ecas12
Community Member
I have had a green torch with two heads for about 5 months now. Since I have had it, my tank has been a high nutrient environment, with phosphates averaging 0.3 ppm and nitrates ranging from 20-25 ppm, and I never saw any issues until recently. I went on vacation for a couple of weeks and came back to my tank super elevated in nitrates and phosphates, which was also causing my other torch and hammer (my only other two LPS) to stay closed. I managed to reduce my phosphates and nitrates back to the state they were in before I left and my other LPS have opened up again and look happy. However, the green torch has remained closed, and now one of its heads has started to completely wither and die. I have noticed over the past few weeks the tips of green polyps in my sand and rockwork. I dipped all three corals in KoralMD after I got back from vacation to see if there was a potential pest problem and did not find anything (this is also confirmed by the fact that my other LPS are doing fine). What is going on? I have been working on reducing my nutrients more, and all my parameters have been stable. Here is some additional info on my tank:
(1) Parameters as of 6/3/2023
-Nitrate: 22.3
-Phosphate: .38
-pH: 8.3
-Magnesium: 1360
-Calcium: 420
-Alkalinity: 8.4
-Salinity: 1.025
(2) The rise in phosphates while I was gone has contributed to a hair algae breakout in my tank that I have been working on fixing with the addition of GFO and manual removal.
(3) I have not noticed any bleaching or browning on the green torch, and I have moved it around my tank to optimize the flow and lighting it has gotten since its started looking worse, but nothing has worked. It started to look bad even in the original spot I had it in when it was fully extended.
(4) The barnacle you can see on the right side in all the pictures has been there since I got the green torch and I don't believe has ever caused it any problems.
(5) One head looks like it is definitely done for, but both heads are completely closed up and the polyps look completely deflated.
(6) There are no fish in my tank that pick on the LPS.
Let me know if there is any additional information that can help solve this. I tried to do some research into potential diseases but didn't see anything that met the conditions for any common LPS diseases.
(1) Parameters as of 6/3/2023
-Nitrate: 22.3
-Phosphate: .38
-pH: 8.3
-Magnesium: 1360
-Calcium: 420
-Alkalinity: 8.4
-Salinity: 1.025
(2) The rise in phosphates while I was gone has contributed to a hair algae breakout in my tank that I have been working on fixing with the addition of GFO and manual removal.
(3) I have not noticed any bleaching or browning on the green torch, and I have moved it around my tank to optimize the flow and lighting it has gotten since its started looking worse, but nothing has worked. It started to look bad even in the original spot I had it in when it was fully extended.
(4) The barnacle you can see on the right side in all the pictures has been there since I got the green torch and I don't believe has ever caused it any problems.
(5) One head looks like it is definitely done for, but both heads are completely closed up and the polyps look completely deflated.
(6) There are no fish in my tank that pick on the LPS.
Let me know if there is any additional information that can help solve this. I tried to do some research into potential diseases but didn't see anything that met the conditions for any common LPS diseases.
