torch coral not looking to well

mr.clownfish

Active Member
in this past week my torch has been shrinking. i looked closer and i noticed that its skeleton is starting to show. i think its dieing. my ph is at 8.2 nitrate 0 nitrite 0 ammonia 0 salinity is 1.023. i have 90 watts of lighting, 65 of PCs and 25 of T5s. i have a smaller hammer coral and a frogspawn larger than the torch coral along with some leather and xenia. everything else is going ok.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
ok now there are little tiny chunks of frogspawn in my tank falling off of my "healthy" looking frogspawn. but my xenias are still doing great.
 

mr.clownfish

Active Member
its at the top of the tank. i had strong flow on it. but i moved the power head and it got no flow for about 5 days and it started to lose the meat around the skeleton and it kinda shrunk. now i have real strong flow on it. my lighting is 90watts of PC's and T5's. its a 30gal tank.
and im also using Algafix to remove some hair algae.
 

pinstripe

Member
I don't know that I can be of much help, but I CAN tell you that I had the same problem with torch corals myself. I have a similar setup, i.e. canister, hang-on skimmer, same other corals doing well. I have tried a torch coral on 2 seperate occasions and their heath goes down FAST in my tank. The first one only took about a week to die, the second, a few months. But considering I have had some of my other corals for over 2 years, that's not very good. I have friends that wern't able to keep them as well. I think that they are a lot harder to keep alive, even though some websites list them as easy or moderate corals as far as difficulty in husbandry. It is my OPINION, that those who are successful with them have just the right mix of lighting, water qualtiy and, again my opinion, FLOW. I think having just the right flow for the tentacles to swirl around in is very important. If you like the LPS-type corals (hammmer, etc. ) try a bubble coral. I have a piece that I bought for 80 bucks at my LFS around the size of a baseball, and after 2 years, it will blow up to nearly the size of a basketball. You don't have to spot feed or anything, not to mention, I think that bubbles are almost indestructable. I have come home to find frags of other corals that have fallen into it and it dosn't seem to harm it at all. Just my 2 cents on the bubble, but if you are set on the torch, good luck, hope you find the answer you are looking for.
 

truperc

Member
I can only speak from my experience with torches. I currently have two.
When I received my first torch, about 8 heads, it maintained for about 2 months. Then it started to deteriorate. Clownfish were trying to host it, but this may not have been the cause, not sure.
It went from being full in the heads, to shrunken and loosing it's zooanthelle. (Brown wispy coming out of mouth).
My original placement was in high light, and high flow.
I then took it to the bottom of my tank (about 24" away from light), with low flow.
It further went down hill, until it almost looked completely dead.
I had read that torches, if left alone, can come back from such events.
Mine was one of these examples.
I left it at the bottom of the tank, and it started to recover slowly.
I have recovered/in the process of recovering all but one of the original heads, and one is now splitting.
Present day, I have cut down the flow, but have moved it up again within the tank. It had been doing well for a couple of months in this position.
So at the end, my torch is doing well now. My point is to not give up on your torch too early. If there is the smallest sign of life, it may come back.
I would suggest you cut down on the flow as one step.
Also, torches can have issues with leathers, but if you are running carbon you may be ok. I would just keep them apart.
I have a leather in the same tank as my torch, and I run carbon, and they are doing fine.
Once again this is just based on my experience.
 
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