Candy Cane Issues

stdreb27

Active Member
I have two candy canes one is doing quite well, the other is receding. I'm not sure why, both were healthy 3 weeks ago when placed into my tank, both were acclimated in the same bucket from the same source (another reefer) I've seen no signs of bugs. My water is fine,
Nh4 0
NO2 0
NO3 0
KH 120
Cal 450
sg 1.025
tem swings from 80-83 from night to day. The lights are 2-150 HQI and 4 t-5's.
The candy cane was moved because it was receeding. But the location it was moved to couldn't hold it, and it fell into the sand. I moved it to its current location about 2/3 from the top of the tank. It has been there for a week, but it is still looking bad.
Here is the bad candy cane heads






This was 3 weeks ago.



This is the other one.

Do you have any suggestions? Or clues, I really like these guys.
 

saltn00b

Active Member
everything else in the tank is looking good? you have leathers and sps?
what are your PO4's at?
the larger canday candy canes are pretty bullet proof, but i have seen the smaller trumpet varieties wither away in some tanks. that looks like the smaller kind from the pics. maybe they are too high? in too much light? are you running any media that could be irritating?
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/2735534
everything else in the tank is looking good? you have leathers and sps?
what are your PO4's at?
the larger canday candy canes are pretty bullet proof, but i have seen the smaller trumpet varieties wither away in some tanks. that looks like the smaller kind from the pics. maybe they are too high? in too much light? are you running any media that could be irritating?
The softies in my tank are growing. I see significant growth in all the zoas, and other polops along with plenty new new polops. Except for two the SPS look fine. I believe they were shaded, now that they are in more direct light they seem to be recovering. I did have a problem with one other sps, (I don't remember the name) but it had a green hair of polops on the tips of the branches. But when I put it in the next day it was all gone, as if I didn't aclimate them well. But since they they have been coming back.
I don't have a test kit for PO4's. I do have some brown hair algae growth, that is growing.
I'm hoping that the little candy canes are just ticked because they spent the night face first in the sand when the mounting broke.
 

geoj

Active Member
Is the good candy cane opening up at night? If not may be to much flow or to little.
You can keep them just about any ware under those lights. I would put them down about mid to low in the tank. Mine are under 6 xT5-39w about middle of tank.
When I look at the candy cane I see some that look better then others and all the bad ones look like they are all on one side.
 

saltn00b

Active Member
oh so they only dont look so hot after one day , and before this they were fine?
that is most likely the case. but i would invest in a PO4 kit.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/2735575
oh so they only dont look so hot after one day , and before this they were fine?
that is most likely the case. but i would invest in a PO4 kit.
The pictures were taken less than 5 minutes after the lights were on. There are a couple heads that still have tenticles out. VS all of them the first week I had them in the tank. They were looking a little haggard then I moved it, At this point it looked good, but the location was not stable and they fell. I moved them to the current location, partially shaded by the other candy and in the bottom 1/3 of the tank, and it is looking worse after about a week.
I'm not running anything on the tank. Just feeding, and in the sump, have a filter sock/Skimmer Chaeto and lr rubble.
 

geoj

Active Member
I don’t think it is lighting. I have keep some down at the bottom of my tank in the mod light did not affect them opening just slowed growth. In an area of to slow of flow or to high of flow they will not open all the way.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by GeoJ
http:///forum/post/2735605
I don’t think it is lighting. I have keep some down at the bottom of my tank in the mod light did not affect them opening just slowed growth. In an area of to slow of flow or to high of flow they will not open all the way.
As far as flow goes, their is 3 6025's in there that are modded. So it should be around 3000 of flow in a 58 gallon. The area the smaller candy it, doesn't have that much flow. But it is flowing.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/2735575
oh so they only dont look so hot after one day , and before this they were fine?
The only reason I don't think sand irritation is the only thing, is because it has been about a week, and it has been looking progressively worse.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
here are some more pictures, the dead area is spreading.





As you can see the head is basically dead. Just the skeleton. And I see this spreading to nearby heads.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
http:///forum/post/2739246
agreed.
maybe they got an infection when in the sand...
LPS, could be something like brown jelly disease
Would some sort of dip help? How would you get the dead heads out without damaging the other heads?
 

saltn00b

Active Member
candy cane breaks pretty easily, try pliers?
hopefully some other people can chime in on the diagnosis.
if you see for example one split head next to a dead one that it starting to look crummy, i would cut that one out too.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
I found an article on bacterial problems with corals, it does list trumpet corals as a typical victim. It says dip it in iodine and wash off the coral. so I'm going to do that, bc at this point, I'm not seeing any really healthy heads. And see how that works.
I went to 2 lfs to find a PO4 kit, and the only things they had were the API kit with everything. So I haven't tested for PO4. But my neighbor had an extra poly filter laying around, so I put that in the sump. Anyone know what color it is suppose to be if it is absorbing PO4? I'll see how that goes, then maybe pick up a PO4 test kit this weekend. (a problem with living in houston) you can't go anywear from 5- 7 pm and then most of the lfs are closed.
 

paintballer768

Active Member
Not familiar with polyfilters, but you should see some sort of discoloration. Dip it an Iodine solution, and then try to QT it as best you can from your other LPS, and most importantly the other candy colony. Its unfortunate that this has happened, just try to keep the damage consolidated, ya know?
Im interested to see if the iodine helps or not.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by paintballer768
http:///forum/post/2739376
Not familiar with polyfilters, but you should see some sort of discoloration. Dip it an Iodine solution, and then try to QT it as best you can from your other LPS, and most importantly the other candy colony. Its unfortunate that this has happened, just try to keep the damage consolidated, ya know?
Im interested to see if the iodine helps or not.
Well I dipped it, along with a couple of the corals that have bleached out a little bit. (One was from placement) the other I dunno yet, I'm going to see how it does higher up in some more direct flow. The good thing is the green millie(I think) is almost all the way back.
The problem is I'm not going to be in town this weekend to observe.
 

saltn00b

Active Member
im leaning away from PO4 being the problem, and much more towards the bacterial situation. if you have leathers that look fine, or SPS, then i wouldnt worry about that for now.
 
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