Why!!

[saltyphish]

My awesome torch coral I bought a week and a half ago had one of the heads start retracting on me last night. Had to go to work so there was little I can do. Wake up this morning to find tentacles from the head in question floating around in my tank. The other 4 heads are starting to recede as well and of course wife calls and says car is dead downtown. Pulling my hair out right now. Well my first reaction was to frag off the other heads and keep them separated from each other. The coral has and still is in my QT. The only other thing in there is my Midas Blenny in QT as well, with a frag of rastas. Water parameters are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, .2 nitrates salifert test, .03 phosphates Hanna meter, ph is 8.2, Alk is 8-9 dkh, cal 480, Mag 1500, temp is 79 degrees, and sg is 1.025. I do not see any brown jelly on it. Sorry can't post a pic right now. Can't bear to go in and look at it again right now before I leave for work. Like I said I separated all the heads from each other and dipped in iodine. Hopefully at least one head pulls through this. Anyone have any other suggestions? Rastas are open wide and look great.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

How is everything looking today?

 

[LetItReef]

Maybe flow? They do not like a lot of flow.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Id say the water is to clean for it.

 

[Tab28]

Id say the water is to clean for it.

Don't think that is the reason. I have less than 5 nitrates. Unless he had no lighting in the tank. The coral would have gotten enough nourishment from lighting. If you have extra clean water you will still be able to keep LPS coral. As long as you have decent lighting. If you want them growing and robust you need to feed them more often if you have extra clean water. But clean water alone would not kill a coral in that short period of time.

 

[saltyphish]

Ok so here is the update. After cutting the head and separating them from the melting head this is what I have to show. The piece to the left had 2 heads, one was the one that melted and the one next to it wasn't looking good so not too surprised when I woke up and saw it too was gone. However, the one in the middle opened up and has stayed opened since I cut them and dipped in iodine. The one on the left which I thought was a goner for sure looked pretty rough when I left for work. About 4 hrs later my wife sent me a pic showing it opening up and has stayed that way since. So, 2 out of 3 isn't bad now I have 2 torch corals instead of one. Keeping fingers crossed hopefully they stay that way. I don't have a lot of flow in my QT I know the one on the left in the pic looks like it but all I have is a 30 gph powerhead in the tank and it is blowing the opposite direction as the coral looks to be flowing. I still do not know what caused the problem. It happened pretty quick just started receding and deflating and 6 hrs later the head was gone and the other heads started to recede themselves. It looked great for 5 days then that happened. I did spot feed it reef chili 2 days before the problem for food because I know my system is a little lean on nutrients. Oh, well welcome to reefing!

 

[saltyphish]

Oh and in case you didn't see the original post when I bought it here is a pic of it whole.

 

[saltyphish]

For lighting I am using the Current Orbit Marine 18 in fixture with a Diy PC fixture I made out of the stock lights that came with my 29 Biocube Think they are 36 watts I am currently using the actinic bulb. I figured that should be enough light on a 10 gallon tank any one agree? disagree?