Need Help, What is Happening to Frogspawn?

[emeralcrab]

This is really upsetting me.
Mail order Frogspawn placed in DT about 3 weeks ago. Doing great.
About 3 days ago urchin walked across top two heads, after that the one on the top right started dieing. The next day the top left one dieing, now tonight the bottom left is dieing. Pictures are of before and the process of it dieing. So far the bottom right head looks ok. 1st picture of it when it was healthy, 2nd picture top right head dieing, 3rd picture is what it looks like tonight.

55g reef, 6 mo's old, weekly 10% water changes, checking water everyday right now.
325w coralite new, frog placed 1/2 up rocks
Amm 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
PH 8.2
Salinity 1.026
Calcium 420
Temp 79-80 stays pretty close
Things I have done to try and help. Change out 10% of water for 2 days in a row. Use RO water Instant Ocean salt, premix for 24-48 hrs with power heads and a heater.
All other corals look great, fox, hammer, 3 bubbles, numerous mushrooms, polyps. No leathers.
3 clowns, and lawn mower blennie, emeral crab, a few hermits, snails. urchin.
Is there something else I should be testing? Something I am missing? I don't know what to do. This frogspawn was absolutely beautiful, and looked perfectly healthy, in three days time, dieing. Need Help with this.What am I doing wrong......

 

[tnn1567]

I recommend you cut the dead coral away before they spread to the other corals. After you cut it, move it to a different location.
There could be a possbilty of a chemical warfare within your tank. Your parameter looks great. By the way, I had my frogspawn started to die off, I saved it by cutting it.

 

[emeralcrab]

What is the easiest and least tramatic for the coral to remove the dieing heads? I thought about doing that, but have never done it before. There isn't anything close to this frogspawn other then a hammer that is about 5" away. Is there something else I should be testing? I am at a loss as to why it would just start dieing.

I am worried that it is something I am doing or not doing.

 

[tnn1567]

Originally Posted by EmeralCrab
What is the easiest and least tramatic for the coral to remove the dieing heads? I thought about doing that, but have never done it before. There isn't anything close to this frogspawn other then a hammer that is about 5" away. Is there something else I should be testing? I am at a loss as to why it would just start dieing.

I am worried that it is something I am doing or not doing.
In a lot of cases which I have seen in the past, temperature that fluxuate constantly to high and low temperature will also cause it to melt. If you don't plan to remove the remaining dead head which has dead tissue, it may spread to your next one. What I mean was to cut off the dying head and hope for the best.
Forgot to add, what type of salt are you using and what is your akalanity? If you are using kent salt, you may want to check your akalanity since I believed Kent made a batch of salt with no akalanity.

 

[emeralcrab]

I am using Instant Ocean, and I did bite the bullet and cut off the dieing heads, I will hope for the best. I havent' noticed any big temp. change. Maybe at the most 2 degrees from night to day. No drastic change that I caught anyway.
The one thing that I thought about last night was, I got a torch coral a few days before this started happening, can't remember for sure how many days, it died right away, never did come out after I acclimated it and put it in, well came out maybe 1/4 of the way, when it started dieing I took it right out. Could that have done something or had something that it gave the frog? I had it placed maybe 5 inch from the frog. The water currents flowed over the torch and then to the frog.....maybe?

 

[tnn1567]

Sound like some dead tissue from the torch coral may have touched your frogspawn which caused it to die as well.
I am glad to hear you cut the dead head off. At least for now, your other heads will survive and produce new heads in the future.

 

[emeralcrab]

Actually I had to cut off the one remaining head. Then I placed it in the sand bed so maybe wouldn't be as stressed. I really hope that it was the torch and not something else going on in my tank, as I am about to run to FEDEX and pick up my package of corals I ordered yesterday. Makes me nervous.

 

[tnn1567]

Originally Posted by EmeralCrab
Actually I had to cut off the one remaining head. Then I placed it in the sand bed so maybe wouldn't be as stressed. I really hope that it was the torch and not something else going on in my tank, as I am about to run to FEDEX and pick up my package of corals I ordered yesterday. Makes me nervous.

I love to see some new pics of your new corals!!!

 

[cymbal67]

what about the sea urchin going across it? i have no idea about those. but wasnt that a possiblity?

 

[tnn1567]

Originally Posted by cymbal67
what about the sea urchin going across it? i have no idea about those. but wasnt that a possiblity?
Sea Urchin usually tend to eat purple coraline algae and also tend to knock over corals. Not sure why a sea urchin will hurt the frogspawn, but it could be a possiblity.

 

[acrylic51]

:notsure: Is it possible depending on the type of urchin and spines that it could have injured the frogspawn and caused punctures in the flesh and allowed disease to set in......

 

[emeralcrab]

The night before the first head started to die, Arnold Swartzenpoker was up by it, it closed up its top to heads and I seen him just kind of walk across the top of frog. So I don't know...I'm thinking now because the one lower head died to; that the new torch coral had something to do with it, and stated in above post after acclimating it to DT it never did fully open up, just wilted and started dieing. It wasn't close enough to touch the frog, but the current went over the torch then the frog, so if something was up with the torch it would of spread to the frog????? Maybe???? There was a film of some kind coming from the torch, but also the hammer had it, but went away. Hammer is fine. So far anyway. But hammer was on down current of torch. I just hope that I am not missing something in my tank, some water parameter I need to be checking or something I am missing. But I guess everything else looks good, so maybe not.

 

[emeralcrab]

Update on the head that is left. So far so good. It has puffed all up and looks ok, sure hope it stays that way.

Got a tooth coral and a replacement for the torch that died today. When I opened up the bag for the torch it was full of slimy stuff, acclimated it and then tried to rinse as much off as I could with out hurting coral and placed in QT tank. ummmmm could this have caused a problem with my hammer on the torch that died? Some toxin they give off when stressed? They are in the same family aren't they? So I didn't think to much about having them together in same area of tank. Not touching tho...I hope this new torch makes it. It isn't as nice looking as far as size as the one that died, but it is in QT to make sure it won't poison anything off. If that is what happen.

 

[paulcoates]

My hammer recently got into it with my frogspawn - and the frogspawn lost. My guess is that at night the two extended, touched, and apparently had a battle.

 

[emeralcrab]

Happy to report that the remaining head that I had to cut off, is doing great. This frogspawn was so fat and so beautiful it was such a shame to have 3 of the 4 heads die

. But I am pretty sure it was the torch coral that killed it, as it was up current from it, and when I got it and put it in the tank it never did open up, just started dieing and icky stuff starting pouring out of it. should of known better. Lessons learned ummm....at least part of my frog is doing good now. Didn't loose it all.