Why are my acans dying?

Joe31415

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I've had several acans in my tank for a while now. They all went through my invert QT with no issues and have been fine in my DT for several months after that.
However, since then, one frag has been doing just fine (and it's sitting just about directly in the path of a powerhead if that makes a difference). It's the other two that are having problems.

I have one 'colony' for lack of a better word. It started with probably 30 heads, but over the last few weeks the ones around the bottom edge have started dying off. It happened essentially overnight as well. When I saw it, I just assumed something brushed up against it or was picking at it and that it would be fine after a day or two. Not only is it not fine, it's getting worse. More of the heads are dying back and there's algae growing off the skeleton. I have this sitting directly on the sand so the light is as low as it can be without it being in a shadow and there's just a bit of flow from a pump mounted up and away from it.

The other acan, since I've had it, has had two heads with another 3 or 4 little tiny ones that seem to come and go, but have never fully opened. It was also doing fine until the last few weeks when the heads started to take on an oval/squished shape and now appear to be almost falling apart.

Neither of these are close enough to anything else that could be doing this kind of damage (and especially not all the way around the big one on the sand).

As for my numbers, here's the most recent readings I have on everything:
Alk 8.10
pH 8.30
Nitrate 3.05
Phosphate 0.060
Calcium 422
Magnesium 1475
(These are taken from a new tester (Mastertronic), but they do look, more or less, the same as when I was using Hanna/Salifert/Nyos testers)

I promise I'll get some pictures up as soon as I'm home. All I have right now is a picture I took for my own reference the day I got the big colony (which I see was exactly 5 months ago).
 

vetteguy53081

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Several reasons are:
High alk
High salinity
High calcium
Too much flow
Bright light intensity
Pests
Getting stung
 
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Joe31415

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They need to be fed.
I do tend to overfeed my tank so they should certainly be catching some of that. I add some frozen food as well as pellet/dried food to the water each day (and plenty of blows around for a while). Then, after the lights are out, I dump in some (live) baby brine shrimp 4 or 5 times a week and some phyto or ReefEnergy or Roids/Chili once or twice a week when I think of it.
I do occasionally directly feed them, but it it blows away or if I turn off the pumps, all the inverts try to steal it.

I should probably try putting a container over the top of it while it's being fed. Just to give it some time to catch more of the food.
 

HuduVudu

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I do tend to overfeed my tank so they should certainly be catching some of that. I add some frozen food as well as pellet/dried food to the water each day (and plenty of blows around for a while). Then, after the lights are out, I dump in some (live) baby brine shrimp 4 or 5 times a week and some phyto or ReefEnergy or Roids/Chili once or twice a week when I think of it.
I do occasionally directly feed them, but it it blows away or if I turn off the pumps, all the inverts try to steal it.

I should probably try putting a container over the top of it while it's being fed. Just to give it some time to catch more of the food.
You need to feed them directly. Do this ... about an hour after your light has gone out then take a flashlight and look at them. They should have their feeding tentacles out. Put food directly on the mouths and keep all of the other things that want to eat the food away until the mouth can fully engulf the food. The stronger they get the quicker they will take down the food.
 

Mr. Mojo Rising

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since you mention that the one acan doing well is front of a powerhead, how is the flow in your tank? Lack of flow can sufficate a coral, just an idea to look into.

Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words.
 

undermind

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I assume those are just general rules, not anything specific to what I mentioned, right?
That's right. Those are general copy/paste rules that aren't specific to your situation or post.

Acans (technically micromussa's) are pretty tricky IMO. When you search the forums, there isn't a lot of known causes or solutions that appear when people post issues. That said, I might be suspicious of a bacterial infection or worms. Dips can be used to check on bacterial infections. And you said that yours is on the sandbed, so that could be easy enough. Worms are kind of a wildcard. I've seen people mention cutting into the skeleton and finding worms inside that appeared to be eating the lords from the inside out.

I'm not suggesting these are the causes in your case. But since I actually read your entire post and took note of your params and situation, I'm of the opinion that there don't seem to be params that are really out of whack. And while I agree that lords need fed, I don't think that a lack of direct feeding to every mouth would cause the die off you're seeing. It's something more sinister than hunger.
 
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Joe31415

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Picture time:

The Acan, that's doing just fine, in front of a powerhead:

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The acan that seems to have become oval shaped and now appears to be falling apart:

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Now for the big one. It may be a bit hard to tell as the 'top' of the colony looks fine, but you can see skeleton all the way around the bottom edge, under the algae:

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It's out of water here, so the heads looking odd isn't unexpected:

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The bottom, which I think looks pretty normal, but I've never paid much attention to it:

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Here's how it looks it situ (but after I was handling it for the pictures:

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And as a reminder, here's how it looked when I got it.


And here's a link to all the pictures in case you can't see them here.
 

KK's Reef

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It's lost a lot of its original blue color and looks to be predominately orange. Too much light perhaps and/or not enough nutrients in the water.
 
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Joe31415

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It's lost a lot of its original blue color and looks to be predominately orange. Too much light perhaps and/or not enough nutrients in the water.
It actually seems to bounce back and forth between mostly red with some blue and mostly blue with some red. Also, in some of those pictures, I had it in a container of tank water, outside of the tank with a flashlight on it. That way I wasn't taking a picture through the glass, the water and the tank lighting.
 

STEEZY

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Bacterial infection by the way it appears to be slowing withering away at the edge. I would try Lugols iodine dip. And maybe cut off some of the skeleton without flesh. That part may be optional idk, it worked for me.
 

Llorgon

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How is the acan doing?

I've gone through a similar thing a few times with some acan frags. For me, I found the biggest factor was placement. They seem to be pretty temperamental about flow. There are just some spots in my tank where they slowly die back like that, but I can move it 1 inch to the left and boom it's happy.

If you haven't already I would try to move it around. It can take a couple weeks to know if it's happy, but that has been one of the biggest things for me. I literally have a empty spot in my acan garden between 2 acans because nothing is happy there.

I'd also say feeding. When I have an acan that's not doing great I try to up the feeding. Usually a few times a week with reef roids is what I use. I turn the pumps off and put it directly on the mouths. In my experience it can be day or night. They always eat.

Hopefully it comes back for you. It's a nice looking colony!
 
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Joe31415

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It's actually doing even worse now.
I did a dip in Lugols. I also did a quick H2O2 dip to see if I could get some of the algae off it.
A few days later I noticed my Halloween crab picking at it. I don't know, however, if it's the culprit or if it was just scavenging. In either case, I put the whole thing in a shallow glass bowl so the only things that can get to it are fish and snails. The crabs can't climb up the side of the glass bowl (though I have seen that Halloween crab trying a few times).
I'd have to compare the previous pictures to what it looks like now, but I believe it's since lost another row of polyps.
Even target feeding it with Super Eggs or LPS Grow pellets hasn't helped. It reacts to them and appears to be eating them, but it's not getting any better.
I can try moving it to see if that helps.
Maybe higher (it's on the sand right now). I can probably just set the bowl on something to bring it up a few inches (which will provide a bit more flow at the same time).
 

Llorgon

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That sucks. Moving it might help. I have mine on the sandbed and they are all happy. When I do get one that isn't happy for long periods of time I switch it around with one that is happy. If it puffs up I know it was the placement and if it's still unhappy I know its something else.
 

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