Torch experience.

[DanC40]

Hello everyone.
I wanted to ask if anyone has experienced losing a torch coral over a period of hours. It had been flurishing had new heads growing then all of a sudden when i went to do a water change 2 heads had melted completely and 2 other heads had brown jelly.
It happen so fast. I ended up throwing the colony away as it looked to far gone. Very sad it was looking so good very heart breaking and discouraging. I asked my local fish store and they say thats a common issue with torches. The torch was next two other torches so i am concerned it might have spread. Should i be worried? I follow bjd coral removal protocol as not to spread diseased tissue but who knows what had already came off already. Any advice would be greatly appreciated .

My parameters.
Temp 77-76
Salinty 1.025. Currently raising it to 1.026 a little bit every day. From 1.024
Ph night 8.3 day 8.4
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1.5ppm
Phosphate. . 08ppm
Alk. 9.66
Calcium 437 ppm
Magnesium 1347. Was recommended to bring it up to 1500 by someone since a scoly was receding. Came receded.
170 gallon innovative marine tank
With all the works
Skimmer
Neptune systems
Refugium
Algae scrubber
C02 scrubber
Radion 6
G6 lights and neptune
Skylight.

 

[blaxsun]

Hammers, yes. Torches, so far no. Alkalinity could be a tad high (most of us try to keep it around 8.5 dKH). Not sure about 1500 for magnesium (I think 1400-1450ppm is probably a safer level). Do you know what your actual PAR readings are where your torches are (were)?

 

[DanC40]

The torches are on the sand bed par around 100. I measured it with th3 seneye. The weird things is i got it it was a signal head then it grew 3 more heads and was doing good. The only thing i can think or is thqt the tentacles sometimes would twist off. Maybe infection. Im just surprised it went south fast.

 

[MamaMolo]

Did you make any change to your lighting recently? Based on your parameters I would say Alk is high for having low nutrients. Also if you run chaeto I’d be careful with raising magnesium. High mag will kill chaeto

 

[Shibaken3]

I would assume the water change caused it to die. I don't know how you do yours but was the new water in good temp, was the salt mixed thoroughly, etc.

Edit: did it start to die after the water change or before?

 

[DanC40]

No changes to light schedule or anything. I did the water change after i pulled the diseased coral. Correction my nitrates last week where 3.1ppm and phosphates. 07ppm
I test nitrate and phosphate weekly and log everyrhing. Could if been crabs. I have quite a few hermit crabs and emerald crabs cleaner shrimp.
Im kinda a scared to mess with anything cause the rest of the euphyllia are growing good nice flesh bands and everything. I did do a bayer dip a few w3eks ago cause the torches had alot of flatworms on the polyp. But then after it was good opened up right away. I examined the flesh band and it was healthy. Idk guess its one of those things. I mean it use to happen with fresh water fish all of a sudden a fish would die for no reason and everything would be good. I think maybe would be best to just monitor as if i start tinkering I may stress the others. Im just baffled. I have the kfc dip on hand in case the others start to show signs. I really hope more dont die.

 

[Dave1993]

torches like dirtier water likee 10-15ppm nitrate

 

[peterdc]

I'm afraid it will be difficult to find the true reason behind the loss. A few things to keep in mind with torches specifically:
- alkalinity above 8.3
- stability is key
- watch them closely for tissue retention => KFC dip!
- crabs can eat corals, especially at night
- a torch can seems to be happy and fully inflated when it's dying

I'm only doing torches for a while now, so I feel your pain :-(

cheers
Peter

 

[Bucs20fan]

So torches love nitrates, the more the better, trust me. The only thing I have experienced that can kill any euphyllia that fast is a bacterial infection. Hours seems pretty fast, but generally within 2 days a bad infection will leave you with nothing but goo left.

 

[Pkunk35]

Sorry for the loss, I just lost a splitting triple head last night. Fwiw I think my issue was little too much light, too much flow for a long time and then a phosphate drop (bottle ran out) caused it to go downhill and start to polyp bail (I was on 4 day vacay), I did WC and the coral started to melt 24 hours later.
In my experience the key is a expanding/growing flesh band below the tentacles. Without this growth (I usually see it grow down the branch) I think the torch is not living optimally but can exist this way for a while. Many of my torches that have died were while they were splitting. Very frustrating…
Do you feed your torch? Spot or broadcast if so? Just curious.

 

[Pntbll687]

Hello everyone.
I wanted to ask if anyone has experienced losing a torch coral over a period of hours. It had been flurishing had new heads growing then all of a sudden when i went to do a water change 2 heads had melted completely and 2 other heads had brown jelly.
It happen so fast. I ended up throwing the colony away as it looked to far gone. Very sad it was looking so good very heart breaking and discouraging. I asked my local fish store and they say thats a common issue with torches. The torch was next two other torches so i am concerned it might have spread. Should i be worried? I follow bjd coral removal protocol as not to spread diseased tissue but who knows what had already came off already. Any advice would be greatly appreciated .

My parameters.
Temp 77-76
Salinty 1.025. Currently raising it to 1.026 a little bit every day. From 1.024
Ph night 8.3 day 8.4
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 1.5ppm
Phosphate. . 08ppm
Alk. 9.66
Calcium 437 ppm
Magnesium 1347. Was recommended to bring it up to 1500 by someone since a scoly was receding. Came receded.
170 gallon innovative marine tank
With all the works
Skimmer
Neptune systems
Refugium
Algae scrubber
C02 scrubber
Radion 6
G6 lights and neptune
Skylight.

So I had multiple torches and hammers get brown jelly last week. I was able to save a few, but some melted in a matter of hours.

The ones I saved I dipped in a mix of amoxicillin, cipro, hydrogen peroxide, and iodine.

What started it all. My hippo tang, bit my dragon soul torch. I watched it happen, and thought what the heck was that?? Brown jelly started about an hour after that. It spread to a torch next to it. Got in thw water column and spread to some wall hammers across the tank. It sucked.

Treated the coral after removing the heads that were dying. Also did a large water change and treated the tank with chemiclean. Why chemiclean? because it's an antibacterial, and pretty much everything we seem to know about BJD is that is probably bacterial.

 

[ADAM]

If there’s no other corals giving a visible issue it’s likely bacterial infection. Now what lead to the infection is probably the “smoking gun”. If they’re on the sand bed where the tentacles were consistently rubbing along the sand, or rubbing a piece of rock work nearby, this could cause abrasions on the flesh which would stress the coral. Fish/crab/ shrimp picking at the torch could also be to blame for added stress. The stressor weakening the coral to the point the “bad” bacteria were able to outcompete the “good” is definitely a possible scenario.

Most would likely say to do a chemiclean treatment. I’d be inclined to do so if any sign of further coral health


Stability is key… “Coral” likes more or less of “X” is opinion. Just as many torches doing well in 7.5dkh as there are in 12dkh and everything in between… same goes for every other element. If all corals are looking bad then searching for chemistry issues is likely the first step, but 1 seemingly random coral dying while other flourish is often something other than slight differences in “correct” element levels.

 

[DanC40]

@ADAM. I think you have a point there the torch in questjons was close to a rock. Maybe too close. So im thinking of rescaping so that I can mount them off the sand bed as i think the sand may irritate the polyps makes sense in this case because the torch had long tentacles that would constantly sway against the rock. I didn't think of it at the time but now that u mention it. Also the heads that had more jelly and completely melted where on the side of the rock. Sucks that i had to kill a coral to learn this. So far no other torch or euphyllia is sick. I watch like a hawk.
I do broadcast feed foundation reef energy ny redsea. Every now and then i do baby brine. I tried mysis but stopped because i noticed the crabs and shrimp would aggressively go after it and rip it out. Now when i feed i feed them to keep them distracted and use feeder cover. Thank you everyone for your advice.