Anthelia and now GSP closing up

Hi Everyone,

I am having an issue in a 14g biocube with a couple of corals and it has me stumped. Parameters: Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0, pH 8.2, Calcium 500, dKH 10, Phos 0, T- 79, SG 1.026. The other frags in this tank that are thriving include Acan, Rhodactis, Pocillopora, Galaxea, Caulastrea, various zoa/palys and I'm even getting my Tubastrea to start to open for feeding.

I also have some Anthelia and GSP that have been in there for a couple weeks and had been doing fine. The stars would be open all day and the Anthelia rarely shut down except for late night. Three days ago the Anthelia started shrivelling up so I checked my H2O and all was as reported above. It has shrivelled more and then yesterday, the GSP was closed when I got home in the afternoon. Perhaps a crab bothered it but it still has not reopened. I checked the water again last night and still no issues there. The only other frag I am having an issue with is a small finger leather that, after a two week pout, opened beautifully for a day a few days ago. Within 2 days it returned to a shrunken tree. I did have a tiny frag of Xenia that did not like the tank and I have since moved it to another where it has not improved much. I don't really use that as a good gauge, however, as it was removed from a frag crate at the LFS with no attachment so I figure it will not be happy for some time.

I am really stumped as to what the issue could be when my water tests out fine. The filtration I am using is stock and I also run a nano bag of Chemi-pure Ultra. I will be doing a partial later today but really don't know what I am trying to improve on my paramaters. Is there anything else that could be in the water causing this problem? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

Hi, and welcome to 3Reef!

There are a couple of possibilities--

1) Predation. After the lights have been off for a while, get a flashlight (blue, if possible) and look closely at the affected corals. There are certain species of small snails, slugs, bristle worms, etc that prey on specific corals, and the majority are nocturnal, staying well-hidden in the rockwork during the day.

2) Light acclimation. Some lower-light corals such as softies, mushrooms and polyps have a difficult time adjusting to sudden, continuous intense light. You might want to find a lower place for them, maybe even shaded if possible, or reduce your photo-period for a few days.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been watching for predators but have not seen anything yet. Perhaps they have just avoided me so I will keep looking. I wondered about light issues but the Anthelia looked great for over a week before shrinking. Can it take that long for light stress to appear? I don't consider my light too strong as it is just a 26w 10K and a 26w actinic about 10" above it. One thing I did wonder about is iodine. Could that be an issue? I am getting a test kit for it but it will not be here until next week.

 

I think it would be a good idea to check you iodine level.

 

The GSP started to reopen this evening but I still did a partial anyway. Still no change on the Anthelia. The only other change I noticed is a flush of red cyano growing on the old dead piece of coral that the Anthelia is attached to. My crabs found the flush and completely cleared it several times over the last few days. The first couple times they did so the Anthelia did not react at all. I wonder if they may have been a bit overzealous and injured the coral. They are blue leg and scarlet leg.

 

green star polyps will get detritus trapped on their mat and will prevent them from opening up. I take a turkey baster asd squirt air/water on them and shoot off the detritus.

As far as anthelia, people are going to laugh, but there are times when our tanks are too clean for them to grow. When I first started out I had anthelia that I was growing on the back of the tank. This was the first coral that I had so my system was still adjusting. The anthelia loved the dirtier water. As the months went on and I got my nitrates down to zero the anthelia all died off.

other thing could be too much flow on the anthelia?

 

My anthelia loves flow.. I have it in two places and the place that its doing best is in high flow..

 

The GSP had started opening again, even before I did the water change and they look great now. I am thinking that they had a run in with one of the crabs and that it was just a coincidence and not part of the Anthelia problem. The colony was getting more shrunken and until I get my test kit, I don't want to guess at adding iodine, so I moved it to my 45bow and we will see what happens. I moved my pulsing Xenia there to see if it would look better than it did in the 14 and it had improved. I hope the Anthelia does as well. There is a lot more flow in that tank so maybe that is what it needs. Thanks for all the suggestions.

 

Update- the Anthelia is actually starting to improve in the other tank with three polyps starting to increase just a tad. The only difference is water flow. I think I am just really having a hard time judging flow rates. Terms like moderate, high, low etc... are so subjective. I would consider high flow to be like surge zones and low rates to be water movement without really moving the animals. I think I am a bit off on it and need to increase my estimations.