Flesh Falling Off Skeleton

[Pod_01]

Oh that figures. Is NeoNitro okay to use without fueling dinos?

Yup it likely will work, but NeoNitro may contain trace elements and Dino’s may enjoy them as well.

Corals do benefit from ammonia so that is my preferred method to raise N/NO3.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hello!

Every time I put a Euphyllia in my tank it looks fine an open for a while, but then the whole thing falls of the skeleton and floats off without having ever declined. One day it's open and happy and the next the whole polyp is floating around. It's happened every time. I had it happen the other day and the whole thing is open sitting at the bottom of the tank. Has anyone ever had this happen and/or any ideas why it's detaching?
Thank you!
Joy

It could also be a bacterial thing. Just throwing that out there.
Are you sure there are dinos in the sand? Have you microscoped them?

Sorry, I should have included that.
ORP 316
Salinity 35.5

How did you check salanity? Was it a calibrated tool? How did you calibrate it?

pH 7.95
Temp 78.1
I'll check Ca and Mg tonight, but I just did a 15 gallon water change so I'd expect them to be fine at the moment. I have 3 acans and some zoas all of which aren't anywhere near the hammer that I just lost. The flow is only dialed up 3 notches on the Vortech under short pulse. Anymore than that seems too strong for my nano (26g).

To strong how? Sand blowing around or something? Coral closing?

I use carbon as well. I guess maybe it's time for an API test.
Thank you!
Joy

API tests are not very good. Good for trends, not a hard number.
If* those are dino, take out the carbon. Let's dirty up that water.

Here are the results from today:
Nitrate (Hanna checker) 0 ppm
Ammonia and Nitrite 0 ppm

No more need for ammonia and nitrite tests in an established system.

Mg 1600 ppm
Ca 350 ppm
Alkalinity 11.2 dKH

Very high, can you get that down to 8ish? What salt are you using?

I can't find my phosphate checker which is very annoying.

Definitely need that test to proceed. If you have dino, need to raise this number to minimum 0.1ppm before doing anything like raising nitrates.
Zero nitrates is NOT the end of the world. My tank runs on 0 nitrates all day all night everyday 24/7/365 and nothing's dying yet. Click on my profile to go to my tank thread.
But the old school way of raising nutrients is start with phosphates follow with nitrates it will steer your tank the way you want to go. If you raise your nitrates before phosphates generally bad things happen and we don't want to go down that path.

But I don't use any media to get rid of it and my corals aren't bleaching so hopefully I have a little bit. When I first set up my tank I bleached a bunch of corals because my light was too strong and I didn't have any phosphates. Lesson learned the hard way.

I wouldn't say I do regular water changes. Once a month probably.

Again if you have Dino's, you don't want to do any water changes, this is a good thing.

I don't have a lot of frags. 3 acans, a button scoly, blastos, 8 frags of zoas. But I run carbon. I have a Kessil A150 on the tank and a Vortech MP10 on a very low setting. I run the light from 11 AM to 7 PM.

Only 8 hours of lighting, that's kind of short but I guess it depends on your light and how bright they are and what your par levels are at.

I'm not dosing any trace elements at the moment, but I can start doing that.

I also would advise you not to dose any Trace elements at this point until we fully understand that you do have dinos or not.

I'm just taking pictures on my phone so the quality is horrible. I didn't bother cleaning the sand bed so you get the full actual picture. I've got a UV sterilizer in there for the dinos on the sand bed (not working obviously). I have the Kessil at 100% intensity.
PAR:
Top/middle of rock structure is 316

Good number

Euphyllia was at the mid right where the Court Jester Goby is 120
Scoly at the bottom 129
Zoa rock at the bottom left was 91

Acans and scoly seem fat and happy.

The hammer polyp is now sitting on the sand bed. It's try to extend it's polyps even though it's literally not attached to the skeleton anymore. This is the 4th time it's happened to me.

Some zoas:

I have some aminos I can start dosing today. I was worried to add more food because I don't want to fuel the dinos, but I care about my corals more.
Thank you all so much for the help!

It's just so odd that all of the other corals look good and then I put a Euphyllia in there and it literally tries running away.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has responded! I really appreciate it! :)

 

[majority_rules]

Thank you for your reply!

- I have an APEX and monitor ORP, Salinity, pH, and temp with it.
I haven't calibrated the probe for salinity.
- Yeah, if I raise the flow in my tank even at medium the sand on the far side blows around.
-I'm using Aquaforest Hybrid Pro salt.
- Sorry, I mean to say ATI ICP test. I've done it a few times now and should probably just do it again.
- I just checked my phosphate and it's at 0.06. I guess I should raise that with some product.
- Here are some pictures of what look like different types of dinos.

 

[Dburr1014]

Thank you for your reply!

- I have an APEX and monitor ORP, Salinity, pH, and temp with it.
I haven't calibrated the probe for salinity.
- Yeah, if I raise the flow in my tank even at medium the sand on the far side blows around.
-I'm using Aquaforest Hybrid Pro salt.
- Sorry, I mean to say ATI ICP test. I've done it a few times now and should probably just do it again.
- I just checked my phosphate and it's at 0.06. I guess I should raise that with some product.
- Here are some pictures of what look like different types of dinos.

Okay.

Get the water dirty, it's not the end of the world. I am not the best person or identify Dino's, that phosphate up to 0.1 and nitrates up too. Hopefully someone will Id them and we can get a plan together.

@taricha have an idea what dino?

 

[majority_rules]

Maybe amphodinium?

 

[Shirak]

Maybe amphodinium?

You need an inexpensive microscope to really ID them. UV filter will work if it's the kind that have a swimming stage. If not you will have to find other treatments. Nuisance algae forum has a lot of information on Dino's. You could also start a thread and ask for specific help.