Can someone tell me what's up with this Frogspawn already?!?

[reeferx2]

Here's the skinny,

 

I've had this coral from when it was only 1 head, that was 2 years ago. When I first got it, it was a nice full, bountiful Frogspawn and looked like your typical piece.  As the heads began to grow the tentacles got smaller and smaller per say.

 

There was a bit of time were I sort of neglected the tank, only did water changes and my big 3 levels were on the lower side for a few months.

 

However,

 

My water quality has been nothing short of amazing for quite some time now (maybe 4 months) and I have experienced no growth or any return in fullness of the coral. I thought it might have been due to my previous lighting equipment, however I switched to an AI Prime 3 months ago and the coral looks the same. What gives??

 

Parameters:

spec G: .026, Cal: 420-450, Mag: 1350-1400, Alk: 8-9, No3: .02

 

 

It's been in the same area of flow since purchase date as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the best image I could source when I first got it 2 years ago, single head, and full of beautiful extension.

 

[reeferx2]

Here's one more picture of how it sits now:

 

 

[iHexBot]

Do you feed it anything?

[reeferx2]

Only water changes and light. 

 

This coral grew to 5 heads with only that, which is why none of this makes any sense.

 

However the coral hasn't grown a new head in about a year. I can't wrap my head around how it can grow 5 heads, followed by not fully extending. For what it's worth, the coral stopped fully extending as it began growing the new heads. 

[Weetabix7]

Feed it. 

I feed mine pieces of thawed out frozen Mysis about once a week. 

It gets all happy and fluffy.

[TJ_Burton]

It looks like it may have bleached a bit (translucent) and is probably recovering from the lack of being able to build calcium carbonate for an extended period of time. 

 

In my experience, corals in this condition benefit from lower light levels, direct feeding (if possible), and ideal cal/alk/mag levels.

 

Recovery takes more time and effort than simply sustaining or growing corals. So patience is key here.

[Clown79]

Whats your Ai set at? Its a powerful light and could be set too high. 

[TFish77]

5 hours ago, reeferx2 said:

Here's the skinny,

 

I've had this coral from when it was only 1 head, that was 2 years ago. When I first got it, it was a nice full, bountiful Frogspawn and looked like your typical piece.  As the heads began to grow the tentacles got smaller and smaller per say.

 

There was a bit of time were I sort of neglected the tank, only did water changes and my big 3 levels were on the lower side for a few months.

 

However,

 

My water quality has been nothing short of amazing for quite some time now (maybe 4 months) and I have experienced no growth or any return in fullness of the coral. I thought it might have been due to my previous lighting equipment, however I switched to an AI Prime 3 months ago and the coral looks the same. What gives??

 

Parameters:

spec G: .026, Cal: 420-450, Mag: 1350-1400, Alk: 8-9, No3: .02

 

 

It's been in the same area of flow since purchase date as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the best image I could source when I first got it 2 years ago, single head, and full of beautiful extension.

 

 

Corals are living things and need food to grow. It looks like this is a combination of malnutrition and too much light as the tentacles seem a bit bleached and translucent. Turn down lights, add food supplementation. Preferably something smaller like a roti or oyster feast. 

 

I hope you figure out what the issue is. It's a very pretty frogspawn. 

[reeferx2]

So I know my old lighting wasn't sufficient, it was a custom rig that I made using automotive LED's that kinda just got me by. Every other coral in my tank has shown me an explosive growth rate since upgrading to the AI Prime except this one. Palys, zoas, shrooms, galaxea, etc.  The piece does seem to be doing better than it was a few months ago, but still hasn't shown me any signs of getting back to its former glory. 

 

Maybe I'll try spot feeding it some reef foods, but my tank had always thrived really well until that said neglect period where I didn't know my parameters were super low. They've only been restored to acceptable levels for about 3 months now. 

Oh and thank you everybody for contributing to my thread.

[yungKitten]

I have an AI prime as well. Could you screenshot your current light cycle / levels?

Thanks

[reeferx2]

I actually just raised my levels yesterday, 10% higher for uv, violet, royal, and blue. An additional 5% for everything else. However I have acclimation mode set to 20% reduction for the next week. 

 

My light is approx 10" above the water line, tank is a now rimless fluval edge 6. By the way, the edge makes for a bad ass rimless. 

 

I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I run a HOB with sponge, 2 bags of chemi blue nano, and chaeto. 

[reeferx2]

Here's a photo of the other side of my tank, as you can see everything is thriving really well. The blue hornets in that colony of palys were pretty much melted. They have since returned a few months ago and are loving life. 

 

This is why I can't wrap my head around the frogspawn. 

 

Don't mind the fire and ice zoas, I had just finished pissing them off.

[Clown79]

Increasing by 10% with this light is pretty high. 3-5% a week is really the best.

 

I acclimated my tank over months to 80%, its 24" long and I have sps with my lps on the ends of the tank where they aren't in direct light.

Zoas are often more forgiving. Lps doesn't like high light.

 

I also only run my reds at 20% and green at 10%. Reds too high can negativily effect corals.

[yungKitten]

@reeferx2 Thanks for the reply. Also, the Edge looks way better and is significantly more functional topless. Great FTS. I hope your LPS issues get sorted because the tank looks wonderful. 

[reeferx2]

12 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Increasing by 10% with this light is pretty high. 3-5% a week is really the best.

 

I acclimated my tank over months to 80%, its 24" long and I have sps with my lps on the ends of the tank where they aren't in direct light.

Zoas are often more forgiving. Lps doesn't like high light.

 

I also only run my reds at 20% and green at 10%. Reds too high can negativily effect corals.

Thanks very much for this info, I have since added an extra week to my current acclimation period. 

 

I was unaware of the reds potentially having a negative effect on the corals as well and have also reduced those. 

 

Yesterday I crushed up some reef flakes really fine and target fed the frogspawn which seemed to love it. I believe I'll continue this over the next few weeks as well. 

 

Thanks everyone for the advice and continued support once again, happy reefing!!

[reeferx2]

14 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Increasing by 10% with this light is pretty high. 3-5% a week is really the best.

 

I acclimated my tank over months to 80%, its 24" long and I have sps with my lps on the ends of the tank where they aren't in direct light.

Zoas are often more forgiving. Lps doesn't like high light.

 

I also only run my reds at 20% and green at 10%. Reds too high can negativily effect corals.

Thanks very much for this info, I have since added an extra week to my current acclimation period. 

 

I was unaware of the reds potentially having a negative effect on the corals as well and have also reduced those. 

 

Yesterday I crushed up some reef flakes really fine and target fed the frogspawn which seemed to love it. I believe I'll continue this over the next few weeks as well. 

 

I'm considering fragging two heads from this frogspawn and placing them where my rastas are to keep those cloves under control, thoughts??

 

Thanks everyone for the advice and continued support once again, happy reefing!!

[Clown79]

Reef roids and oyster are good foods for corals. Mysis shrimp too

[reeferx2]

I wanted to add this photo of how this coral looks at night. As you can see a lot of what should be skeleton appears to be missing. I'm referring to the area that should be white in color. At least from what I've seen in photos of this species at when closed.

[ReefSafeSolutions]

As far as I can tell, nothing looks wrong with the skeleton to me.  I see white fleshy skeleton around all of the heads, except for the one that positioned straight up.  So naturally we'll see polyp on that one, no skeleton.  But even on that head, I can see skeleton outlining the polyp.  Yours looks very much like how my Euphyllia all look when closed up.

 

You said your water quality went downhill for a few months.  If your alkalinity dropped quite a bit in that period of time, it could have shocked the frogspawn.  It happened to my first tank.  I kept the frogspawn that was growing quickly to see if it would come back, and now after almost a year later, it's finally starting to get longer tentacles again.  And by longer I mean, probably a centimeter.  So not very long.  But a HUGE improvement over how it used to be.

[reeferx2]

Thanks for your input, I just figured something else may have been wrong with my piece after seeing a bunch of photos that look like the one I've attached. Where the whole skeleton appears to be white and plump. 

 

I expect to play the waiting game with this piece and as one of my very first corals in this hobby, I certainly don't want to give up on it.

 

Just seeing all these large wavy frogspawns in everyone else's tank makes me jealous, lol 

[ReefSafeSolutions]

Yeah I'd say give it a lot of time and keep your water in good shape.  And maybe try feeding it, see if it will respond to that?

[reeferx2]

Yea I've been crushing up reef flakes and target feeding the past couple days with good results. Going to start using reef roids or frenzy soon...suggestions?

[gone_PHiSHin]

I alternate between reef roids, coral frenzy, and BRS reef chili.  my corals love them all.

 

i also occasionally spot feed some frozen 'blender mix' from my LFS that has all kinds of stuff in it.  my tailspot goes crazy for that stuff.

 

variety is the key

 

 

I'll add:  I think you get the most bang for your buck from the BRS reef chili. it's a large, full container for relatively cheap.  BRS has a video that shows them getting good results from it. 

[gone_PHiSHin]

just a heads up, coral frenzy is 20% off at marinedepot.com right now.

[reeferx2]

Thanks for the tips! I have to admit though, I'm an Amazon prime addict, lol