Cali Kid Corals

Unhappy torch

Mozby

Mozby

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Got this torch 2 weeks ago and it was looking awesome until 2 days ago when heads were still full looking but were flopped down. I did a water change yesterday hoping it’ll perk it up (was due for the weekly wc anyway), but sadly it looked even worse today. Will test other parameters but NO3, PO4, salinity and temp are fine. The other corals are looking happy. Will test ca/alk/mg today. Any ideas?

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It might be the water flow. I changed my torch to another place in my tank and the first days it was also not looking good until I increased the flow in that area.
Not under a power head but enough for the tentacles to have some good movement.
 
Possibilities:
1 PH, Alk, phosphate
2 Too much light, not enough turbulent flow.
3 Chemical warfare between softies. Leathers in particular.

Suggest:
Keep testing water.
Add quite a bit of carbon, see if that helps.
Check flow.
Spot feed.
 
Possibilities:
1 PH, Alk, phosphate
Click to expand...
ph 8, Alk 7.6, phosphate 0 (no nuisance algae)

2 Too much light, not enough turbulent flow.
Click to expand...
Too much light: I did forget to acclimate lights but it is positioned in partial shade and was looking happy and fully extended for 12 days under current light setting
Not enough flow: It is getting some indirect flow from the mp10 and return spout and it did have constant (gentle) movement. Does it need more aggressive flow?

3 Chemical warfare between softies. Leathers in particular.
Click to expand...
It is a little close to a stretching disco shroom and a candy cane coral, although I've never seen either them touch. Is that a concern?

Suggest:
Keep testing water.
Add quite a bit of carbon, see if that helps.
Check flow.
Spot feed.
Click to expand...
Will keep testing, although results have been consistent. Suspect mg is faulty or for some strange reason I have super high mg.
Adding carbon.... given that nitrates are less than 2, is that a good idea? Any risks of doing so? If not, I'll run it
I have been spot feeding reef roids 2 days in a row now. Keep going?

Another observation: The only thing I have changed in my tank recently is to add a chaeto fuge basket to the secondary chamber, in addition to the chaeto I already have in the media basket thats in the overflow chamber. But I believe that shouldn't have a negative impact on anything.
 
Softies fight each other chemically, not by touching, so position does not matter much.
The carbon was to help absorb those chemicals.
If you have large leather corals I would suspect that.
With just a couple of LPS or so, not so much.

Parameters, light, flow all sound good.
Agree that standard IO is very unlikely to drive Mg up. That is weird.
 
rygh said:
Softies fight each other chemically, not by touching, so position does not matter much.
The carbon was to help absorb those chemicals.
If you have large leather corals I would suspect that.
With just a couple of LPS or so, not so much.

Parameters, light, flow all sound good.
Agree that standard IO is very unlikely to drive Mg up. That is weird.
Click to expand...
I have a fairly large colt leather coral.... could that be the problem potentially? Also with carbon.... is there a risk of stripping nitrates too low?
 
Would anyone in Hayward or Fremont volunteer to test my water? I can bring some over.

Had no idea leathers/softies would cause chemical problems in a tank. I have a good amount of zoas, mushrooms, and that colt.

I have biomax rings in the back chamber. Could that be leaching magnesium?
 
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I am in Union City, near Dumbarton. Free after 4:30 if you want to stop by, and have 2 different Mg test kits.
PM me.

Given the 2 week delay, and that other parameters seem good, I would bet on the chemical warfare.
Unfortunately, no real way to test for that and prove it.
 
rygh said:
I am in Union City, near Dumbarton. Free after 4:30 if you want to stop by, and have 2 different Mg test kits.
PM me.

Given the 2 week delay, and that other parameters seem good, I would bet on the chemical warfare.
Unfortunately, no real way to test for that and prove it.
Click to expand...
Oh awesome. PM sent. Thanks!
 
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@Mozby's Reef, isn’t your tank pretty small? How hard would it be to do a near 100% water change? That would reset any imbalances to whatever your salt mix is and get rid of any chemicals in the water column.
 
Flagg37 said:
@Mozby's Reef, isn’t your tank pretty small? How hard would it be to do a near 100% water change? That would reset any imbalances to whatever your salt mix is and get rid of any chemicals in the water column.
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Yes, tank is 20 gallons so it’s not hard to do so. I just started running carbon, but will do a large scale wc. If only I could figure out the issue for a more targeted treatment. Otherwise if my torch is repeatedly unhappy, wouldn’t it seem pretty tedious to do near 100% water changes every week?


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Update: Running carbon in a reactor now. If nothing changes, I will be doing a larger water change tomorrow.

Questions: If it is indeed true that the leather is unleashing chemical warfare then.... (1) Do I need to decide which one to remove or is there something I can do to help them co-exist? (2) How come the other corals are unaffected?

Also thanks @rygh for helping me test my water and showing me your tank.


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Julius Chen said:
What did the water test show?
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Alk was on the low side and Mg was on the high side but both within acceptable levels. So it didn’t show what the problem was. At this point I’m inclined to think @rygh might be right about my leather coral leaching terpenes except everything else seems unaffected.


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