Why did my Euphyllia (Hammer and Torch) corals die?

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jpbeen

jpbeen

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A pump of any type will vary depening on the size of tank, and how you have rocks, corals placed, and where you place your pumps.

It's always best just to look at your corals. They do talk in their own sign language. It take a lot of eperience to understand them, and you always keep learning with new Corals.

In your case, you care about some Euphylia. If they are opening up then your flow is fine.
Mushroom will open up huge if not enough flow. Just two examples.

If you have dead spots in flow that is where you will always get the more concentrated Cyano. Build up of sediment.
It's really tough to eliminate all dead flow spots in any tank.

That's where maintenance cleaning comes into play.
Once every while you show blow off the detritus (dust) off you rocks. No need to scrub.

And if you have a sand bed that will need regular cleaning. Either sifting it yourself during water changes, or getting clean up crew to sift it for you.
I personally have struggled with Sand Bed many years. Never could keep up.
Sure I love the powdery white Sand bed look, but it never was powdery white for long.
So I gave up on Sandbed in one tank. Problems went away. Not all my Tanks are Glass bottom and I'll never go back.

AGAIN. The best thing you can do for your tank is leave it alone. Only fix, adjust thing when there is a problem you understand and know how to fix. Sometimes the fix can just be patience. Certainly Stability is key to success.

To close on the Cyano topic. I too HATE Cyano. Sure I've used Chemiclean, and actually only a few months ago when my cyano was just getting too ugly. That was the worst thing I did. At first I thought nothing went wrong, but shortly afterwards things didn't do too well. Maybe it was the ChemiClean, or maybe just bad luck.

One product I do trust for Cyano is Cyano Clean.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reefing/Cyano-Clean
I just ordered some again, since I have a Cyano problem that I can't stop.
It's a good bacteria that will out compete the Cyano Bacteria. It's works slowly. Take weeks and daily drops. It has worked for me every time, since it actually increases good bacteria when the treatment is done.
You must get the right amount. 10ml bottle is for small tanks. I get the 50ml bottle for my 110Gallon tank.
It's expensive!! (Maybe the Dr. Tim's that was suggested above works just as well for way less $)
I use it with Coral Snow as a agent.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/korallen-zucht-coral-snow.html
Both together work well, and Coral Snow can be used for keeping your water sparkly clean in between water changes. I can't really say Coral Snow is a good product for regular use, but I always have some handy for doing the Cyano Clean treatment.


All the best.
Thanks for all the helpful information. I will order some today.
 

WallyB

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Thank you so much for that information. I had a really bad cyno outbreak that had started to cover my blue candy cane coral, so I kind of panicked. I am running 2 MP40 power heads at 50%, should I lower them?
One more thing.
Cyano will NEVER cover a Living Coral.
It only covers the Dead parts of a Coral.
So if you Candy Cane is covered by Cyano, it's not the Cyano that hurting your coral.
Your coral Candy Cane has died is some of the areas, and those newly exposed dead parts (Skeleton) are where the cyano covered.

Here is another example going back 15 years ago. Another Tank 90 Gallon.

This was the Tank about 3-4 months old.
IMG_9799.JPG


This was just before I started adding Junk to my tank. First Year of the tank.
The corals were pale so I wanted to feed them with Magic Potions to make them grow and get colors.
2015-05-11-LEDonly.JPG


Then I Got the Cyano Outbreak. The worse Ever since I was feeding the Corals Powdered food like crazy.
Notice the rocks are covered in Cyano, but the cyano STOP where the LIVING Coral starts.

CyanoOutbreak.jpg


Now want to see something scary when you continue to feed and polute you tank.
And this wasn't a week of poluting tank with Garbage Additives, this was a year.

This is what happened next, right after the Cyano outbreak. GHA (Hair Algae Outbreak)) NASTY STUFF!!

IMG_3840.JPG


So now you may feel a little better that you tank isn't doing as bad as it you think.

I eventually fixed things up by tearing apart the whole tank. Scrubbing the Algae off the rocks and putting evertyhing back.
2016-03-19_BasementNewFrag-AlgaeClean.jpg



So enjoy your tank since all tanks go thru ugly stages till it matures and you learn to stop trying to fix it (quickly).
Tanks will fix up when they age NATURALLY, Slowly, and over months, not days or weeks.
And that maturity easily take 2 years if not more.
 
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Oregon Grown Reef

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One more thing.
Cyano will NEVER cover a Living Coral.
It only covers the Dead parts of a Coral.
So if you Candy Cane is covered by Cyano, it's not the Cyano that hurting your coral.
Your coral Candy Cane has died is some of the areas, and those newly exposed dead parts (Skeleton) are where the cyano covered.

Here is another example going back 15 years ago. Another Tank 90 Gallon.

This was the Tank about 3-4 months old.
IMG_9799.JPG


This was just before I started adding Junk to my tank. First Year of the tank.
The corals were pale so I wanted to feed them with Magic Potions to make them grow and get colors.
2015-05-11-LEDonly.JPG


Then I Got the Cyano Outbreak. The worse Ever since I was feeding the Corals Powdered food like crazy.
Notice the rocks are covered in Cyano, but the cyano STOP where the LIVING Coral starts.

CyanoOutbreak.jpg


Now want to see something scary when you continue to feed and polute you tank.
And this wasn't a week of poluting tank with Garbage Additives, this was a year.

This is what happened next, right after the Cyano outbreak.

IMG_3840.JPG


So now you may feel a little better that you tank isn't doing as bad as it you think.

I eventually fixed things up by tearing apart the whole tank. Scrubbing the Algae off the rocks and putting evertyhing back.
2016-03-19_BasementNewFrag-AlgaeClean.jpg



So enjoy your tank since all tanks go thru ugly stages till it matures and you learn to stop trying to fix it (quickly).
Tanks will fix up when they age NATURALLY, Slowly, and over months, not days or weeks.
And that maturity easily take 2 years if not more.
I'll take a picture of my 40 breeder that's been set up for probably 6 months, but it's bare bottom, so it's definitely going through a long stage of uglies. I haven't done a water change in a couple of months, but I had/have dinos, so that tells me I don't need to do one yet. I'm patient though. I've reacted to my tanks too quickly only to find out that I should have take a slower approach and let nature run it's course.

That pic of the hair algae is gnarly. Thankfully, I've never had to deal with that as I know it can be worse than dinos even, but you took the right approach.

(OP) There is so much information on this forum. Search the forums for dealing with cyano. Don't read just the first one; read several. There is always a common denominator on how to deal with these issues. Most of the time, it's consistency and patience. If you're embarrassed about your tank being dirty looking, don't be. Just explain that it's part of the cycle. You started an ecosystem from scratch, and now it has to mature and develop. One day, you'll notice there's less of the ugly stuff and everything is looking better. The next day you'll be sitting 2 inches away from your tank trying to see all of the life that's growing and thriving, and you'll be in awe of what is possible with a little patience.
 
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jpbeen

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One more thing.
Cyano will NEVER cover a Living Coral.
It only covers the Dead parts of a Coral.
So if you Candy Cane is covered by Cyano, it's not the Cyano that hurting your coral.
Your coral Candy Cane has died is some of the areas, and those newly exposed dead parts (Skeleton) are where the cyano covered.

Here is another example going back 15 years ago. Another Tank 90 Gallon.

This was the Tank about 3-4 months old.
IMG_9799.JPG


This was just before I started adding Junk to my tank. First Year of the tank.
The corals were pale so I wanted to feed them with Magic Potions to make them grow and get colors.
2015-05-11-LEDonly.JPG


Then I Got the Cyano Outbreak. The worse Ever since I was feeding the Corals Powdered food like crazy.
Notice the rocks are covered in Cyano, but the cyano STOP where the LIVING Coral starts.

CyanoOutbreak.jpg


Now want to see something scary when you continue to feed and polute you tank.
And this wasn't a week of poluting tank with Garbage Additives, this was a year.

This is what happened next, right after the Cyano outbreak. GHA (Hair Algae Outbreak)) NASTY STUFF!!

IMG_3840.JPG


So now you may feel a little better that you tank isn't doing as bad as it you think.

I eventually fixed things up by tearing apart the whole tank. Scrubbing the Algae off the rocks and putting evertyhing back.
2016-03-19_BasementNewFrag-AlgaeClean.jpg



So enjoy your tank since all tanks go thru ugly stages till it matures and you learn to stop trying to fix it (quickly).
Tanks will fix up when they age NATURALLY, Slowly, and over months, not days or weeks.
And that maturity easily take 2 years if not more.
Great advice! Thank you very much.
 

Kenneth Wingerter

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jpbeen

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I’m Batman

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Cyano will NEVER cover a Living Coral.
It only covers the Dead parts of a Coral.
Sounds like you're starting a dinoglagellate outbreak. I dose NeoPhos, but have the hanna ULR phosphorus meter. I started dosing neophos in small amount, 1.5ml 2x (20g subtract live rock maybe 14g?) The biggest jump in Po4 I've seen was from broadcasting reef rods. Everybody says feed more, I was feeding LRS Reef Frenzy 3x a day and didn't see Po4 budge. Buy a cheap ton of reagents, I've been through almost 50 tests in the last month, it's time to order more.
 

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I just dosed my tank with chemiclean with no real problems. I actually overdosed to make sure I got it because it was looking annoying to me. I manually syphoned as much as I could out so that it would not produce a lot of waste.

I did the skimmer trick where you skim into a bucket to make sure you get everything else. I did about a 20% water change then another 3 days later.

I have been in the same position as you OP. Just relax and let your tank stabilize. Don't too much at one time.

WallyB is correct in everything that He said above. Try sticking with one method so that it doesn't interfere with your other cleaning methods.

Get yourself some acans, when they are looking bad. It usually tells you your phosphates are too low. Just keep feeding more to naturally bring it up. (its fun to overfeed too)

good luck op
 

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