Dying Frogspawn? please look (pics)

[reef dude]

I posted about this issue a few days ago, but now i have pictures on my website, which is linked below, of my frogspawn. At 8 pm when i got home tonight it was looking really nice (almost fully open) then within 2 hours I came by the tank again at 10 pm and it was almost fully closed up, the halides were still on! It has been doing this for that past 5-7 days at random times durring the day, WHILE the halides are on. It usually closes up for 20-40 minutes, and then opens back up, but this is a new thing its been doing lately, Is this coral dying??????? I was told that if the area where the polyps (tentacles) attach to the hard base, is a white color, then the coral is dying? Is that the part where there are all those pinkish/white Semi-circles that sort of protect the top of the base of the coral???
My Frogspawn

 

[mlm]

I am no expert in coral death but to me this is what happens when I have seen other corals of the genus Euphylla (sp) die.

 

[attml]

My Frogspwn tends to open and close a bit. Sometimes it closes and sometimes it looks like it is really skinnie. I always worry that it's dying but it hasn't yet! It usually perks up when I add a cap full of Kent Marine Microvert in it's general vicinity (about twice a week).

 

[reef dude]

So if frogspawn does open and close occasionally, what is this that I am hearing about white coloration means it dying? The base of the coral was whitish/tan when i bought and it was perfectly healthy. Will i be able to tell if the coral is DEFINATELY dead or is it pretty hard to tell?

 

[attml]

I have never had Frogspawn die so am not sure about the white/tan base info that you have. Frogspawn being a soft coral, I would imagine it would look like most other soft corals when it dies (Shrivels up for extended period, stats turning brown or yellow, then droops and is unable to recover). As I said, mine changes in fullness and between extended & retracted frequently but seems to be healthy. If you look on the Coral section of my website (address below) you can see what I mean. Good luck!

 

[ryebread]

If a frogspawn dies.......there will be no frogspawn left. Just a piece of skeleton where the froggy used to be.
kinda like this......(and yes, I know that this isn't a frogspawn.)

 

[attml]

Her is mine retracted

 

[attml]

Here it is extended

 

[sggavin]

how many watts per gallon would a frogspawn need?

 

[attml]

It requires moderate lighting in the 3-4 watts per gallon range and moderate water flow. I have a 260 watt(130W are 10000K the other 130W is 7100K blue actenic) Power Compact on my 55gal and it seems to do well with that.

 

[rsd]

My frogspawn acted up awhile back. Seemed really stressed which stressed me out. I did alot of water changes and nothing improved. I tried varying food... nothing. Really started to worry me and then it picked up and started splitting each branch. Now instead of 6 branches of frogspawn I have 12. It has always expanded and contracted during the day. Infact it actually starts to close each night about an hour before the lights begin to dim. It's timers are as good as my electrical ones.
I don't know if it's dying or not... could be just a little spent if it is trying to do a growth spurt.
I'd just check the age of your lamps... water perams... and increase the frequency of water changes.
Good luck.

 

[barry cuda]

Originally posted by RyeBread
If a frogspawn dies.......there will be no frogspawn left. Just a piece of skeleton where the froggy used to be.
kinda like this......(and yes, I know that this isn't a frogspawn.)
I know I'm digging up a really old thread here, but what kind of coral *is* it? I just bought an established nanocube containing a couple heads of what I thought was frogspawn, but it looks an awful lot like Rye's picture here.