Can't anybody help with my Duncan!?

[Trakk5504]

My Duncan is dying please help! All other corals are doing great but my Duncan started not opening up a few months ago slowly got worse now it never opens up and almost half the heads have died and the ones alive are slowly dying my waters params are salt 1.026 ammonia nitrate nitrite all 0 ca is 440 alk is 9 phosphates have been a little high at .25 its a 55 gallon tank with no sump just a HOB protein skimmer and HOB filter with chemipure elite and running to kessil360's all my other corals are happy and thriving except my Duncan don't know what to do any advice is much appreciated!!

I'm on an iPhone trying to figure out how to post a pic

 

[Tab28]

You have not mentioned nitrates, but lets take they are fine and not the issue. I can not answer about the light. LED is not my thing. Duncans like flow. Is there enough flow around it? What other types of corals do you have near it.

As for the pix and iphone. Once you have pix taken and you are in message post mode. There are usually icons for near bottom to attach picture or http.

 

[shiftline]

My Duncan's are under LEDs and have moderate glow and are happy. Try moving them to a different spot in the tank for a few days

 

[YUP]

Ya I would move him. Ur parameters are fine. Lighting or flow is my guess. Also when u move him, dip him real quick in like revive or something just in case.

 

[Guz]

Would it not be worth fragging off the good heads and removing the dead ones from the tank I had a 25 head Duncan that literally did this losing a head at a time quite quickly actually, almost lifting off from the skeleton. It might be worth a shot

 

[Trakk5504]

Thanks for all your help I went ahead and did a dip and moved the Duncan to a little more high flow and a little less light he was closest to a torch,hammer on one side of him and a few acros on the otherside of it but I don't think anything was close enough to be bothering it.. Hopefully the dip and moving him will take care of the problem.. I think that would also be a good idea to frag off the heads that are still alive but should I wait tell its doing better or frag it right away? Thanks for all the help hopefully he does okay where he's at now I just really which I knew what caused it

 

[Guz]

It's a difficult one it could of been the torch though just might be one of those things we have to accept sometimes. Monitor it closely if it doesn't improve I would just frag otherwise you will lose the other heads, imo it may happen anyway. Good luck with it.

 

[YUP]

Ya, I'm no expert in fragging, So I can't help u there. however, yes u will be surprised how far sweeping tentacles can reach. Watch your flow though, I know people say they like good flow. What does that mean really? I have a 75gal with one rw8 ph. That's it along with the return pump. I had to remove 1250gph pump because my tank doesn't like a ton of flow. I noticed that with too much flow all but a few corals closed up. It's like they all batten down the hatches lol. I'm sure after awhile they would of got used to it, but I didn't wait. My Duncan which u can see is my avatar. Is located on same side as rw8 and gets the return bounce off the tank wall. My tank is all Lps and softies/zoas. Lps I believe like enough flow to make them move/sway and that's it. If it doesn't open up where u moved it. Try a really low flow area to see if he opens up slightly.

 

[JFrar]

My Duncan's were doing rough in my led system(mostly sps) and they started dying off, moved them into a little more flow and it helped. But the main thing I changed that I think helped was feeding my fish more and broadcast feeding . I had around 35 heads and it died back to about 25. 4 months or so later it's looking very healthy again, super plump so I'm assuming new heads are popping back up... Btw I've always had 0 nitrates and phos. Not something I want but I can't get them up hint to why I feed more now. Actually a lot of my coral look better from this

 

[Trakk5504]

He was in pretty low flow now that he's in a little bit higher flow he's looking a tad bit better today I know you don't have to but unusualy spit feed all my corals once a week and feed the whole tank so they get 2 feelings a week... My water Paramsters are good except my phos there at about.25 but I was running my lights way to long 12 hrs a day cause I've always done so and never had any problems but I'm slowly backing the lighting to 8 hrs a day haven't checked for phosphates yet but I'm thinking when i do they will hopefully have gone down a little bit..! I've never fragged a Duncan always heard you have to have a dremel to do it cause there skeleton is so hard sonics never even tried it I don't have a dremel but it's already close to 80% dead and it was one of my favorites I got it with 2 heads and it grew pretty fast over the last year and a half or so and now this... I'll be lucky to keep a few heads that are still alive all the new little heads are doing great but the bigger ones are doing really bad and a lot of them are totally dead i think just looks like your looking into a black hole where the heads used to be its a different kind of Duncan that what I see most people with it has shorter tentacles and bigger disks and the disks are like sky blue it was a bueaty I'm sure tons of people have the same kind but here in New Mexico its the only one I've come across besides my friend I got it from that gave me a piece of his

 

[YUP]

That's too bad bro. I am a Lps softy guy and I have OCD! Which means I look and rearrange **** all the time. I'm used to coral being stupid or killing something over my neglect to glue them down. Hench the OCD haha! Seriously though, Lps corals I have notice like zoas etc. respond within 24hrs if they like what u have done. The problem arises on what they are not getting and how to figure that out! It could be lights/flow, Params/trace elements, parasites/pods or like I see right now in my tank asterina stars ******* off some zoas and possibly munching. Never ending I tell ya lol

 

[Trakk5504]

Lol I feel you on that I'm all OCD about my tank too everything has to be perfect or it'll drive me crazy I used to have a problem with those astern a stars however u spell it a Harlequin shrimp fill help with that..! I need a bigger tank all my corals have grown so much I can't fight everything I have in there properly but I can't afford a whole new setup right now it sucks!!

 

[Eienna]

Does it have any brown gooey stuff on the retracted heads?

 

[YUP]

Yup ok so here is some better pics of my Duncan frag. It started off with two heads and a little start of one when I got it.

I had it on my frag rack and decided to mount it on my rocks. The little start of a head u can see in that pic^ it was always deformed/wasn't growing and if anything has shrunk cause I moved it off rack, to where it gets hit with the current right in its face off the bounce from my other side of tank. I'm tell ya, Lps like enough to move, not get blown all over the place. I don't care about that head to tell ya the truth and this is why

since I moved it around a month ago it has grown a new head u can kinda see, that is a fully formed on and getting bigger by the day. Almost like it's starving one head to support another

 

[YUP]

If u look at the first pic, u can see it stretching, this is not due to light but flow and that it's fully out as my lights have been one for a few hrs. It shrivels like it's dying at night or even if the lights are left one a certain time cause it knows it cycle and my lights are not on timers. Stupid of me since my lghts are plugged I to a timer just haven't set it. Haha! Me be lazy!

 

[YUP]

Oh and yes I would prefer it to have less current than it has and "IT".. that's the key word, would like less current. But that's where I want it and it has adapted sucks that we can't edit post on tapatalk as a side note tons of typos

 

[shiftline]

My Duncan's are happy under flow with leds as well

 

[Libimagana]

I had my Duncan throw rough stages
Had it under low light leds
A couple months ago I change to t5s
And oh my it grow like crazy I feed it every ones in a wile shrimp
Dosent like lots of flow just moderate
I noticed when water changes on kal or temp
Or any other swings it shrinks

I also dip mine in some iodine and it helps too.

 

[luamada]

I had one that almost died and i found out it was sturving. I started by giving it Phytoplank in the morning and cyclopes at night... then once it started to open again, i gave it the smaller shrimps i could get, then brine shrimp. Now I am back to about 8 heads and it eats any shrimp I feed my fish. I feed the fish first so they dont try to steal from the duncan.
Must TURN OFF all flow while he is eating too. I also make sure that noone steal his food. I feed them several brine shrimps now. MUST always turn off the flow or he wont be able to take anything. Start with phyto if he is not openning up. Heavy feedings...

the picture below is when it is eating so there is no flow... but I bought two heads and one died then I started the feeding regime and it came back and now has 8 heads... the picture is about two month ago... it really needs feedings...

 

[luamada]