Attributing factors to long term Euphyllia health and growth...

[JWalk3r]

Making sure you get a healthy specimen to begin with is a huge part IMO... many LFS keep their corals on the verge of death until they can sell them and then the change in parameters is just too much for them to handle.

 

[leahfiish]

I have a few torches and I've noticed some are easier than others.


There are 5 separate Torch corals here. I started with the left green one. It is by far the least finicky. It rarely closes up or retracts. It grew a 2nd head within 2 months of being in my tank. I assumed that since it was doing well, the new ones would too.
The other 4 are from aqua sd, all purchased at the same time. I've had them for almost 3 months now, I believe. The right most one doesn't open up as much, it seems like it is easily irritated. I think it's because I epoxied it too close to the rock. The other torches are all mostly perpendicular to the rock, but this one is on a small shelf, so the side of it is pretty close to the rock. I think this is what is bothering it, because otherswise the flow and light are almost identical to the other torches.

The one above it, with the frag plug, almost always looks happy. I haventhad many issues with that one. The remaining 2 are sort of hot and cold, especially the one next to the bright green one. Sometimes they look good, other times not. I've been working on keeping my alkalinity a little higher (trying to slowly raise it to 9dkh) and more stable. I've also adjusted the flow a little bit. I have 3rd gen koralias with the small fish guards and they produce very gentle, diffused flow which seems to be what they prefer, and I have the powerheads aimed slightly above them pointing diagonally. They seem to definitely prefer the flow to not directly hit them, if it's too strong they retract. The green one, though, doesn't seem to mind it as much.

I've also noticed that these torches all look their best midday, around 4-6 pm. Afterwards they start to close and recede a little bit. My lights are on 10am - 10pm with the peak at 12 - 9.

I hope to cover this arch with torches so I'll be following this thread closely.

 

[FFFishy]

Could anyone post a video so we can see what amount of flow you've got? Terms like low, medium, or high are pretty subjective. I think I've got medium flow around my softies . . . but some of you might consider it to be low (or high !). Let me know what you think.

Here's a minute of video from my tank . . .

 

[FFFishy]

It's me again ! Can't figure out how to link a video. If you cut/paste this link, it might work:

 

[dmh]

I have 4 hammers, torch and frogspawn. I have found mine like moderate water flow, temp 79, alk 8.1. I have only had the gold hammer a month and it has a new head already.

 

[litenyaup]

Just added an mp10 and the flow seemed to get them out more. I love euphyllia and will be what is mostly in my 190 when I get it done.

 

[Dlionsfan09]

Here are some shots from my tank. Would love to upload a video, just not sure how to.

 

[WindeyD]

I have a frogspawn that as a 1 head frag was my first coral and is now a 40 plus head colony 5 years later; its been one of my hardiest corals and has done nothing but thrive. I don't regularly feed it and it gets mod flow and mod light from T5s; for me one of the easiest corals to keep and grow.

 

[twreefer]

Any suggestions on recovery? I lost a torch, and hammer and Duncan are withdrawn and hiding in their skeletons. Temp had run to almost 81 (not sure if that was cause), but brought it back to 78, and they stay withdrawn. Other Params good. They seemed to slowly head into this state over weeks.

 

[needbiggertanks]

Im on the variable flow team. My hammer and frogspawn are happiest with medium multidirectional flow that makes them move in all directions. And i feel they like my blue lights the best. New heads grow but my focus has always been large, puffed up lps that maintain thier colors.

Also, i dont directly feed the hammers and frogspawn.

No input on torches tho...

 

[leahfiish]

Here's a video showing my torches and the flow. I just took it, so it's a little past the peak time for my tank, they aren't as open as they are around 4-6pm. Also, my tank has been 80-84 in the last few months. Even up to 86 at one point. At that temp most of my corals were a little shrunken or not opening but everything recovered.

 

[hart24601]

I randomly lost heads until I recorded my tank and saw my clownfish try and host them. She would rub them too rough, get a cut and boom, brown jelly. It was infrequent enough that I never saw in person, just in video. I rehomed her and the torches in particular really improved.

 

[Vahanyos]

I currently have a frogspawn who has split in the 2 and a half months i've owned it. Also a hammer that has increased in size almost twice it's size but hasn't split... And a purple tip (aussie??) torch... sorry no pictures at the moment.

I noticed the torch was in a higher flow area, did not like that at all and it look 3 weeks for it to shrivel up and threw up it's polyps all over my tank and even some landed on my goniopora and ruined a good quarter size of it... shame.. > - but they do not like too much flow. It has to be low....

My hammer started spazzing out and retracted and wouldn't come out when my nitrates got a little too high.. so did the frogspawn but he was more forgiving. I got my nitrates really down and the hammer started opening up. The frogspawn and hammer are in the same low flow area and are doing good now... i beat my torch to death with too much flow. they all love light, and pop out more when my lights are on full blast.

just my experience with them.

 

[Jenna Bearden]

I have two hammers in the top third of my tank, under my power head. The strongest flow goes way above them, they softly wiggle. They are doing great! My small one is about to form another head, that's the second one in a month! So in total, I'll have three heads on my branching hammer. My wall hammer has two heads at the moment, just waiting for it to split again. My torch is on the sand bed, it likes somewhat of a high flow and is very happy. It has two heads, and hasn't split since I got it last year. My frog spawn is in the back left corner with very low flow. One just split recently and the other hasn't. I have t5 lights with 2 blue atintics, 3 pinks, and 1 purple at 100%. All my euphyllias are under direct light. I do a 10% water change every week. I feed reef bugs once a week at night. And one key factor in healthy euphyllias is, having a great lfs with great coral! My lfs here in Louisiana, is great! He always has great looking coral. Whether it be bought coral from his suppliers, or from one of his clients. He's always honest as to wether the coral will make it when you purchase it. I'll ask about it, and he'll tell me he'll give me a discount if it's not looking good. He'll say I don't think it'll make it, but you can try. So good placement and quality live stock, are the way to go in having healthy corals!!

 

[VP616]

Like others have said, flow and light are key. Plus, once they are placed, not moving them around at all, if possible. They become conditioned to a certain amount of flow and light once they are settled in.

I've had this "frammer" and the rainbow torches for a while now. The green hammer below the frammer was actually bought from a Petco as a single head frag. The Torches remain on the sand bed and the frammer is about halfway up a 24" tank.

Lights: Radion G4 Pros 9" from the top of the water line.

Broadcast feeding LRS Reef Frenzy daily. ReefRoids once/week.

Flow: Gyre XF 250. Variable. It's mounted vertically about 6 inches away, behind the rock that the frammer is sitting on. Provides a lot of indirect flow.

Tank parameters are kept, for the most part, in the range pictured. This was post-water change, so the levels are a bit elevated from the norm. Running ZEOvit, so alk is kept low.

 

[pelphrey]

I keep my temp between 78-79. Dkh is 8.5ish running two gyre 230's on my reefer 250. One is on the long wall at 50% then switches to the other pump on the back wall running at 20%. Pumps alternate running with 6 second intervals!

 

[Reefbuds]

One head of my hammer just passed for no apparent reason. The other head of the aame colony is just fine. The salinity jumped a little over the last month or so but it wasn't a sudden thing. The goniopora and frogspawn weren't affected at all tho.

 

[KnH]

Euphyllia! What's not to love?

image via @TCK Corals

Ok maybe you are not a fan of awesome coral tentacles whipping in the water column but a lot of us are! If you're not then head on over to the sps forum.

All joking aside, what would you say are some attributing factors to long term Euphyllia health and growth?

Let us know!

This is the look I am going to go for, but I thought the Torches killed any thing that their sweepers could reach.

 

[chowwil]

I've had a colony of neon green branching hammer for 6-7 years that started out great and ended pretty badly. When I bought the piece, it had 6 heads. As time when by, it went from 6 heads to 25 heads. The colony was the size of a soft ball. 3 years with the colony, my pair of clowns started hosting them and did fine for 2 1/2 yrs until they started mating and laying eggs. Was fine for first 3 batch of eggs, then notice they have gotten really aggressive and very territorial then normal. Then one by one the colony started dying off. The colony took a lot of beating with the clowns protecting it territory and protecting the eggs. Finally gave up with the clowns and had to take them out. I only manage to save 4 heads. Watching the colony dying off one by one was very upsetting. Watching them grow back gives me hope that it's bouncing back.

 

[BantyRooster97]

I had a clown that got upset with a brand new Aussie Gold (3 head) torch. I guess I put it too close to his nem & he started picking the tips off. I moved it but it was too late.... he killed it. Then he did the same to a black torch.... he had to go.