Hi,

I bought a frogspawn (7 heads) for my 75 gal a little under 2 weeks ago and it seemed fine but a couple of days ago 2 of the heads became retracted and are hardly coming out. The other 5 heads seem fine. Any ideas what the issue could be?

I have seen this happen to my frogspawn if my temperature elevates over 82F, but it will come back out over time when the high temp goes down. Not having a chiller can be stressful in the summer but its on the list of wants!

Is any part of the coral bleaching? Frogspawn can bleach when stressed, so check for this. Look at the base of the coral as well. Also look for any signs of predation.

It may also be a lighting or flow issue. Frogspawn typically prefers moderate flow and lighting. Mine do better on the bottom of my tank than anywhere else. With a colony of seven heads, it's likely not all of the heads will be receiving identical flow and light.

A picture is always helpful. If you can provide some, show the coral from multiple angles, both head and stalk.

Questions - (possible issues) What is your:

Flow?
Temp? Temp Swings?
Lighting?
Parameters (pH, salinity, nitrates)?

Do you dose?

+1 ^^^^

Flow: The frogspawn is about 15" away from a koralia 4 and is getting low to moderate flow.

Temp: Pretty stable.. fluctuates between 80-81 degrees

Lighting: 4 x 54w T5 HO. The coral is about 14" from the surface.

Parameters: pH 8.2, salinity 35ppt, nitrate is as close to zero as my test kit will detect

I only dose with a little Purpleup occasionaly (not in the last 2 weeks)


The only obvious issue with the tank at the mo is a little bit of an Aiptasia outbreak that Im trying to control with peppermints but the heads that dont seem affected have more aiptaisia near them than the ones that are sulking.

He are some photos. Sorry for the crap quality but ive never been good at taking fish/coral photos.

This morning one of the heads seems ot have recovered a little but the other looks worse. any ideas?

The head on the far right does look to be in a bit of a situation. The stalk is clearly bleached, so something is definitely bothering it. Wow, aiptasia!! You have an infestation of those buggers. Remember, aiptasia can move around so don't rule them out; they would be my first guess based on your suitable parameters.

Peppermints may or may not work. Do not feed your tank for a few days and starve them. My peppermint will steal meals from my candy canes and duncans if it can! It sounds cruel, but you gotta starve them and make them work for you. In the end, if that doesn't work, get hold of aiptasia eating nudibranchs. They will destroy an infestation right quick, but you gotta put them in another tank with aiptasia as soon as its gone or they will starve to death. You can always pass those guys around a reef club.

Also, you mentioned you use purple up. Do you test your calcium? I have seen my frogspawn behave this way when calcium hits about 480 (important to measure often!) . Could be coincedental as my temperature was concommitantly read at 83F, but its worth mentioning. I would recommend keeping calcium between 420-440. Also, test alkalinity when testing calcium. Purple up isn't a two part system to my knowledge, so your balance can get out of whack easy.

So, yeah, my first guess is a bad sting, second guess is temp swing. Try to keep the temp a little lower, under 80F if you can.

Get that aiptasia under control!

Keep us posted, and good luck!

Thanks for the reply.

I dont test calcium levels as until now ive only kept softies but it looks like its time to buy a kit.

The reason the aipastia has gotten bad is because I used to kalk them about once a month but havent done it for a while to see if the peppermints would take care of them but they obviously arent doing a good enough job. I think Im going to kalk them to reduce numbers and the starve the tank for a coupel of days as you suggested to encourage the peppermints to step up a gear.

I hope the frogspawn recovers.

Do you know if you have Lysmata wurdemanni for sure? I ask because there are several other species that look similar to the peppermints, but do not eat aiptasia; some of which munch on coral. This could be the case, so watch them over the next few days, and if you don't see a reduction in aiptasia, feed them, and then trade them for the real deal!

The other heads look very healthy, so I am 90% sure that the aiptasia is causing the problem.

Im pretty sure they are Lysmata wurdemanni as they are from the main marine breeder/wholesaler in the UK. It difficult to watch over them as they hide when the lights are on.








Hopefully I will have the aiptasia under control soon as I had a major kalk'ing session last night to reduce their numbers and added 6 more (small) peppermints today.

The head that was worse affected has now completely died but the other one seems to have made a full recovery now.

I think we have another suspect....

I just caught a dwarf blue leg hermit eating whats left of the dead head. They do have a reputation for eating dead or near dead coral though so maybe it wasnt the cause.

I doubt the blue leg caused the initial problem, that is pretty rare as far as I know. However, he is doing you a favor in eating the dead head so it doesn't foul your system. I still think the aiptasia killed it, and the blue leg is just cleaning up the situation.

Hope your kalking session went well. How many peppermints do you have in there?

I now have 7 but 5 are very small (around 2cm). Hopefully this will be enough.

from doing a lot of reading on the subject, to ease your mind a bit, its not uncommon for a head or two of a frogspawn to die during shipping or even from a new acclimation...I've had it happen myself...whatever the cause, it was not due to a pest or from a scavenger.

I have a peppermint shrimp that I caught munching on my Sun Coral the other night. I was starving the tank at the time. And, yes, I am sure it is a true peppermint shrimp.

update:

the 2 heads have completely died. The peppermint shrimp are helping with the aiptasia (with some kalking too) but there are still a few around so I moved the frogspawn on to the sand bed about a week ago well away from any aiptasia but now another head has retracted and looks like its going to die so it doesnt look like the aiptasia were to blame.

Any other ideas?

There are some small black snails (about 2-3mm with flat pointy shells) crawling on the skeleton.. could these be the problem? or are they most likely just cleaning up?


Thanks.

I havent been able to identify the cause but I have found a few other threads where people have had the same issue. Its really weird as the heads appear to be dying one at a time and always the closest one to the last one that died. In some of these other threads they managed to stop the spread by removing the dead/dying heads. This makes sense as there were 2 dead heads on the colony when I purchased it which I didnt think much of it at the time but it looks like whatever killed those is killing the other heads.

I am starting to think that some kind of parasite is slowly eating its way through the colony so I have removed the dead and dying heads in the hope of also removing the parasite. The colony is now only half the size it was but if this works at least I will have saved something.

I heard the same thing. It's hard to separate the dieing ones from the colony since humans in nature tend to always have high hopes for the underdogs. But I've heard that if you manage to get all the sick ones off the colony that the colony recovers extremely well. If you have an iso tank you could separate the dieing ones from the dead ones and keep them in your iso and hope for the best.

I thought aout moving the dying head to another tank but unfortunately my fragging method (big pliers) left alot to be desired and the head crumbled. I doubt it would have made it anyway though as it was looking pretty bad.

Hi All,

I am experiencing a similiar situation. Frogspawn has 3 heads, 1 has been receeding this week. I cannot cut off or dip, given the frogspawn is tightly mounted and it would cause more problems to mess with it!

All parameters OK, all other Zoas and Mushrooms OK. It's been in the tank for 6+ months.

I did notice a lot of little heads, ie new growth, at the base of the dying head. Just part of the lifecycle?