Torch coral...splitting, budding or dying??

[Droberts0724]

Can you tell me if my torch coral is splitting...it was crazy big and now I can see skeleton....but it looks like it has many heads now instead of 1.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Splitting occurs super slow as one head splits and as they grow upwards (grow a longer skeleton) the splitting heads separate from each other. Not something that happens quickly like with mushrooms and anemones (relatively). Exposed skeleton is never really good but let's see where this goes. I have a Duncan that will every now and then throw a tantrum shrink up to the point that I'm like "oh geez OK time to throw that guy out" and then just bounce back like nothing happened.

 

[Droberts0724]

Splitting occurs super slow as one head splits and as they grow upwards (grow a longer skeleton) the splitting heads separate from each other. Not something that happens quickly like with mushrooms and anemones (relatively). Exposed skeleton is never really good but let's see where this goes. I have a Duncan that will every now and then throw a tantrum shrink up to the point that I'm like "oh geez OK time to throw that guy out" and then just bounce back like nothing happened.

I had that coral for almost a year! The coral looks like it's seperating into different heads that's what's crazy or has like 5 different mouths..but it's definitely not completely happy...also not completely unhappy so I'm just wondering what its doing

 

[Copingwithpods]

Our understanding of coral behavior is still very limited so it sounds like a "wait and see" situation. For example some refers have hammers and torch corals go through a full polyp bail out with perfect parameters and have the polyps survive for years with no skeleton and never grow one back, why? Who knows. Corals are wierd man.

 

[Droberts0724]

Our understanding of coral behavior is still very limited so it sounds like a "wait and see" situation. For example some refers have hammers and torch corals go through a full polyp bail out with perfect parameters and have the polyps survive for years with no skeleton and never grow one back, why? Who knows. Corals are wierd man.

Thanks hopefully this guy makes it...my tank is currently being dosed to bump PH and alk...maybe it made it angry

 

[Copingwithpods]

What are you dosing for pH?

 

[Droberts0724]

What are you dosing for pH?

Not dosing specifically for PH but reef builder in my top off...I'm at 7 alk its hard to raise that and my PH is now anout 8.0-8.2

 

[Copingwithpods]

Don't worry too much about pH, worry more about alk cal amd mag, if you find it hard to raise alk just switch what you're dosing. I dose 2 part (actually 3 part plus mag) and if I'm at 7 and want 8 I dose what the calculater tells me and bam I'm at 8 spot on. No ifs no buts no copepods. Just remember the coralation between alk cal and mag and how they affect each other.

For example if my alk is 9 and my cal is 300ppm I can't just dose a ton of calcium to bring that up because my alk will drop super low so I have to dose both just to bring one up.

Think of it in terms of your stomach, calcium tablets get rid of your acid reflux(high acidity =alk) the more calcium the less acidity and vise versa so we need to balance these too and raise them together.

 

[NeSsyAqua]

If u can see the skeleton that's not a good sign. I've seen this happen to my torch and frogspawn and it leads to polyp bailout.

 

[Droberts0724]

Don't worry too much about pH, worry more about alk cal amd mag, if you find it hard to raise alk just switch what you're dosing. I dose 2 part (actually 3 part plus mag) and if I'm at 7 and want 8 I dose what the calculater tells me and bam I'm at 8 spot on. No ifs no buts no copepods. Just remember the coralation between alk cal and mag and how they affect each other.

For example if my alk is 9 and my cal is 300ppm I can't just dose a ton of calcium to bring that up because my alk will drop super low so I have to dose both just to bring one up.

Think of it in terms of your stomach, calcium tablets get rid of your acid reflux(high acidity =alk) the more calcium the less acidity and vise versa so we need to balance these too and raise them together.

My calcium was super high! I managed to get my alk to 9 and I'm gonna retest...I also diluted my ato water last night so it doesn't keep rising...ginna retest all numbers today...

If u can see the skeleton that's not a good sign. I've seen this happen to my torch and frogspawn and it leads to polyp bailout.

That's what I'm afraid of...I lost the nicest frogspawn a little while back and 1 hammer so far...I have had this tank a year with no issues. Now have problems with numbers all the sudden