Candy cane help! Please!

[Timich]

Please help me who knows what might be going on. So I had this candy cane next to my hammer for several months. No problems. Hammer didn't grow as much as the candy grew almost triple since I first bought it. The skin of the candy is like dissolving. At first I thought it was splitting. But it just looks awful now. My frogspawn is also having its skin "melt" but it looks healthy. I also had to reglue the candy frag onto the rock cause it fell off and I know I damaged alil of the tissue. Did I cause it to die? Please help anyone

 

[P-Dub]

Going to start off with the usual questions we all will need to help you out. What are your parameters? How long has the system been up and running? What are you using to test? What size is your system? What is your filtration comprised of? What is your top-off water? What is your husbandry schedule? What are you using for salt/water changes? What lights are you using? What is your tank size/dimensions? What are all your inhabitants? Etc., etc. A whole tank shot under white lights, please. Basically, give us as much information about your system as is humanly possible to help us help you.

 

[Timich]

Going to start off with the usual questions we all will need to help you out. What are your parameters? How long has the system been up and running? What are you using to test? What size is your system? What is your filtration comprised of? What is your top-off water? What is your husbandry schedule? What are you using for salt/water changes? What lights are you using? What is your tank size/dimensions? What are all your inhabitants? Etc., etc. A whole tank shot under white lights, please. Basically, give us as much information about your system as is humanly possible to help us help you.

I don't check params. Ya I know, save me the lecture lol. I keep it as simple as I can and it's been paying off. Consistency over perfect numbers. I've had the tank for about 6 months. 20 gal AIO. No issues just typical ups and downs as a newbie. Corals growing. Splitting too. I run ai prime 16hd lights. Whites I have max at 10% for couple hours, then it's goes down to 5-4%. Greens/reds are pretty low to 0%. 10% water change every week and I change my carbon and gfo. Got 2 fish, hermits, snails, cleaner. I've been having trouble with my refractometer always off and I bought another more expensive one and I'm sure I have correct reading but they always un calibrate. Also messing with my flow trying to get it right cause it's too strong in some areas. And like I said, I hurt my candy cane by accident. Hope this helps you help me

 

[Shirak]

You didn't mention what you have your uv/violet/rblue/ and blue set at.

I will spare you the lecture sure but you ask for help on corals that are losing tissue and receding on the skeleton. This is usually a nutrition issue or water quality/parameter/stability issue. Without testing there is no way of knowing any of these things. Your running GFO but do you know your phosphate level? It's quite possible it's 0 which is likely to be a cause for your corals losing tissue.

 

[MaxTremors]

I don't check params. Ya I know, save me the lecture lol. I keep it as simple as I can and it's been paying off. Consistency over perfect numbers. I've had the tank for about 6 months. 20 gal AIO. No issues just typical ups and downs as a newbie. Corals growing. Splitting too. I run ai prime 16hd lights. Whites I have max at 10% for couple hours, then it's goes down to 5-4%. Greens/reds are pretty low to 0%. 10% water change every week and I change my carbon and gfo. Got 2 fish, hermits, snails, cleaner. I've been having trouble with my refractometer always off and I bought another more expensive one and I'm sure I have correct reading but they always un calibrate. Also messing with my flow trying to get it right cause it's too strong in some areas. And like I said, I hurt my candy cane by accident. Hope this helps you help me

I won’t lecture you, but if you’re not testing, you don’t know that your tank has consistent levels, you don’t know that it’s stable (and generally a six month old tank isn’t completely stable yet). If you’re running GFO, and not testing for phosphates, you very well could be starving your corals of nutrients they need. When you run into problems like this, it’s kind of impossible to point you in a direction to solve the problem, it’s like asking a doctor to tell you why your stomach hurts but they can’t perform any diagnostic testing. Is it cancer? Or is it just gas? Who knows?!?

 

[Timich]

I won’t lecture you, but if you’re not testing, you don’t know that your tank has consistent levels, you don’t know that it’s stable (and generally a six month old tank isn’t completely stable yet). If you’re running GFO, and not testing for phosphates, you very well could be starving your corals of nutrients they need. When you run into problems like this, it’s kind of impossible to point you in a direction to solve the problem, it’s like asking a doctor to tell you why your stomach hurts but they can’t perform any diagnostic testing. Is it cancer? Or is it just gas? Who knows?!?

I get what you're saying. And I agree. But I've been running gfo and carbon just by placing em into my media basket and I haven't had any issues till 6 months later, my candy who's been growing fast and healthy, suddenly looks like death. Maybe my hammer is stinging him?

 

[Timich]

You didn't mention what you have your uv/violet/rblue/ and blue set at.

I will spare you the lecture sure but you ask for help on corals that are losing tissue and receding on the skeleton. This is usually a nutrition issue or water quality/parameter/stability issue. Without testing there is no way of knowing any of these things. Your running GFO but do you know your phosphate level? It's quite possible it's 0 which is likely to be a cause for your corals losing tissue.

Ai prime 16 HD, peak hours(12pm-6pm), UV&V at 116%, B&RB at 88%. I don't add alot of gfo, plus it originally came with the tank, been doing it since Jan/Feb and my algaes been mostly under control and haven't had a single coral die. Until now, ones on the death bed lol

 

[Shirak]

The hammer isn’t stinging them. Stings would cause localized damage. There is clearly steady overall recession on the ccane and frogspawn. This isn’t a new issue either. They may have looked healthy and growing for the past 6 months but in actuality slowly losing tissue in a less evident way as it thins but then appears to recede and pull away between the heads when it finally becomes too thin. It’s also quite possible there have been times where it has progressed faster or slower without your knowledge based on how much food the corals were catching and how much phosphate the gfo was removing. So maybe initially the candy cane was able to triple but now the past month the gfo is keeping the PO4 too low. Hard to know without numbers showing the trends for the past 6 months. Using gfo to limit your algae growth will also starve your corals who depend on phosphate for the algae within their tissue that normally supply a huge portion of the corals nutrition. The tentacles on your frogspawn look pale which just further supports my thought they have been starving slowly.

Remove the gfo, target feed the corals a couple times a week. And get a decent phosphate test kit if you want to occasionally use gfo when needed. Personally I like the Hanna ultra low range phosphate checker.

 

[Timich]

The hammer isn’t stinging them. Stings would cause localized damage. There is clearly steady overall recession on the ccane and frogspawn. This isn’t a new issue either. They may have looked healthy and growing for the past 6 months but in actuality slowly losing tissue in a less evident way as it thins but then appears to recede and pull away between the heads when it finally becomes too thin. It’s also quite possible there have been times where it has progressed faster or slower without your knowledge based on how much food the corals were catching and how much phosphate the gfo was removing. So maybe initially the candy cane was able to triple but now the past month the gfo is keeping the PO4 too low. Hard to know without numbers showing the trends for the past 6 months. Using gfo to limit your algae growth will also starve your corals who depend on phosphate for the algae within their tissue that normally supply a huge portion of the corals nutrition. The tentacles on your frogspawn look pale which just further supports my thought they have been starving slowly.

Remove the gfo, target feed the corals a couple times a week. And get a decent phosphate test kit if you want to occasionally use gfo when needed. Personally I like the Hanna ultra low range phosphate checker.

Thanks! You're right. I'm gonna remove the gfo asap

 

[Hermie]

Do they eat? Honestly I don't worry too much about the under tissue of candy cane or hammers because their growth pattern is upwards and will tissue may naturally recede in adjusting to growing form/light etc

 

[Timich]

Do they eat? Honestly I don't worry too much about the under tissue of candy cane or hammers because their growth pattern is upwards and will tissue may naturally recede in adjusting to growing form/light etc

Ya reef roids once weekly and redsea ab every other day.

 

[Shirak]

Ya reef roids once weekly and redsea ab every other day.

You might try something more meaty like chopped mysis or LPS pellets a few times a week. I have better results with these types of corals with something chunkier than liquids and fine dust/reef roids.

 

[Timich]

You might try something more meaty like chopped mysis or LPS pellets a few times a week. I have better results with these types of corals with something chunkier than liquids and fine dust/reef roids.

I do mysis sometimes too. I actually think I over feed most of the time, could also be why it took 6 months for the corals to just start showing signs of low phosphates

 

[Shirak]

I do mysis sometimes too. I actually think I over feed most of the time, could also be why it took 6 months for the corals to just start showing signs of low phosphates

Perhaps. I am just guessing on the phosphates based on your constant use of GFO. Do you have a local LFS that can run some tests for you if you don't have kits?

Try target feeding them some mysis a couple times a week. You just need a little bit and you can turn the pumps down so you are not putting lots of excess into the tank. The candy cane I find feed best at night when the feeding tentacles are out naturally. Frogspawn.. I have fed during the day and night if they are not totally shriveled up. They seem to be kinda slow at getting the food into their mouth though.

 

[Timich]

Perhaps. I am just guessing on the phosphates based on your constant use of GFO. Do you have a local LFS that can run some tests for you if you don't have kits?

Try target feeding them some mysis a couple times a week. You just need a little bit and you can turn the pumps down so you are not putting lots of excess into the tank. The candy cane I find feed best at night when the feeding tentacles are out naturally. Frogspawn.. I have fed during the day and night if they are not totally shriveled up. They seem to be kinda slow at getting the food into their mouth though.

I don't or at least don't think my lfs does tests. I took the gfo out and target fed roids and added flakes for fish but overall to raise phosphate levels. From my water change alone yesterday, my corals look way better today. Even the candy is slightly puffing out more. My sps took a hit and bleach on the backside almost all the way up. So hopefully my phosphate levels raise faster and I'll be watching for algae growth like hair till I start putting more gfo in. Which I'll be adding very little amounts this time. Really appreciate your help. Explains alot of things I was figuring out. I'll probably reconsider in getting some test kits

 

[Miami Reef]

It’s awesome that OP was so open minded about testing his water! Sounds like a great plan!