Reviving a bleached torch coral

[Ocean’s Piece]

My torch coral bleached 4 months ago and I have been trying to revive it ever since. My tank was kept at a sustained 81 degrees with occasional highs of 83 degrees (I keep my tank at 78). I now have a temperature controller to keep things more stable and I’m more experienced. I have been feeding this torch reef roids and have been babying it a lot. Recently, I decided to dip it, and now it is even worse. A few days after the dip, the head that was hanging on, died (now have 3, originally 4). Now, I have a Dino’s outbreak as of about a week ago. Treating that Currently. This is where I started to now

This is when I realized it was bleaching

This is around the time when I actually started taking measures to heal him, mainly with feedings

This is post dip

This is from a few minutes ago

Things are not looking good, but this is the place I will track my progress, as well as hopefully get a few tips from experienced reefers
@ReefdUp

 

[Rick's Reviews]

Maybe leave it alone for a while, sounds like you put it through a wash cycle?

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Maybe leave it alone for a while, sounds like you put it through a wash cycle?

Yeah, it seems that way. I forgot to mention, I also moved my tank, and so it had to adjust to another location. But that’s pretty much everything I have done to it in those months. I have been leaving it alone as much as possible. So it sounds like a lot, but over that much time, it’s not a ton. Still more than I’d like though, and I plan to leave it be

 

[ReefdUp]

Sorry I'm late to the game, and I fear I may be too late. How is it doing now?

The photos were a bit confusing to me. It looked uniformly bleached prior to the dip, but after the dip it looked asymmetrically bleached. Was it the photo lighting? Am I seeing it right? Uniform bleaching doesn't typically worry me; it's usually from high temps (sounds like a potential cause here), low/high lighting, or some other easily-correctable issue. Splotchy bleaching is a bit harder to determine and can have some more challenging root causes.

If it's still hanging on, can you tell us more about your tank? Parameters, age, equipment? What are you doing to treat dinos? How did you dip the coral?

 

[Nate Chalk]

My torch coral bleached 4 months ago and I have been trying to revive it ever since. My tank was kept at a sustained 81 degrees with occasional highs of 83 degrees (I keep my tank at 78). I now have a temperature controller to keep things more stable and I’m more experienced. I have been feeding this torch reef roids and have been babying it a lot. Recently, I decided to dip it, and now it is even worse. A few days after the dip, the head that was hanging on, died (now have 3, originally 4). Now, I have a Dino’s outbreak as of about a week ago. Treating that Currently. This is where I started to now

This is when I realized it was bleaching

This is around the time when I actually started taking measures to heal him, mainly with feedings

This is post dip

This is from a few minutes ago

Things are not looking good, but this is the place I will track my progress, as well as hopefully get a few tips from experienced reefers
@ReefdUp

Just went though a similar trouble. I had a-lot of swings and bad nutrients levels.

mine was not as grim looking as the below but happy to report a 70% recovery.

though its been many months

 

[aggrofish]

RIP

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Sorry I'm late to the game, and I fear I may be too late. How is it doing now?

The photos were a bit confusing to me. It looked uniformly bleached prior to the dip, but after the dip it looked asymmetrically bleached. Was it the photo lighting? Am I seeing it right? Uniform bleaching doesn't typically worry me; it's usually from high temps (sounds like a potential cause here), low/high lighting, or some other easily-correctable issue. Splotchy bleaching is a bit harder to determine and can have some more challenging root causes.

If it's still hanging on, can you tell us more about your tank? Parameters, age, equipment? What are you doing to treat dinos? How did you dip the coral?

It’s still hanging on. Looks exactly like the last picture still.
Parameters:
Alk: 9
Ca: 440
Mg: 1350
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0.05
torch is about 6 months old. Im currently dosing MB7 daily and just ordered some Sodium Nitrate to start increasing nitrates. Feeding doesn’t increase nitrates for me. It increases phosphates, but not nitrates.
Im unsure what you mean by asymmetrical vs symmetrical bleaching, but the 3rd picture was an hour or so after the dip. The 2nd picture before was about what it looked like before the dip. And the last picture was a few days after the dip. It only looked like picture 3 for about a day or two before it got to looking like picture 4 where it is currently.

 

[Foneman02]

I had a similar thing happen to me. I had 3 pieces of torch 2 green with purple tips and 1 green with yellow tips. One day they started dropping heads. I noticed a yellow slime /sponge growing on the bases smothering the heads. I picked and scrubbed the pieces and managed to stop the dying. This was 6 months ago. They are recovering and showing full extension again. No new heads but no more dying . Good luck

 

[ReefdUp]

Wow, glad to hear it is still hanging on. That's hope in and of itself!

If you're still having cyano (from what I see in the photos) and 0 nitrates, I'd try to get the nitrates up a bit. That should help bring down your phosphates. It should also help provide more nutrients to your coral - always important to a bleached coral anyway.

When you feed the coral the Reef Roids, do you get any sort of feeding response? Does the coral actually ingest the food, extend tentacles, etc.? For a torch, I'd actually try some baby mysis (not brine) shrimp (or slightly pureed adult-sized mysis) - but only if you're getting a feeding response. If it responds well to that, I'd start feeding it fish food pellets 2-3x/week. Continue the Reef Roids, but IME, a torch needs more than that.

Symmetry (or pattern) of bleaching can help with diagnostics. If the bleaching is all-over to the same degree, then it's often due to water quality. If the top is bleached with shadowed areas darker, then it's often too high of light (with the inverse being typically true as well). If the bleaching is random or not easily attributed to an external cause, then it's potentially internal (e.g., viral or bacterial).

I wouldn't dip or otherwise disturb it more at this point. If it has held on this long, then good water quality and good feedings should get it back. Best wishes!

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I had a similar thing happen to me. I had 3 pieces of torch 2 green with purple tips and 1 green with yellow tips. One day they started dropping heads. I noticed a yellow slime /sponge growing on the bases smothering the heads. I picked and scrubbed the pieces and managed to stop the dying. This was 6 months ago. They are recovering and showing full extension again. No new heads but no more dying . Good luck

Is there anything you did to help with healing besides feeding and low light/flow?

Wow, glad to hear it is still hanging on. That's hope in and of itself!

If you're still having cyano (from what I see in the photos) and 0 nitrates, I'd try to get the nitrates up a bit. That should help bring down your phosphates. It should also help provide more nutrients to your coral - always important to a bleached coral anyway.

When you feed the coral the Reef Roids, do you get any sort of feeding response? Does the coral actually ingest the food, extend tentacles, etc.? For a torch, I'd actually try some baby mysis (not brine) shrimp (or slightly pureed adult-sized mysis) - but only if you're getting a feeding response. If it responds well to that, I'd start feeding it fish food pellets 2-3x/week. Continue the Reef Roids, but IME, a torch needs more than that.

Symmetry (or pattern) of bleaching can help with diagnostics. If the bleaching is all-over to the same degree, then it's often due to water quality. If the top is bleached with shadowed areas darker, then it's often too high of light (with the inverse being typically true as well). If the bleaching is random or not easily attributed to an external cause, then it's potentially internal (e.g., viral or bacterial).

I wouldn't dip or otherwise disturb it more at this point. If it has held on this long, then good water quality and good feedings should get it back. Best wishes!

I was having a small cyano outbreak in that picture because my conch snail recently died and that’s one week after he passed. Got a new conch, and things are starting to get under control. In a Dino issue now and the sodium nitrate is coming in on Monday.

I’ll take that into consideration. It responds to both reef roids and Reef Frenzy when I spot feed some to it. That was before the dip though. After the dip, there’s been Dino’s so I haven’t been feeding coral food because it’s apparently not good for Dino’s, not really sure why. Plus it just isn’t long enough to catch the particles. It may be catching some of the smaller particulates, but I’m unsure.

Thanks for the help, and I’ll make sure to let you know if I have any questions.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Unfortunately, this guy is just about dead. It was due to Dino’s in my tank and not being able to address it for a week and a half (someone in my family had covid, so I couldn’t go in the house). Stinks, but this is part of it. Hoping to tackle Dino’s and save my other corals.

 

[brmc1985]

Unfortunately, this guy is just about dead. It was due to Dino’s in my tank and not being able to address it for a week and a half (someone in my family had covid, so I couldn’t go in the house). Stinks, but this is part of it. Hoping to tackle Dino’s and save my other corals.

Get some NO3 in that tank. Don’t want it to be 0. Will help with dinos as well as there will be nutrients in the water for other things to put complete them. Also good for corals.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Get some NO3 in that tank. Don’t want it to be 0. Will help with dinos as well as there will be nutrients in the water for other things to put complete them. Also good for corals.

For sure. Just mixed some Sodium Nitrate, so I will dose tomorrow. Things are looking better, nitrates are detectable.

 

[aggrofish]

Unfortunately, this guy is just about dead. It was due to Dino’s in my tank and not being able to address it for a week and a half (someone in my family had covid, so I couldn’t go in the house). Stinks, but this is part of it. Hoping to tackle Dino’s and save my other corals.

yeah man, once they start receding that far, or the mouth gets inverted / prolapsed whatever they call it...I've never seen em come back. I lost a a few hammers recently in my battle with Dinos. Thankfully I only lost one head of an indo gold torch (NY Nicks) but SPS and hammers / frogspawn pretty much all took a ****.