Need help with a torch

[goku]

I have an Electric Grail Torch one of the heads Shrink a little yesterday. I didn't think about it too much until today it's showing a little more skeleton What should I do. And also this is red thing on the side. Should I worry about that?

dKH 11 PPM KH 196.9
salinity 1.026
PPM calcium 300-320
Phosphate 0.25 PPM
Nitrate 5.0 PPM
Ph 7.8

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

I think your alk is a little high and your calcium is pretty low. Any idea what your magnesium level is? Magnesium helps buffer the two.

I would shoot for 9 dkh on alk and 400-450 or so calcium.

Do you have any other LPS corals in the tank? How long have you had this torch?

I don’t see the red thing you are talking about.

Sometimes with my torches a head will shrink at the end of the photoperiod, but they never show skeleton and are fine the next day.

Do you have any fish or shrimp that could be picking at it?

 

[goku]

I think your alk is a little high and your calcium is pretty low. Any idea what your magnesium level is? Magnesium helps buffer the two.

I would shoot for 9 dkh on alk and 400-450 or so calcium.

Do you have any other LPS corals in the tank? How long have you had this torch?

I don’t see the red thing you are talking about.

Sometimes with my torches a head will shrink at the end of the photoperiod, but they never show skeleton and are fine the next day.

Do you have any fish or shrimp that could be picking at it?

I think your alk is a little high and your calcium is pretty low. Any idea what your magnesium level is? Magnesium helps buffer the two.

I would shoot for 9 dkh on alk and 400-450 or so calcium.

Do you have any other LPS corals in the tank? How long have you had this torch?

I don’t see the red thing you are talking about.

Sometimes with my torches a head will shrink at the end of the photoperiod, but they never show skeleton and are fine the next day.

Do you have any fish or shrimp that could be picking at it?

I have a peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp , 2 clownfish and, Yellow tail damsel, One black striped damsel and, fire fish I had it for 2 weeks now I Thought it was being attacked by Bristle worms. I'm not able to test for Magnesium. Thank you for the fast response.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

No problem. In my experience hammers, torches, frogspawns, etc (euphyllias) like higher levels of magnesium.

Your calcium is also fairly low which could be contributing to the problem.

I don’t think any of those fish would pick at it, but the shrimp could. Are you feeding the coral by any chance? If you are the shrimp may be going over to steal the food and damage the coral.

As far as the bristleworms, they are scavengers/clean up crew and in my experience only go after a coral if it is dead/dying. I’ve never had a bristleworm attack a healthy coral.

It’s still really hard to see the red thing. Is it an aptasia?

 

[goku]

I do have another torch that Been there for like 3 months.

I have a peppermint shrimp and a cleaner shrimp , 2 clownfish and, Yellow tail damsel, One black striped damsel and, fire fish I had it for 2 weeks now I Thought it was being attacked by Bristle worms. I'm not able to test for Magnesium. Thank you for the fast response.

No problem. In my experience hammers, torches, frogspawns, etc (euphyllias) like higher levels of magnesium.

Your calcium is also fairly low which could be contributing to the problem.

I don’t think any of those fish would pick at it, but the shrimp could. Are you feeding the coral by any chance? If you are the shrimp may be going over to steal the food and damage the coral.

As far as the bristleworms, they are scavengers/clean up crew and in my experience only go after a coral if it is dead/dying. I’ve never had a bristleworm attack a healthy coral.

 

[goku]

there is aiptasia And the tank but it's not on the Torch.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Ok, is the red thing like a hard tube? It could be a vermetid snail.

If it’s a vermetid you can break off the shell. It could be sending out its web and irritating that one head.

 

[goku]

It looks hard I never touched it. I believe it has gotten bigger and I think I did see something poke out of it once.

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Ok, search vermetid snail and spirorbid worms on the internet.

If it looks the same then you need to get rid of the snail. You can break off the hard tubing or try putting some super glue over the hole.

 

[goku]

OK, thank you so much. How should I help the torch Recover? I'm worried because I lost one of my torches too I believe brown jelly disease I Did see one brown spot the torch polyp

 

[Catawba_Valley_Reef]

Well I’m hoping that if that worm/snail is irritating it and you stop it, then the torch will recover.

If it’s not that causing the issue and you do have brown jelly disease then I’m not exactly sure what to do.

I don’t have personal experience with BJD thankfully. I know some people use antibiotics to deal with it. You could try fragging it if it’s only affecting one head.

If you do have BJD you might want to post a new thread with that in the title and hopefully others will chime in.

 

[goku]

Well I’m hoping that if that worm/snail is irritating it and you stop it, then the torch will recover.

If it’s not that causing the issue and you do have brown jelly disease then I’m not exactly sure what to do.

I don’t have personal experience with BJD thankfully. I know some people use antibiotics to deal with it. You could try fragging it if it’s only affecting one head.

If you do have BJD you might want to post a new thread with that in the title and hopefully others will chime in.

Ok, thank you and God bless you.

 

[VintageReefer]

First off I think you are getting some good advice. Based on what we see and know

I don’t know what the red thing is and can’t see it. Can you move the torch closer to the front glass and take a pic of the red thing under whiter light ? Then you can put the torch back

Also bristleworms won’t attack the torch. But peppermint shrimp can.

Magnesium is important for torches and for balancing alkalinity and calcium. I have heard from many people torches like elevated magnesium levels so I suggest you plan to get a magnesium test kit to find out if this is a factor or not

Everything in post 4 is correct.

 

[goku]

First off I think you are getting some good advice. Based on what we see and know

I don’t know what the red thing is and can’t see it. Can you move the torch closer to the front glass and take a pic of the red thing under whiter light ? Then you can put the torch back

Also bristleworms won’t attack the torch. But peppermint shrimp can.

Magnesium is important for torches and for balancing alkalinity and calcium. I have heard from many people torches like elevated magnesium levels so I suggest you plan to get a magnesium test kit to find out if this is a factor or not

Everything in post 4 is correct.

Thank you. But it kind of sucks because I had to frag one of the heads because because 1 of them had brown jelly disease. But I'm hoping the other ones don't get it. What should I do if the peppermint shrimp does attack the torch?

 

[VintageReefer]

Thank you. But it kind of sucks because I had to frag one of the heads because because 1 of them had brown jelly disease. But I'm hoping the other ones don't get it. What should I do if the peppermint shrimp does attack the torch?

Torches and lps should be fed, and the shrimp eat the same food. It’s a learned behavior. Shrimp tend to “go crazy” for food once it’s put in the tank. I find peppermint shrimp to be more shy, therefore safer, but they can learn and sense that corals have food in them, and the only thing between them and food, is the corals flesh. They (not all) can learn to pick at a coral mouth to get to the food in the stomach. Happened to me with two sexy shrimp, and cleaner shrimp. I haven’t tried peppermint but read plenty of the same reports behavior.

Once they start you can’t stop them, they have to be rehomed to a sump or another tank, or you give up on certain coral. The tank is a small space and an ecosystem that needs to be balanced and not everyone always gets along perfectly.

 

[goku]

Torches and lps should be fed, and the shrimp eat the same food. It’s a learned behavior. Shrimp tend to “go crazy” for food once it’s put in the tank. I find peppermint shrimp to be more shy, therefore safer, but they can learn and sense that corals have food in them, and the only thing between them and food, is the corals flesh. They (not all) can learn to pick at a coral mouth to get to the food in the stomach. Happened to me with two sexy shrimp, and cleaner shrimp. I haven’t tried peppermint but read plenty of the same reports behavior.

Once they start you can’t stop them, they have to be rehomed to a sump or another tank, or you give up on certain coral. The tank is a small space and an ecosystem that needs to be balanced and not everyone always gets along perfectly.

Ok thank you, But I'm worried for my other Torch corals. I don't want the BJD to spread. What do you think I should do? Thank you.

 

[VintageReefer]

Ok thank you, But I'm worried for my other Torch corals. I don't want the BJD to spread. What do you think I should do? Thank you.

Ensure the other torches are healthy

And you could treat the tank with coral infection elimination - it’s a 3-5 day non pharmaceutical supplement that is effective against bjd in many cases. It is also useful as a dip and I have saved several torches that had bjd or signs they would get it soon. You can also treat the tank, I’ve done it on my mixed reef several times and I know people doing tank treatments monthly just to be proactive. The us distributer for it is joker corals

 

[goku]

Ok thank you and God bless you.

 

[twentyleagues]

First off you need to post closer up pics of the coral and red thing in white light for a better idea of what is going on. If it is BJD then all your euphyllia are at risk. I tried to combat BJD externally in a tote with a couple different treatments and they seemed to work, for a while. I finally gave up as every time I treated the corals they would stop dying and start to look better but once in the tank they would be fine for a week or two and it would start again. I finally just treated the whole tank with cipro. I have roughly 100g of actual water I used 2 500mg cipro pills in 100ml of water. I dosed 7ml of the cipro to the tank daily for 10 days straight. I turned the skimmer off and I dosed the cipro when the tank was dark, there is about 6 hr of total darkness on my tank where there is no lights on at all I run a reverse light schedule on my fuge but its not as long as tank lighting. I wanted to go with a prolonged treatment and at a higher dose but this is basically what I followed. My euphyllia have never looked better and its been almost 2 months since treatment.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/in-tank-cipro-dosing.888786/
I was afraid of dosing antibiotics in tank I was worried I'd hurt the tank or other stuff in the tank but everything seems health and perfectly fine. The tank has been running about 1.5 years now and there are quite a bit of corals and not a lot of fish so if it did hurt the biological filter the corals and macro algaes were able to handle any increase in ammonia if there was any, I did not see any amount on a standard test.

 

[twentyleagues]

Ensure the other torches are healthy

And you could treat the tank with coral infection elimination - it’s a 3-5 day non pharmaceutical supplement that is effective against bjd in many cases. It is also useful as a dip and I have saved several torches that had bjd or signs they would get it soon. You can also treat the tank, I’ve done it on my mixed reef several times and I know people doing tank treatments monthly just to be proactive. The us distributer for it is joker corals

I got some of that when you posted in another thread. I have not used it as I did not get it until after I did the in tank cipro treatment and I have not needed it since. I am glad I have not needed it but I may use it when I upgrade tanks and transfer corals over just in case.