Xenia / Anthellia? dying?

[ExoticAquascape]

Okay, so I have a 90 gallon reef and things seem to be doing well in this tank except for a couple of strange occurrences. I have in this tank what I thought to be a Xenia, however it does not have a "main stalk" all arms come up from an encrusting base on the rock that would be Anthellia correct? Anyway this coral was pumped up larger than life and doing wonderful until one day it started "dripping" to the rock below where new colonies seemed to attach and grow. Not a bad thing right? Since then the coral has not pumped back up, it lays sagging from its base "deflated" and obviously unhappy. I have a Xenia just 6 inches away on another rock that is growing rapidly and splitting into more colonies. On another strange happening in the tank recently (in the last 2 days) my large branching torch coral seems to be loosing one of its heads! The polyp won't open fully and seems deflated, all other 5 polyps are fully open and "pumped up". I did check my water and the results are as follows:
PH - 8.4 during the day
dkh - 12.5
Calcium - 450
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <10
Phosphate - .6 (I put a phosphate sponge in over night to lower it)
Temperature stays between 75 - 77 degrees ferenheight

The lighting on the tank consists of two 250 watt 14k metal halides (hammilton) two 96 watt actinic power compacts (both on timers for dawn to dusk) and 4 watts of white lunar light.

All filtration is running perfect, and no animals to my knowlege are bothering these corals, the tank is running fallow with just inverts.
Any advice on this situation would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[steven11]

Just a few questions:
1. Have you change anything with your setup lately? examples; lights, feeding
2.What other types or corals do you have?
3.When was your last water change?
4.Do you supplement anything?
5. Do you run carbon?

The obvious would be try to do a decent water change if you already havent.

 

[ExoticAquascape]

The only thing that has changed lately is I took all the fish out and put them into quarantine to let the tank run "Fallow". I made the common and terrible mistake of not using quarantine before hand. Other than that, nothing has changed, the water is even better today, the Anthelia sp. is pumped up slightly again and seems to be "pulsing" a bit today, however it goes back and forth with this, one day it's great, the next it appears to be on the brink of disaster!
Water Parameters as of today:
PH - 8.4
No3 - <5
No2 - 0
NH4 - 0
KH - 12.5
Ca - 420
Po4 - .4 ( I changed the phosphate sponge I put in the yesterday to lower it more)
The light cycle is all timed and hasn't been altered.
I did a water change 2 days ago (25 gallons) All other corals are opened up and seem to be fine. My xenia is actually dividing into 3 colonies and pumping away. I lost one small head on my branching torch coral, however I do believe that head was damaged when a hermit with a rather large shell fell on it, no sign of infection of any kind the head simply seemed to shrink up into the center and now there are only a few ""tenticles" coming out from it. All 5 other heads on the torch are doing great.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

what is the age of the colony? The Xeniids have very short lifespans and colonies will readily crash in less than 2 years if they are not actively fragged to interrupt that life cycle of maturation (for colonies)

 

[ExoticAquascape]

Hey Anthony,
I am not sure how old the colony is, however when I bought it was approx. 3" in diameter. That would be pretty small to be a mature colony right? It did suddenly "pump back up today but not fully, it's the strangest thing! To top that off my branching torch coral is losing its smallest head! I haven't observed any parasites or signs of disease in either coral, and the torch head that is dying seems to be receding from the outside in. No signs of infection, however about 2 weeks ago the coral did get a good hard bump by a large hermits shell, could this have damaged the coral and caused it to recede and die 2 weeks later?
My water parameters are:
PH - 8.4 during the day
No3 - <5
Po4 - <.4
dKH - 12.5
Ca - 450
NH4 - 0
No2 - 0
SG - 1.025
Temp - 76 - 78 degrees F

Both the Xenia and the torch are rather high in the water column. The tank is 90 gallons with two 250 watt metal halide lamps 14K, 2 96 Watt actinic PC, and 4 watts LED lunar light (white).
I use a jbj arctica titanium chiller 1/10 hp on this tank, and a finnex 300 watt titanium heater located in the sump for temp control.
I feed the tank once lightly every day for now to ensure the inverts get there food, and every three days I turn the pumps off to feed the corals. (The tank is running fallow for one more week). I made the fun and incredibly bad choice of not using quarantine! So all fish are through "Ich" now and the tank has been fallow for 3 weeks, one more week to go! The torch doesn't seem terribly excited to take food either, it lets most of it drop when I feed. I use cyclop eeze, chopped krill less than 1/8", brine shrimp, and blood worms. I soak all food in garlic extreme and selcon. So far this has worked for a trumpet coral and 2 candy cane corals I ordered online from foster and smith which arrived in terrible shape (near death). Every head on all three of those corals is now pumped up and happy. As far as the Xenia goes what would you reccomend doing for it? The Xenia is in a low current area of the tank, in the back not far from the overflow. Also, is the torch in trouble? Should I remove the dying head, do a dip, or cross my fingers and hope it regenerates? Mmm the only other thing I can think of is that this coral is placed on a far end of the tank and gets quite a bit of water movement from the direct stream of water flowing over it and curling back from the side of the tank, it makes a whipping motion through the coral. Could this be the cause of some stress which cuold lead to problems of this nature?
Thanks for your input!
PS. Can't wait to get your new book, I placed an order for it already! I like the new cover design to, very cool!

-Brian

 

[ExoticAquascape]

Well, The Xenia is now doing wonderful, pumped back up again and healthy as a horse so to speak. The torch coral lost one head and had no infection, the rest of the heads look fine and they are all eating well. My water still tests out great, and soon I will have some fish ready to put in from quarantine, probably my mandarin first, who has been in quarantine for 4 weeks now and amazingly took to cyclop eeze! I also have a ventralis anthias that is eating wonderfully and has established himself with a group of green chromis (he stays in their school all the time, and seems to be a part of their pecking order). This behavior has been going on for 4 weeks also, and he never hides! Most likely luck on my part I think, I have always had good luck getting fish to eat, even the finicky ones. My larger quarantine tank had an ich outbreak that is under control now and showing no signs of coming back, I treated it with chelated copper sulfate when the ich got real bad (no dips) I was worried that would stress the fish out more. I will freshwater dip them with methylene blue before they go in the display just to be safe, I'd rather do it now and know I did everything I could rather than lose sleep over it later. They however will most likely stay in quarantine one more week as I am now upgrading the entire filter system on the 90 gallon reef. I am using a 53 gallon sump, with a 7" diameter by 36" tall skimmer powered by a blue line 30 HDX 1,100 gph pump. The tank will be heavily stocked with fish, so I decided to pump up the over all volume with the sump and kick up the filtration a notch. The system has 1,270 gph flow from the sump to the main display, and there isn't one place in that tank I can see that has any build up of detritus materials. I feed lightly every day, even lighter some days split into two feedings. There are lots of filter feeding animals in the tank that are all doing great now, and have been for 4 months now (not long I know). My coco worms, a few corals, and all my snails are reproducing, nearly with every water change I do, (once every two weeks) not including top off. My 3 crocea clams have grown easily 1/2 inch since I purchased them, and are very healthy and happy. My tank is also full of amphipods, copepods, and other little critters. My 7 red tip hermit crabs are growing and seem to be helping the tank out quite a bit, I put 12 empty slightly larger shells in the tank for them to keep them from going after my snails or each other and it worked great. It seems like the tank is going to start running really smooth from here! Thank you for your advice guys!

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Perhaps it is hungry, fallow tank and all

 

[ExoticAquascape]

Oh yeah, water perameters now are:
PH - 8.4 during the day
No3 - <2
Po4 - <.3
dKH - 11.5
Ca - 410
NH4 - 0
No2 - 0
SG - 1.025
Temp - 75 - 77 degrees F

 

[Anthony Calfo]

thanks for the update bro and glad to hear it was mostly good. Indeed, your general parameters all looked good. This may be one of those cases where "dilution is the solution to pollution." We dont know what was irritating in the water, but time and water changes may have fixed it