Torch head suddenly missing

dnprall · Jul 20, 2024

I’ve had some issues with my long standing torches lately. Thought it was low salinity and I got that fixed. Then, my wife sends me a picture where two heads look just gone. This happened suddenly overnight! This guy has been happy for many months.

Let’s just assume that my parameters are ok for sake of argument.

This isn’t affecting the entire animal. There isn’t brown jelly. Just sudden list of two heads.

Could large blue knuckle hermit crabs cause this? I have a peppermint shrimp and skunk cleaner shrimp which have been around for a long time and never went after corals. I have a clownfish, yellow watchman with pistol shrimp, and a Threadfin cardinalfish.

Thoughts? What could suddenly take out coral heads?

MnFish1 · Jul 20, 2024

Sometimes they detach - and re-attach somewhere else. (rarely) in an aquarium. It could be a disease, coral warfare or another problem - its difficult to know - are you sure it happened suddenly?

dnprall · Jul 20, 2024

MnFish1 said:
Sometimes they detach - and re-attach somewhere else. (rarely) in an aquarium. It could be a disease, coral warfare or another problem - its difficult to know - are you sure it happened suddenly?

Thanks for the reply!

Yes. The pictures are 2 days apart and I know that it was intact last night before bed.

Has just been frustrating. Lost some of my OG torches/duncans/hammers without obvious cause. Others of the same species are doing well. Other types of corals appear happy. No change in lighting etc.

Maybe one of life’s mysteries.

dnprall · Jul 21, 2024

MnFish1 said:
Sometimes they detach - and re-attach somewhere else. (rarely) in an aquarium. It could be a disease, coral warfare or another problem - it’s difficult to know - are you sure it happened suddenly?

@MnFish1

Funny story. You can see two clumps of the torch in this picture. They just up and detached. The weird thing is that the head that let loose is on the opposite side of the where the clumps are and against the water flow so I have no idea how they got there. Who knows. Maybe they will attach. Hopefully nothing bothers them.