Torch coral died. I have questions

exnisstech · Jul 24, 2022

Greetings all. I don't have much experience with euphilia except a couple frogspawn I have that are fine. I purchased a hellfire torch a while back and it has died. It did well for a week or so then just withered away. It smelled terribly rotten and was obviously dying so I pulled it from the tank. My question is about the skeleton. Shouldn't there be individual heads? I didn't realize it looked like this until after it died. It was fragged the day I purchased it but I did not see the mother colony as the entire coral was fragged into 3-4 head frags. I could be way off base here but looking at the skeleton I don't see individual heads and wonder if these are new young heads that never should have been cut and sold or was it unhealthy to start? I'm just trying to educate myself so I know what to look for in a torch before purchasing should I decide to try again. Shown are a screen shot of a video from the day after I got it. And obviously the skeleton. The red x was a head I tried to remove to save but it just crumbled. Thanks in advance

Kristopher Conlin · Jul 24, 2022

The separations in the skeleton is how it splits to form new heads. As long as when it was cut from the mother colony they cut through old skeleton and not through flesh connecting this frag to the mother it shouldn't have been a factor in it dying.

I would still have let the store hold onto the freshly cut frag for a week or so to make sure it survived. Sometimws not all heads will survive being fragged.

How did it wither away? Did it just shrink in on itself? Did the polyp bail out off the skeleton? Or did it jurn into a brown jelly.

exnisstech · Jul 24, 2022

Kristopher Conlin said:
The separations in the skeleton is how it splits to form new heads. As long as when it was cut from the mother colony they cut through old skeleton and not through flesh connecting this frag to the mother it shouldn't have been a factor in it dying.

I would still have let the store hold onto the freshly cut frag for a week or so to make sure it survived. Sometimws not all heads will survive being fragged.

How did it wither away? Did it just shrink in on itself? Did the polyp bail out off the skeleton? Or did it jurn into a brown jelly.

All tentacles from one head disappeared then the brown jelly set in. There was one head that still looked pretty healthy but the skeleton was so week it just crumbled when I tried to remove it. Was using a dremel with a diamond wheel, not bone cutters. It was an impulse buy and I had to make the decision in the moment because all the frags were going to the LFS and it would have been much more expensive there. Not that it matters now but its the excuse I tell myself lol.

Kristopher Conlin · Jul 24, 2022

Unfortunately it may have not liked being fragged and then moved right away to a new environment. If you water parameters and par were different then the place came from. The shock of being fragged on top of the move may have been too much for it.

I'm not sure about helfires specifically. But as an example there is an orange hammer I got from cherrycorals. And they said the frags have about a 50/50 survival rate after being cut.

If you want a good healthy frag in the future I would definitely make sure it was fragged a week ago or more to make sure its stable. You also want to check how far the flesh reaches down the skeleton as it's a very good indicator of health. You want about an inch of flesh below the tentacles.

Unhealthy