Frogspawn dying

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

About 2 months ago I bought a nice sized frogspawn coral at a LFS and it was doing great for about the first month. I noticed the change in its health after I replaced one of my powerheads with a more powerful one. I believe it was to much flow for the coral, once I saw that the coral no longer had any flesh around the skeleton i unplugged the powerhead, and ordered the original powerhead. 1 head extends a little bit whereas the other 2 seem to be severally damaged and won't extend.

I checked my parameters and they seem to be good. None of my other corals have been effected by this.

Please help, how do I revive it

HotRocks · Jul 17, 2018

First off Welcome to R2R!

Can you post your water parameters? I am not as well versed in coral as I am fish. The people who are will need to know these things in order to help.

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

HotRocks said:
First off Welcome to R2R!

Can you post your water parameters? I am not as well versed in coral as I am fish. The people who are will need to know these things in order to help.

I would but my LFS tested my water (they are great people, I trust them, they use high quality tests ie not api) however I did find it weird that about 3 weeks ago they tested my alk at about 5. And yesterday they tested it at 15, after I did a water change.

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

I plan on doing another 50% water change In a couple days after I use flatworm exit to get rid of all the flat worms in my tank

HotRocks · Jul 17, 2018

#reefsquad

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

Here's what I do know

Calcium 420
Ph 8
Alk 15 (supposedly)
Nitrates/ nitrites very little
Phosphates very little to none
Salinity 1.026
Temp 81

DSC reef · Jul 17, 2018

If your alk was truly at 5 then 15 then there's some serious issues. What are you using to test alkalinity, what's your salinity? How old is the tank?

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

I think my lfs uses salifurts

Salinity is 1.026

Tank is around 8 months old

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

DSC reef said:
If your alk was truly at 5 then 15 then there's some serious issues. What are you using to test alkalinity, what's your salinity? How old is the tank?

Just tested myself it's at 10

Diesel · Jul 17, 2018

If I look to the skeleton of your frogspawn there is something serious going on.
Besides the Alk thingie which I think is a testing error due to the ridiculous high # of 15 I’m looking also at the flatworms and the use of FWE.

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

Diesel said:
If I look to the skeleton of your frogspawn there is something serious going on.
Besides the Alk thingie which I think is a testing error due to the ridiculous high # of 15 I’m looking also at the flatworms and the use of FWE.

I have not yet used the flatworm exit, I plan on using it soon though

Robink · Jul 17, 2018

Welcome to R2R!!
You should be testing your own water, especially if you are keeping coral. I like the Red Sea or Salifert test kits, don't get the API.
Do you dose calcium and alk or are you just maintaining these through water changes?
Euphyllia corals can't handle high flow they do better in low flow.
I don't like Flat worm exit, I would get a wrasse to get rid of the pests. A melanarus or yellow coris wrasse should take care of those for you.
Check out Randy Holmes thread on ideal water parameters for reef tank.

Robink · Jul 17, 2018

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm
Here's the link for water parameters.

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

I don't believe that my parameters are the problem

THX1138CY · Jul 17, 2018

Flatworms are your problem.

DSC reef · Jul 17, 2018

Cameron Hansen said:
I don't believe that my parameters are the problem

I believe your parameters have a lot to do with it. I'd suggest getting kits and doing your own tests so you can keep an eye on stability

Cameron Hansen · Jul 17, 2018

DSC reef said:
I believe your parameters have a lot to do with it. I'd suggest getting kits and doing your own tests so you can keep an eye on stability

I have my own kits, I just find it easier to go to my LFS. But this problem started when I changed the powerhead

DSC reef · Jul 17, 2018

I'm sure that didn't help but if you want to keep coral then it's a good idea to test often. Hope you get it sorted out.

Diesel · Jul 17, 2018

Cameron Hansen said:
I have not yet used the flatworm exit, I plan on using it soon though

What kind of FW you have, post a pic.

biophilia · Jul 17, 2018

If you're just keeping hardy corals, it's no big deal to just have your LFS run a general test of your parameters once every few weeks, but I would definitely start testing the alkalinity yourself unless you're able to have your LFS do it consistently once every couple days. The Salifert alk test kit only takes 30 seconds to use and will last you a few months even testing daily. It's the only parameter in a reef tank that absolutely needs to be tested more than once or twice per month IMO. If your alk really swung from 5 to 15 to 10 DKH over a short period of time, it's something you need to be testing daily and honing in on a good dosing regimen to keep it relatively stable.

Flatworm exit may or may not work, but make sure you siphon out as many of them as you possibly can before dosing it so you don't risk nuking your tank when they die off. I've put red planaria flatworms in a 50/50 mix of flatworm exit and saltwater for two hours before and found them to still be crawling around just fine...