What is the actual secret to long-term success with Euphyllia?? Please share!!

VintageReefer

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 16, 2023
Messages
14,420
Reaction score
26,808
Location
USA
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
Thank you!!!! Yeah I can't wait for
them...allowed me to get a few more torches I really didn't have room for. Lol. Do you know if the back magnets for those racks can be submerged?
Forgot to ask him.
I would ask to be sure. I dont think the backs are sealed but he might be able to do that as an option
 

Saffer1

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 18, 2024
Messages
20
Reaction score
35
Location
Durban, South Africa
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I also believe hammers like water a little 'dirty'.

My tank's nitrates are always on the high side, between 15 and 20, while phosphate is currently 0.15. Water flow is medium at most.

I do keep Mg quite high, 1400-1500, CA 475, KH 8-9, PH 8.2.

This toxic green hammer grew from two heads to the extent that I had to frag. After I moved it the other day, one of the heads was damaged, I stuck the little fragment onto a rock and it's doing well so far.
 

Attachments

  • 20250123_130513-1.jpg
    20250123_130513-1.jpg
    274.4 KB · Views: 28
  • 20250123_130540-1.jpg
    20250123_130540-1.jpg
    209.6 KB · Views: 20

Reef Puncher

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 23, 2024
Messages
609
Reaction score
344
Location
Raleigh, NC, United States, north carolina
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
the secret is KFC dip. it will save them 9/10 times. Euphyllia are the most susceptible to infections. and KFC dip or this new joker dip sold in asia, are the only fixes. until i bought the kfc dip materials from kung fu corals, i would lose euphyllia. it all stopped once i started kfc dipping.
 

Red_Beard

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
2,105
Reaction score
3,205
Location
Utah
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
the secret is KFC dip. it will save them 9/10 times. Euphyllia are the most susceptible to infections. and KFC dip or this new joker dip sold in asia, are the only fixes. until i bought the kfc dip materials from kung fu corals, i would lose euphyllia. it all stopped once i started kfc dipping.
I like the honey mustard. how about you, or do you like the ranch or bbq? ;)
 

VintageReefer

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 16, 2023
Messages
14,420
Reaction score
26,808
Location
USA
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
Who if you wouldn’t mind me asking?

If the lid you need isn’t on the website, then use the custom form in the website menu to give the info and mention you heard about them on the R2R forum. They will reach out to get more info if needed and to provide a quote

Here is my latest lid from them, it’s for a Waterbox 15 peninsula. It was approx 70$

They also make the custom lids on my 75g reef and for others on the forum
6EB185AE-846D-40DC-B7FF-D740E49BA3CD.jpeg
71661C25-4245-4F8C-A77B-652825DD49D8.jpeg
8A31F952-FB96-4887-8305-4F3BA4D7A71F.jpeg
EDA84C7F-5266-4C2F-923F-A28F126E4692.jpeg
3DBFE6B4-6BAE-4AD2-A26C-B05C784FDE0C.jpeg
 

purpfish

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 20, 2024
Messages
299
Reaction score
300
Location
idaho
Rating - 0%
0   0   0

If the lid you need isn’t on the website, then use the custom form in the website menu to give the info and mention you heard about them on the R2R forum. They will reach out to get more info if needed and to provide a quote

Here is my latest lid from them, it’s for a Waterbox 15 peninsula. It was approx 70$

They also make the custom lids on my 75g reef and for others on the forum
6EB185AE-846D-40DC-B7FF-D740E49BA3CD.jpeg
71661C25-4245-4F8C-A77B-652825DD49D8.jpeg
8A31F952-FB96-4887-8305-4F3BA4D7A71F.jpeg
EDA84C7F-5266-4C2F-923F-A28F126E4692.jpeg
3DBFE6B4-6BAE-4AD2-A26C-B05C784FDE0C.jpeg
Wow that’s impressive
 

Dragen Fiend

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 24, 2024
Messages
704
Reaction score
794
Location
United States
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I found feeding every week really boosted my torch. When I first started, even with all my parameters within acceptable ranges. My coral would be slightly retracted and less wavy. After a mysis feed session. Its perked back up again. And my nitrates were always around 10 and phos 0.1- 0.05. So its not like it was starving.

It lasted about 7 months. I think I'm to blame because I moved it between 3 tanks. And likely died from stress. Now I have more torches that are thriving after learning. Just don't mess with them lol.

IMG_0352.jpg


IMG_0449.jpg
 
OP
OP
R

ryukendoK

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 29, 2024
Messages
26
Reaction score
34
Location
USA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Wanted to share another update:

I've upped the dosage to 5ppm ammonia and .2 ppm phosphate a day, and just fed my hammer for the third time today. The tissue recession has stopped completely and is now starting to reverse! The head with the worst of it is now growing the flesh band back over the green part of the skeleton. So so happy about this--this is the first time I've ever reversed any problem with euphyllias, so thank you guys so much for your advice.

I've found that feeding the hammers with a pair of tweezers and pushing/spreading the bits of shrimp over the tentacles is better than feeding them with a turkey baster/dropper and shooting the shrimp onto the tentacles with a burst of water, somehow the heads don't seem that scared of a piece of moving food ruffling their tentacles as opposed to a burst of water.

Now Nitrates at the end of the day have accumulated to about 1ppm, and phospate to just detectable (less than 0.03ppm). I'm gonna keep the current dosing regime, or maybe reduce it by ~20% so that the stock of N and P in the water remains stable and doesn't keep increasing indefinitely.

All my SPS are also much appreciating this increase in nutrients, my pink stylo has colored up nicely and the pale areas of my pink pocillopora have become darker day by day.
 

Dburr1014

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
May 8, 2016
Messages
11,840
Reaction score
11,572
Location
CT
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
The head with the worst of it is now growing the flesh band back over the green part of the skeleton.
I don't think that is a thing. Do you have any pics currently?

I do believe 100% they can be reversed but growing back over the green part I don't think this what you're seeing. I believe that may stop recession and the coralite keeps growing up and the flesh will stay where it is appearing to be growing down.

But I'm very happy that they are reversing!
 

VintageReefer

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 16, 2023
Messages
14,420
Reaction score
26,808
Location
USA
Rating - 100%
2   0   0
I don't think that is a thing. Do you have any pics currently?

I do believe 100% they can be reversed but growing back over the green part I don't think this what you're seeing. I believe that may stop recession and the coralite keeps growing up and the flesh will stay where it is appearing to be growing down.

But I'm very happy that they are reversing!
I have a torch that was in bad shape in a neglected system and the fleshband was completely gone

I moved to my main tank hoping the fleshband would regrow. Instead, the torch grew a new skeleton on top of the old head. It did continue vertical growth and made a new trunk and flesh band, on top of the old head. Wild stuff
 
OP
OP
R

ryukendoK

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 29, 2024
Messages
26
Reaction score
34
Location
USA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I don't think that is a thing. Do you have any pics currently?

I do believe 100% they can be reversed but growing back over the green part I don't think this what you're seeing. I believe that may stop recession and the coralite keeps growing up and the flesh will stay where it is appearing to be growing down.

But I'm very happy that they are reversing!
I don't mean that the coral is growing back down the skeleton, just that the flesh band has expanded back down beyond the recently-receded white area back into the green part just by a little bit, so that some of the skeleton under the flesh is green and that is visible through the transparent flesh.

I've been continuing with the current setup (dosing ammonia and phosphate) and feeding by gently brushing the euphyllia with long, thin pieces of sliced shrimp, and they've increased so much in the quantity of flesh over the past week its crazy. Feeding them without using a baster/dropper but just gently placing the shrimp on their tentacles using a tweezer really really works, now I don't even have to turn off the pumps and they successfully eat 100% of the time, even frozen and thawed shrimp too. Probably because they have more protein their gold tips have become much brighter too. And the whole head is much darker in color. Very happy with how they're doing now!
 

Zuluuz

New Member
View Badges
Joined
May 12, 2024
Messages
13
Reaction score
11
Location
Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I really love Euphyllias, especially hammers and torches, but have lost every single one that I've got typically over the course of several months, and the one I have now is starting to show slow but steady tissue recession of the flesh band on one of the polyps. The Euphyllias I've gotten seem to do fine for several months to half a year, but all begin showing tissue recession of the flesh band a few months in, while the polyps are fully inflated. Eventually the polyps begin to retract during the day, a little bit at first and then more and more. Finally the heads begin dying off, with flesh slowing peeling off the skeleton over the course of a week, starting with one polyp and progressing to the rest. At the advanced stage of this I often take the coral out to dispose of it, and the skeleton smells sufurous, even though there is no BJD.

I'm not the only one with this problem--it seems R2R is absolutely inundated with threads on Euphyllia flesh bands receding, or Euphyllia heads retracted and eventually peeling off the skeleton (not even more severe problems like polyp bailout or BJD, just decline in flesh band followed by coral death). For example, just today I saw two threads at the same time on this phenomenon on the front page:


I know my husbandry is not perfect--my alk has fluctuated from 6-8 over the course of weeks, and I have persistently low nutrient levels even though I dose about .3ppm ammonia and .03ppm phosphate per day. But some of the tanks with this phenomenon have perfect parameters (e.g. the second link I posted), and others have tried treating the tank with cipro to no avail.

What is the actual secret to keeping Euphyllia happy over the long term (years), so you can grow basketball-sized Euphyllia? Even tanks with perfect parameters get tissue recession, or even BJD! How do long-term successful keepers of tanks full of giant Euphyllia do it??!?!?! Please share your experience, I'm sure it will help so many reefkeepers here.
 

sawdonkey

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 8, 2014
Messages
2,207
Reaction score
3,426
Location
Chicago
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I’ve kept my tank phosphate 0-.05 for over a year and my torches grew great. From one head to 8

Hammer from 2 head to 20

I now keep my phosphate .3-.5, and am experiencing the same growth rates

So I don’t believe it’s phosphate levels at all.

Nitrates have been 2-20 and I’ve not had corals impacted.

I don’t really have a secret…I feed them 1-3x a week. I keep them mid flow, and 150-250 par

I’ve moved them from mid level to sandbed and find they adapt fine

You may have a bacterial issue. I had bjd one one came in a bad shipment and that spread in my tank until I treated the entire tank with cipro for 7 or 8 days

I’m with you on this. I don’t find torches or hammers very sensitive to anything. My tank is mostly SpS, but probably considered a little dirtier water than your typical stick tank.

My torches reproduce like crazy. I give away 5-10 head dragon soul colonies somewhat often. I didn’t pay for most of the acros in my tank because I grew an expensive torch into an huge colony and traded about 30 heads of it for tons of acros. I mostly grew this out when my tank was stabilizing after a move, going through Dino’s etc….and I grew it out in my sump!

In my experience, euphilia is not that impacted my flow, nutrients, light, etc. even though I have a pretty successful SPStank, my alk does fluctuate sometimes due to laziness, and the euphilia doesn’t blink.
 

Enad

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 22, 2022
Messages
302
Reaction score
127
Location
Portland
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thank you so much for all of your answers, I think I have a lot clearer picture of what was going on. Want to give you guys an update, but before that just a tank history and what I've done to troubleshoot my issues.

A link to some photos that show my tank looked like several months ago:

The tank was started in Feb last year, and is a 10gal. I call it RK's "Red algae coral paradise" hahaha.

As you can tell the tank has a large amount of red algae that is one of the centerpieces of the aquarium, and only has two tiny fish, a sharknose goby (that I never see) and a Yasha goby. Nitrates and phosphates have always tested at zero on a salifert test kit since the tank started.

To keep at least some nutrients available, I've fed heavily with reef roids, about 1/4 of a teaspoon every day. I reasoned that the ammonium and phosphate ions released from the breakdown of this food would allow some quantity available for the corals to use, even if the overall standing stock of N and P was almost undetectable. I actually had pretty good success with this method, and my first euphyllia, a green hammer, was growing, albeit slowly. That euphyllia was fed with diced shrimp once every two to three days. The tank was dosed with all-for-reef put in the topoff water in a gravity-fed auto-top-off. Dkh was very stable around 7 for a long time, due to the constant drip.

While I was away for several months, I got a friend to take care of my tank. This friend has a very different approach to reefkeeping, and liked to feed very large amounts of powdered coral foods more infrequently. One time, this triggered a bacterial bloom. The euphyllia started to decline a few days later. I think this is a pattern--a bacterial bloom followed by euphyllia decline also happened in the friend's tank, with actual brown jelly. My tank and the friend's tank shared some equipment, which could explain how the bacterial issues got over.

I dosed cipro, but was not able to stop the decline. I threw that coral out eventually. The decline did not spread to a frogspawn nearby, however. In July this year, I got a batch of corals from Barrier Reef Aquariums, and one of them, a pink poci, had RTN in the bag. I was deciding whether to put it in or not, and decided--against my better judgement--to put it in. The other two corals I got in this batch--a pink stylo, and another hammer, almost immediately got STN.

At the same time, the frogspawn now started to decline, becoming retracted, only slightly less expanded in the beginning, but becoming more and more shrunken, eventually with the tissue sloughing off. I was not able to save it.

I went through another in-tank cipro treatment with no effect. I noticed the STN on my poci and stylo would get worse whenever I fed extra large doses of reef roids. Eventually, I stopped the reef roids feeding, and switched to dosing phytoplankton instead of reef-roids for my filter feeders (a yellow filter-feeding sea cucumber and a feather duster). To add N, I switched to dosing nitrates in my auto-top off water, about 2ppm a day. The tank appeared a lot cleaner, and the STN on the pink stylo and pink poci appeared to slow drastically, if not stop completely. The tissue recession on the euphyllia continued, however.

About a week ago, I switched to dosing ammonia in my top-off water. I have been able to dose up to 5ppm ammonia a day without any nitrate reading becoming visible, and plan on going even higher. My alk consumption almost doubled, to >18ml all-for-reef a day. The polyp extension on all my corals has improved dramatically--its very interesting, the pink stylo finally looked fuzzy with all its polyps out at the same time, and the candy cane would put its tentacles out every time a few glugs of ammonia-rich water come down from the gravity-fed ATO. The pink stylo has finally started getting fluorescent pink tentacle tips on its polyps (similar to the purple of milka stylos). I also fed the remaining hammer, the one from barrier reef aquariums, with diced shrimp for the first time.

Today, it seems like the tissue recession on my hammer has stopped or slowed as well. The hammer's tissue got a few shades darker brown in color literally overnight after I fed it. It also looked a lot puffier--the flesh band on the polyp where the tissue recession is worst actually has some thickness to it for the first time since forever.

I don't know if my conclusions are right, but just some tentative conclusions here:
1. There is probably a bacterial issue in my tank. The worst of it was probably stopped by cipro, but the microbiome is probably still bad/"fragile" in some way.
2. When I was feeding reef roids, the organics in the water probably made the problem a lot worse.
3. All throughout this time, my hammers and frogspawn were probably starving. Corals actively transport N and P into their tissue, and with such low ammonia low nitrate and low phosphate it probably took a lot of energy for them to do that, so that there was little or no tissue growth and no energy left to maintain a good microbiome in their mucus layer and fight off disease. All my other hard corals (montis, stylos, leptoseris, stylocoenellia, acans, blastos, duncans) seem to have less problem but probably corals vary in how efficiently they transport nutrients into their tissue, with sps especially being very good given the low nutrient waters they come from. (corals and other animals, including us, maintain a good microbiome by spending energy to secrete compounds into their mucus, e.g. in our guts).
4. Keeping a slightly elevated level of ammonia in the aquarium probably helps all my corals preserve their energy and direct the excess towards growth and tissue buildup. Draining their energy by having low N and P probably lets pathogenic bacteria get the upper hand.

Will continue updating things. My current plan is to continue upping the dose of ammonia and phospate, and to feed my hammers on a regular schedule. These are just my current thoughts on what might be going on.


Could you let me know what ammonia supplement you're using? I'm thinking of trying this myself.

I'm having a similar issue, though maybe not as severe. I have a large Hammer garden and generally speaking, they're all booming and look amazing, but recently one randomly receded and died within a day after looking beautiful and puffy up until then. This obviously got me worried because it's been a while since I lost a perfectly healthy hammer. Typically, I see signs of decline, but this one looked amazing, it just must've just been slowly receding its flesh band until it reached the point of no return. In any case, I took all my Hammers out and did a CoralRX dip as a precaution.

I definitely had a flatworm issue on them, however I'm unsure if they were true Euphyllia eating flatworm but regardless I'm sure they played into the issue. Ultimately, with many of my hammers, I noticed they had greatly receded flesh bands, though a few still had huge flesh bands so I can't pinpoint an exact issue, but I would still like to try some methods to improve the overall health.
 

BryanM

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 27, 2024
Messages
1,555
Reaction score
1,905
Location
Morgan Hill
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
I can add personal experience I've gone through right now.... I had bottomed out nutrients, dinos outbreak, and everything looking sad, lost a couple items in the process.

I went from no nutrients to 23 nitrates, .3 phosphates, in a fairly short timespan (less than two weeks), and it was a massive improvement.

Due to chatting with Vintage I also have automated alk test/dosing and maintain right around 9 dKH... and am a believer that alk stability is a big component.

But my dirtier water really perked everything up.
 

Reeferbadness

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 2, 2019
Messages
621
Reaction score
647
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I've had issues with torches / hammers in the past - most ended up being flow related. Too much, no bueno, not enough, also not good. I keep Alk relatively stable (8.75 - 9.25) Phos 0.02 - 0.08 and Nitrate is always a struggle to keep at 5ppm (i dose due to refugium sucking so much up). Currently have 2 or 3 torches with 20+ heads, same with hammers.

IMG_2688.png
 

arcangelreef32

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 23, 2023
Messages
18
Reaction score
5
Location
canada
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I don't think that is a thing. Do you have any pics currently?

I do believe 100% they can be reversed but growing back over the green part I don't think this what you're seeing. I believe that may stop recession and the coralite keeps growing up and the flesh will stay where it is appearing to be growing down.

But I'm very happy that they are reversing!
I used to believe this as well..
Until I witnessed flesh growth down old skeleton on a green torch of mine. It seemed to grow flesh about 1"-1.5" down from its original flesh band it had when i received it. It was just a single polyp. It then proceeded to start growing like mad in multiple directions.
This pic was taken in may 2024, if you look real close you can see the dark black/brown old skeleton underneath the flesh band. I wish i had a pic of it when i first got it to really show you, but i assure you that flesh grew down old skeleton.
This torch colony is now the size of a football, its probobly 16-20 polyps.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_3607.jpg
    IMG_3607.jpg
    238.2 KB · Views: 7

TOP 10 Trending Threads

ON A SCALE FROM 1-10, HOW MUCH DO YOU LOVE REEFING?

  • 10 - It's one of the things I love most in life!

    Votes: 88 32.5%
  • 9

    Votes: 35 12.9%
  • 8

    Votes: 54 19.9%
  • 7

    Votes: 43 15.9%
  • 6

    Votes: 10 3.7%
  • 5 - I enjoy it, but I could live without it if I had to.

    Votes: 32 11.8%
  • 4

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 2 0.7%
  • 1 - I'm not sure why I am still in this hobby...

    Votes: 6 2.2%
Back
Top