Is my candy cane RTNing???

[esmith]

Can someone tell me what is going on here? I came home today to find that one head of my candy cane looks completely white and I can see the skeleton of it. Is this RTN, or something else?

Nothing has gone on in the tank recently, and the water parameters are: [ul][li]Ca = 395[li]Alk = 7.65dkh[li]PH = 8.4[/ul]

The PH usually gets up to about this level (8.4) during the day, and then drops at night down to ~8.1 - 8.2. Everything else in the tank looks great, and I have been getting some crazy coraline algae growth, and corals, recently.

Anyone have any thoughts, or suggestions?

Oh yeah, I've had this for about 4 months.

Thank you,

Eliyah

 

[big t]

Hey E

It looks like it is a bit upset. I had one that was like that and it bounced back after about 2weeks. It could be unhappy w/ many different things including lighting and flow. So maybe you could move it a little?

 

[Scooterman]

can't see much unless it should be greener, these things seems to change slowly. Maybe a series of water changes, that seems to help things usually.

 

[MtnDewMan]

What kind of light etc? Maybe a light shock? PUt it more in a lower light area, mine seems to do better when not in direct metal halide lighting.

 

[esmith]

Chuck:There is only 3 55watt PC's, 2 10k's and 1 20K; no halides (yet).

Tom: I'll try moving him to see what happens, although since I'll be moving the whole tank in 2 weeks or so I don't want to shock it too much.

Scooterman: I'll also try a water change, I just did 4 gallons on Friday of last week but maybe another. My total volume ~45 gallons.

Eliyah

 

[Alice]

How far is it from the lights, Eliyah? Candy canes will loose that nice contrasting coloration when exposed to too much light. Is there anything in the tank that could be putting out sweeper tentacles and bothering it? Have you put any additives in lately that may have burned it?

Just scrolling down the list of possibilites here

 

[esmith]

Thanks for the ideas Alice, let me go down the list; this is on the sand so ~18" from the lights; nothing in the area of the candycane except some mushrooms which are 4 - 5" away; I haven't put anything in except dripping the usual kalk which I've been doing for 2 months now and since starting it everything in the tank has really started to thrive.

Hopefully this will just come back around in a bit.

Any other ideas?

Eliyah

 

[Alice]

It doesn't sound like you have any danger signs there, Eliyah. It should snap back, CC's are tough. I had one upside down in the sand, behind the rocks, turned pure white but came back from that just fine. A couple of the small polyp heads bailed out but I stuck them in holes in the rock and they grew, too.

 

[esmith]

Cool, maybe I'll have to try that with this one if the head doesn't come back. Just curious, can this spread to the rest of the heads if I don't cut it out of the bunch?

Eliyah

 

[dnjan]

You might try feeding them. After lights out (and feedingtentacles are out), grind up some shrimp pellets, mix in some tank water, turn off the circulation pump(s), and use a turkey baster to spread a cloud of food over them.

Is that candycane from the frag trade last fall? Looks like one of mine. They will periodically pull the flesh tight against the skeleton like that. Don't know why. Mine seem pretty resilient.

 

[Chimera]

It doesn't look in danger to me. They will do that for a day or two from time to time. Mine looks terrible when it does that. One thing that I would look at is your alkalinity. You want to keep it between 10 and 14 dKH, or 3-4 Meq/L. Also, they like pretty still water. High currents will make them withdraw.

RTN pretty much only applies to SPS corals, and it is called Rapid because your coral is completely dead within an hour or two. If you have a coral still alive at the end of the day, then it is not RTN.

 

[esmith]

This came from MarineDepot. I'll try feeding it and see what happens.

Alk is only at 7.65dkh, I'll see what I can do to drive it up a bit.

I wasn't sure if RTN only applied to SPS or not, so I thought I'd ask.

Eliyah

 

[Chimera]

NP. Good luck, I'm sure you'll be fine.

 

[jasontatro]

Yo Eliyah..... empty out your mailbox.

 

[Alice]

You know, after looking at the pic again, all of the heads that are affected are in the process of splitting/budding. That could be it; reproduction takes energy.

 

[esmith]

Thanks for noticing Alice, I hadn't even thought about that.

Eliyah