Why did my torch die?

[DowntownJosh]

Hi there,

Pretty bummed to be posting this, but my awesome 2 headed dragon soul torch that I bought from Reef a Palooza on Saturday is now dead(way to waste $200). Can you help me understand why it died, and why all the rest of my coral are thriving, and have no issues?

I brought the torch home on Saturday (I live in orlando, so not a long drive), and followed the standard acclimation and dip process. I placed the frag down at the bottom of my tank. After a couple hours he opened right up and looked great, fully extended. I also bought a bubble gum monti and a trachy that are both doing great still.

Last night I noticed that he had partially closed up, but didn't think much of it, thinking maybe a hermit or something crawled over him.

Today I get home from work, and hes bone white with bits of arms floating all around the tank.

What killed him?

My current parameters:

Salinity(Hanna): 1.026
Temperature(Inkbird): 78.4
PH(Miluakee): 8.0
Alkalinity(Hanna): 8.8
Calcium(Hanna): 495
Phosphate(Hanna): 0.0
Ammonia(Salifert): 0
Nitrite(API): 0
Nitrate(API): close to 0 (tough to say with API kit)

Tank info: 10 weeks old Red Sea 250. I do once or twice a week water changes of 5-10 gallons. I have Softies/LPS/SPS all in the tank doing fine. I dose Brightwell A and B weekly to maintain my PH, otherwise it will drop to 7.8 or so. Lately I have noticed a good number of diatoms growing on the bottom of the tank, and try to vacuum those up during water changes.

Help!!

 

[BuddhaReef]

Livestock?

 

[DowntownJosh]

Livestock?

I have 4 fish (2 clowns, 1 coral beauty, 1 tomini tang). I have about 25-30 other coral. Zoas, Hammer, candy canes, mushrooms, acans, cloves, favia, monti, birdsnest, trachy, etc. All of that is doing great. the Zoas are growing a ton of polyps, the cloves are growing like weeds, etc)

 

[dmy535]

Nitrate and phosphate at 0 isn’t good. But within 2 days wouldn’t kill it that quickly.... hard to say. Maybe just the shipping stress caused the bail out?

You didn’t lost your magnesium level?

 

[DowntownJosh]

Nitrate and phosphate at 0 isn’t good. But within 2 days wouldn’t kill it that quickly.... hard to say. Maybe just the shipping stress caused the bail out?

You didn’t lost your magnesium level?

Yeah ive never checked that because it wasnt in the api or hanna kits. Guess i need to get a checker for that haha.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Coral beauty. Mine never touched literally any coral until I got some Xenia. The movement action on softies drove him nuts. Id bet the tentacles of the torch when fully extended were the same. Some of them are super duper fish but some coral they just won’t leave alone.

 

[MaxTremors]

This can be part of the issue of buying corals at these kind of shows. It probably got transferred to different tanks/conditions at least 3 times in the period of a few days (original tank, to show tank, to your tank), if not more, and was likely pretty stressed. How warm was it when you drove it home (is there any possibility it got too hot or too cold from air conditioning)? Was it in too much or too little flow? There’s so many variables that it’s impossible to say for sure what happened, but barring any issues with parameters, those are the possible reasons I would look into (which is of little use after the fact, but might be considerations in the future). Also, having that many corals in a ten week old tank might be a bad idea. Even if your params are good when you test, a ten week old tank just isn’t stable or established, at least not to the point where you should be putting $200 corals in it. I’d wait about four or five months before adding anything expensive just to make sure you have sustained stability.

edit: I second the coral beauty, didn’t see you had one, they are well known for picking at corals, a stressed coral getting picked at can be enough for the polyps to bail.

 

[DowntownJosh]

This can be part of the issue of buying corals at these kind of shows. It probably got transferred to different tanks/conditions at least 3 times in the period of a few days (original tank, to show tank, to your tank), if not more, and was likely pretty stressed. How warm was it when you drove it home (is there any possibility it got too hot or too cold from air conditioning)? Was it in too much or too little flow? There’s so many variables that it’s impossible to say for sure what happened, but barring any issues with parameters, those are the possible reasons I would look into (which is of little use after the fact, but might be considerations in the future). Also, having that many corals in a ten week old tank might be a bad idea. Even if your params are good when you test, a ten week old tank just isn’t stable or established, at least not to the point where you should be putting $200 corals in it. I’d wait about four or five months before adding anything expensive just to make sure you have sustained stability.

edit: I second the coral beauty, didn’t see you had one, they are well known for picking at corals, a stressed coral getting picked at can be enough for the polyps to bail.

yeah the vendor was from the west coast "Harrys Marine Life" so it's possible it was very stressed by the time it got to my tank. It did not get very hot or cold in the car, and was back to my house within 20 minutes from coming out of the tank at the show. I then followed the WWC coral acclimation process and used the brightwell drip. I didn't notice the coral beauty nipping and he hasn't done that with any other coral, but I suppose it could be possible over night. But yeah, you are right, I'm going to avoid any expensive additions for quite some time. Thanks for the responses.

 

[Gtinnel]

While I agree with others that your tank is too young to start putting expensive corals into it, I would suspect if you saw pieces of the tentacles floating in the tank that your coral beauty probably ate it. Even a stressed coral in an immature tank probably wouldn't die within a few days, also how stressed could it have been if it opened up when first put into the tank.

I had a copperband butterfly that started eating one of my hammer corals and the first thing I noticed was pieces of hammer coral floating in the water.

 

[DowntownJosh]

While I agree with others that your tank is too young to start putting expensive corals into it, I would suspect if you saw pieces of the tentacles floating in the tank that your coral beauty probably ate it. Even a stressed coral in an immature tank probably wouldn't die within a few days, also how stressed could it have been if it opened up when first put into the tank.

I had a copperband butterfly that started eating one of my hammer corals and the first thing I noticed was pieces of hammer coral floating in the water.

well when I got home it looks pretty dead and I put my tweezers in to pick it up, and the rest of it just disintegrated and floated all around the tank. Just seems odd if a fish nipped at it, it would just immediately melt away.

 

[Gtinnel]

well when I got home it looks pretty dead and I put my tweezers in to pick it up, and the rest of it just disintegrated and floated all around the tank. Just seems odd if a fish nipped at it, it would just immediately melt away.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something here but are you saying it seems odd that that the coral could have died if a fish was eating it???

IME pieces of coral floating around the tank are often a coral that is being eaten, and since your tank has a fish that is know to potentially eat corals then that is my best guess of what happened.

 

[DowntownJosh]

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something here but are you saying it seems odd that that the coral could have died if a fish was eating it???

IME pieces of coral floating around the tank are often a coral that is being eaten, and since your tank has a fish that is know to potentially eat corals then that is my best guess of what happened.

I'm saying I think it would be weird if a small fish took a bite from a coral that it would just immediately melt away, the coral beauty is smaller than the torch.. I believe the pieces of it, mostly came from when I touched the coral it all just floated away (the dead flesh was just sitting on top of the bones of the coral). But I suppose anything is possible.

 

[reefinnewb]

I'm saying I think it would be weird if a small fish took a bite from a coral that it would just immediately melt away, the coral beauty is smaller than the torch.. I believe the pieces of it, mostly came from when I touched the coral it all just floated away (the dead flesh was just sitting on top of the bones of the coral). But I suppose anything is possible.

I would say it was on its way out when you got it home. There shouldn't be any flesh coming off of it.

On a side note, Torch Corals are one that for some reason never keep for me. I have a Frogspawn of about 30 heads, a hammer, and a large Octospawn; all thriving. I've tried a torch twice, failed both times. I've been keeping reefs for 16ish years... this is the only coral i've tried to keep more than once an it died.

 

[DowntownJosh]

I would say it was on its way out when you got it home. There shouldn't be any flesh coming off of it.

On a side note, Torch Corals are one that for some reason never keep for me. I have a Frogspawn of about 30 heads, a hammer, and a large Octospawn; all thriving. I've tried a torch twice, failed both times. I've been keeping reefs for 16ish years... this is the only coral i've tried to keep more than once an it died.

huh well good to know, I didn't realize they were a difficult coral to keep. Wont be trying them again any time soon haha

 

[Uncle99]

Stoney corals don’t do well in early systems, or at least, for me.
Once I get beyond 8 months of maturity, everything seems to thrive.

 

[reefinnewb]

I don't think they are particularly difficult as a coral. It's just one that I haven't had luck with. They were both from the same LFS so could possibly been unhealthy to begin with. I see plenty of people keep them without issue.