system with low nutrients per se as your other corals are doing well. But if you move an lps from dirty water to zero nutrients, or the other way around, you can have issues. I’ve found that lps, especially euphyllia, do better with nutrients. At least in my hands.
Maybe we can get some help #reefsquad @MERKEY @vetteguy53081

 

[Hawkaholic]

I think my Hanna checker for nitrates is broken. I can see a difference in the color of water in the test tubes , but it tests 0.0.

I’m sure there is a little, but definitely not high amounts. Probably below ideal

 

[Hawkaholic]

I don’t think it is running a system with low nutrients per se as your other corals are doing well. But if you move an lps from dirty water to zero nutrients, or the other way around, you can have issues. I’ve found that lps, especially euphyllia, do better with nutrients. At least in my hands.
Maybe we can get some help #reefsquad @MERKEY @vetteguy53081

How do you add nitrogen? I could make a midnight pit stop at the tank instead of the head… I’d prefer not. Lol

I need to figure out a way of safely/healthily weaning any new additions down to lower nutrient levels I suppose. It’s crazy the picky torches I’ve added the last year look great, but easy going welsos are in rough shape.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mine does this when:
High phos
Hungry
Irritated from sand on it

I see also CA is low (400-450)

 

[Hawkaholic]

Mine does this when:
High phos
Hungry
Irritated from sand on it

I see also CA is low (400-450)

How/what do you feed? I can not feed in place, the hermit crabs in the cuc will bother it too much. Ca is being brought back up.

 

[vetteguy53081]

How/what do you feed? I can not feed in place, the hermit crabs in the cuc will bother it too much. Ca is being brought back up.

I feed mine chopped krill and mysis shrimp

 

[Christian0505]

Could it be too much light? In my experience these lps have a though time adjusting to higher lightning. I always start them off in the shade pretty much and really slowly work their way up. Low light doesn’t hurt them, high light really does..

 

[Hawkaholic]

Could it be too much light? In my experience these lps have a though time adjusting to higher lightning. I always start them off in the shade pretty much and really slowly work their way up. Low light doesn’t hurt them, high light really does..

Maybe? Par is 115 in that area. I moved it to a shaded area for a few days 50ish par with no improvement so I moved it back into full light. I don’t know it’s previous lighting conditions though.

 

[Christian0505]

Maybe? Par is 115 in that area. I moved it to a shaded area for a few days 50ish par with no improvement so I moved it back into full light. I don’t know it’s previous lighting conditions though.

In my past experiences moving it back to lower lighting would yield almost immediate results, atleast after the first 24 hours you should see improvement. 50 par should be low enough to acomplish this. My Wilsoni is in about 180-200 par, so 115 shouldn’t be a problem for a healthy specimen.

 

[Hawkaholic]

I pulled it out and gave it an iodine treatment. It perked up the instant iodine was added - that was unexpected. I’ll give it more iodine treatments the next few days if it survives and see if that helps. The tissue has receded on the bottom a lot and I’m afraid it may be too late already. I’m going to put it in a hang in tank at 60 par to eliminate a few variables- cuc, fish, shrimp, neighboring corals and bright light. If it recovers, I’ll re-introduce and try to figure out the culprit.