Advice requested re: Corals are fighting...

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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Okay guys,

I need your help on this one. As most of you know from my pics my nano is packed with corals. My frog spawn is in the middle, directly behind him is my plate coral. To the right of the frog spawn is my torch coral and then to the right is my elegance coral.

Well, my elegance is sick so he doesn't bloom to max size and he's far away. The frog stings the torch every now and then but there is no swelling ever.

But with my plate, you see mucous at the end of the day. And he spreads out left to right rather than down towards the frog.

I'd have to get a bigger tank to accomodate everyone. I should've stayed smaller and now that my parameters are really good, everything expands bigger than when they were at the LFS.

My question is this: Does the plate heal from this each day. Can he live through this on a daily basis? He seems to expand fully each day gets his hits and then at the end has those visible bumps. But during the night he retracts everything looks okay and the next day it's the same deal. I'm concerned about him, just the plate coral. The others don't get any visible signs.

thanks,

Mike
 
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dragon79

New Member
crowded tank...

Mikey:

Not the specialist here, but it sounds like more or less you need to make the space by getting rid of something and coming back with something smaller. Being you can't frag or have tools like that, it's your best option. Otherwise you'll have to watch it die someday. When you describe it as visible bumps, then it can't be good, being it can recover is great, but for how long?

You know....

You could always give me your plate, hehe... or perhaps the frogspawn... You wouldn't want it stinging the poor torch now would ya. Plenty of space here, ha ha ha (J/K) :lol:

The only other thing I am thinking of, is your smaller pico 2.5... is it able to accomodate your plate in there or is it too big?
 
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incysor

New Member
Mike,

Honestly I don't think that your plate is likely to do great if it keeps being stung. I went back and looked at your pics again, and from the angle of the pics it seems you just need to re-arange your rockwork a bit, or get a bit more so that you stack the corals a bit so they're not all sort of on the same level. It's hard to tell from the pics but it looks like maybe without moving any rock or adding any you could move the clam and the zoos that are front and center back to where the plate is, and put it where the clam is, although you might have to move some rock back so it can lay flat. It also looks like maybe you could move the frog back where the candy cane is move the paly, and the elegance over where the plate is, put the candy over where the palys were, and put the plate kinda where the elegance/frog is. You could also turn the rio over on it's side with the intake vents near the back to get a bit more vertical space under it if necessary.

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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Thanks guys,

I'm going to go with what Incysor says, I think I could rearrange the corals and I like the ideas you state. I just have to wait after work to get it started. It's hard and tideous but I have to do it cuase my 2.5 will only accomodate mushroom and zoos. I'm also thinking about downsizing some of my live rock to get a bigger sand bed. I have too much LV in my opinion...


Mike
 
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incysor

New Member
mikeguerrero said:
Thanks guys,

I'm going to go with what Incysor says, I think I could rearrange the corals and I like the ideas you state. I just have to wait after work to get it started. It's hard and tideous but I have to do it cuase my 2.5 will only accomodate mushroom and zoos. I'm also thinking about downsizing some of my live rock to get a bigger sand bed. I have too much LV in my opinion...


Mike
Click to expand...
I hope it works. It is/was difficult to tell how much room there is from the angle of the pics. You'll have to post some more pics once you rearrange.

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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Yeah,

I will definitely post my pictures once I have rearranged the tank. I'm going to go with the theme less is better if I can. I think my live rock should have been a lot smaller pieces to begin with. We'll see what I can do.

Hey incysor, did you get a chance to see pics of my brother and I? We placed them after we saw your iniative of a pic. We updated in the forum called lounge.

It's cool to put a face behind the post,,, kinda of neat to know with whom you are exhcanging info with....

Mike
 
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dragon79

New Member
mikeguerrero said:
Thanks guys,

I'm going to go with what Incysor says, I think I could rearrange the corals and I like the ideas you state. I just have to wait after work to get it started. It's hard and tideous but I have to do it cuase my 2.5 will only accomodate mushroom and zoos. I'm also thinking about downsizing some of my live rock to get a bigger sand bed. I have too much LV in my opinion...


Mike
Click to expand...
whatta a f*g, haha. (mike will get that)

as for "incysor" you are mike's hero. I dont know how many times a day my brother calls me and says "incysor gave some great advice on [something]...." haha. I too have to say incysor you have some good clean advice mr. guru. Keep them coming, as I am sure we the active users care for your experience and opinions comments.

on a side note: I still think Mike should send me something, hee hee.
 
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incysor

New Member
LOL....I'm glad I can help guys.

I do like having faces to go with the screen names. Glad you guys put yours up.

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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Incysor,

Last night when I got home from work, I rearranged just the plate. I switched him with the colony of mushrooms in the back left side of the tank.

He should have room there and not touch the frog spawn. But the bad news is that yesterday he was stung pretty bad. His side had major mucous and I blew a lot of it off with a turkey baster that I have.

I took a look at him this morning and you can see that that section looks like he was burned pretty bad. The rest of him is expanded and very healthy. I just hope it doesn't spread around, it is a plate coral so I couldn't frag it to save the rest.

I'm sad and angered at myself for having moved him in the center, thought he would look better as a center piece but I learned never move a coral during a work week if it is in a place it might get stung. I'll do moving just over the weekend where I can observe.

Incysor, can you shed some light on my situation. Will he regenerate his tentacles, or will that be the slow ending to a beautiful plate? I've never had this happen as I never owned a nano just larger reefs where they were placed far apart. Damn frog spawn is stronger than the hulk himself yet as beautiful as cinderella.

thanks,

Mike
 
Sugar Magnolia

Sugar Magnolia

New Member
That FS will sting the shrooms too. I finally had to get rid of my FS because it was getting so big and stnging the crap out of nearby corals. Thankfully my bullseye shrooms which were the FS favorite victim have fully recovered from the continued attacks.

Do you happen to have any Lugol's or coral disinfectant? It may not be a bad idea to give the plate a dip. Keep a close eye on it. It will either start with some RTN and go very quickly or begin the healing process.
 
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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Thanks Magnolia,

What is RTN, I take you mean regeneration? Can you educate me on how to dip the plate, how long, what medicine to buy etc....

That frog spawn even tries to sting the torch but according to the LFS they don't do that much harm to each other, and it's true I've seen that nothing happens to the naked eye.... Hope nothing is happing intenally....

mike
 
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incysor

New Member
mikeguerrero said:
Thanks Magnolia,

What is RTN, I take you mean regeneration? Can you educate me on how to dip the plate, how long, what medicine to buy etc....

That frog spawn even tries to sting the torch but according to the LFS they don't do that much harm to each other, and it's true I've seen that nothing happens to the naked eye.... Hope nothing is happing intenally....

mike
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"RTN" - Rapid Tissue Necrosis
Here's a good article concerning it. I've normally seen the term used in regards to SPS corals, but I think it's a good description of what it'll look like if your plate deteriorates.
http://www.reefs.org/library/talklog/eb_jl_111598.html

SM's suggestion of an iodine dip is a good one. Do that and make sure that it's got good flow over it. It'll help it fight off infection if nothing else.
I can't really say one way or another if it'll recover. I've only tried one plate coral, and I didn't have any luck with it.

If you can keep the frog and the torch seperated from most everything else it's a good idea. If the two are touching it's unlikely that they'll do damage to each other. If you can add some height differences with your liverock I think it'll make it easier for you to get the corals seperated a bit better. If you're working with large pieces of LR, you can always hit em with a hammer and chisel to break them up a bit. I bought a great big nice piece of tonga branch that's the central piece in my 75, and was the central piece of my 55. The thing wouldn't fit into the 55 when I brought it home, and I had to whack off a couple branches to make it fit.

Here's the stuff to do the iodine dip with.
http://www.planetaquaria.com/product_in ... cts_id=624
You can probably find it at your LFS. Just follow the directions. I think it goes something like 40drops in a gallon of SW, dip the coral for 15mins or something. Don't follow mine, follow what the bottle says. :smile:
 
D

dragon79

New Member
incysor said:
If you're working with large pieces of LR, you can always hit em with a hammer and chisel to break them up a bit. I bought a great big nice piece of tonga branch that's the central piece in my 75, and was the central piece of my 55. The thing wouldn't fit into the 55 when I brought it home, and I had to whack off a couple branches to make it fit.
Click to expand...
Didn't know all LR needs is a bit of whacking with a chizel and a hammer to accomodate things you want in there. I thought it would damage everything. I'll have to try that if I find something that looks cool but wont fit, but will need some "modding" hehe.
 
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incysor

New Member
dragon79 said:
incysor said:
If you're working with large pieces of LR, you can always hit em with a hammer and chisel to break them up a bit. I bought a great big nice piece of tonga branch that's the central piece in my 75, and was the central piece of my 55. The thing wouldn't fit into the 55 when I brought it home, and I had to whack off a couple branches to make it fit.
Click to expand...
Didn't know all LR needs is a bit of whacking with a chizel and a hammer to accomodate things you want in there. I thought it would damage everything. I'll have to try that if I find something that looks cool but wont fit, but will need some "modding" hehe.
Click to expand...
:lol:
I've only had to do it twice. The firs time was to fit big honking piece in my tank, and another time was to get a very small leather off a very large piece of rock that I didn't have room for in one tank. I used a chisel to knock about 3/4 of the rock away from the leather and it fit fine. I put the remaining rock in another tank that had more room.
 
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mikeguerrero

Active Member
Dragon,

I've broken live rock to fit in my first nano. I've seen my LFS do it on many occasions. Doing it with a chisel is more precise.

I can let you guys know the plate looks a lot bettre since I moved him. He apparently is healing from what it appears.

I saw 1 tentacle stuck on the frog spawn from the torch and the torch and the frog had mellowed out their tentacles when I came home from work, I'll have to observe them tommorrow, yeah,, day off,,,,

I hope I spot my new addition to the tank, Pistol shrimp that disappeared after the Red banded Goby found him and took him to the back to make a house or something.

We'll see, I'll take pics tommorrow to show you guys a fully expaned nano...


Mike
 
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dragon79

New Member
cool mike

I'm glad you have taken the necessary steps in doing the right thing and making room. On another note, sorry to hear about your elegance coral. Wish there was another way cuz that gum drop loved it as a home. In the restructuring of the tank, I hope everything fits nicely this time.
 
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mikeguerrero

Active Member
So far so good. And I did pick up another elegance coral and the gum drop is happy, he hosted it immediately.

I am monitoring the frog spawn. Because even though I got traded the torch in for credit and got the elegance, the frog is still there.

I did make more room for him. But unfortunately, all my rearrangeing was on Sunday evening the the lights were not on for everything to be expanded.

I asked my wife to monitor the tank today since she stayed home to do some home work. We'll see,,,
 
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