Official Acanthophyllia, Cynarina, and Indophyllia show off (and appreciation) thread!

[jonray]

The acantho’s were all on the sand from the start and did fine. I got the stands after they started declining while troubleshooting, and fearing sand irritation, bristleworms, etc

They are 2” risers

Everyone I see with acantho has them on the sand, so that’s what I did. I question if they all randomly got scrapes or injuries then infected.

All we can do is remove potential issues. The risers are a great idea and I would use them on all of your big meaty corals if I were you.

 

[jonray]

Red or Yellow?

 

[VintageReefer]

All we can do is remove potential issues. The risers are a great idea and I would use them on all of your big meaty corals if I were you.

I will be buying more. Frag plugs fit perfectly in them, and they have grips to hold the skeletal base if you don’t have a plug mounted

Got it on eBay. Was shocked when I saw them because I never heard of a riser designed for meat corals

Scolymia Stand, Trachyphyllia Stand, Acantho Stand, Wellso stand, frag holder | eBay

30° angle 1.5" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). 30° angle 2" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). Note: If you have no sand, the holder will float without any corals attached.

www.ebay.com

I even used one on a pricy lobo I’m growing and wanted out of the sand

 

[VintageReefer]

Red or Yellow?

Rainbow behind it!

All three are very nice

 

[jonray]

I will be buying more. Frag plugs fit perfectly in them, and they have grips to hold the skeletal base if you don’t have a plug mounted

Got it on eBay. Was shocked when I saw them because I never heard of a riser designed for meat corals

Scolymia Stand, Trachyphyllia Stand, Acantho Stand, Wellso stand, frag holder | eBay

30° angle 1.5" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). 30° angle 2" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). Note: If you have no sand, the holder will float without any corals attached.

www.ebay.com

I even used one on a pricy lobo I’m growing and wanted out of the sand

Wow. They look like medieval item of torture but what a wonderful idea

I will be buying more. Frag plugs fit perfectly in them, and they have grips to hold the skeletal base if you don’t have a plug mounted

Got it on eBay. Was shocked when I saw them because I never heard of a riser designed for meat corals

Scolymia Stand, Trachyphyllia Stand, Acantho Stand, Wellso stand, frag holder | eBay

30° angle 1.5" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). 30° angle 2" height (make your master piece tilted with 30° angle). Note: If you have no sand, the holder will float without any corals attached.

www.ebay.com

I even used one on a pricy lobo I’m growing and wanted out of the sand

Lovely lobo enjoying the view from its high rise condo

 

[Tcook]

I use all Hanna digital testers and have unnecessarily replaced reagents just in case. I elevated the acantho’s 2” off the sandbed on coral stands made for meat corals, and has not helped so far.

I have 4 Cynarina on the sand, and a scoly, all doing great

These pics are all from the last few days. In full tank shots my green acantho is far left, the red/orange bleaching one is center tank on the coral riser.

The Cynarina are in a trio to the right of the acantho. Another Cynarina is in a hard to photograph location so I didn’t include it.

Last night I dipped the two acantho with coral rx. Couple baby bristle worms came off. Approx 1/4 - 1/2”. I am target feeding both acantho every 2-3 days. And using aminos (reef energy ab+ and tropic Marin amino organic ) every 2-3 days

What par are these at?

 

[VintageReefer]

Prior to the bleaching / acantho issues my sandbed ranged from 100-125 par


Per advice of a vendor, they said to remove or reduce whites to aid in recovery from bleaching. I reduced my white down to 3%

The green one is below a torch garden. It’s partially shaded. It used to be 100, now it’s roughly 75.

The red one center that’s bleaching was 125. Presently it’s 100 par

Maybe more pics will help find a clue

They should look like this: and they did for 5-6 months.

 

[VintageReefer]

Would love to turn this around.

I have everything needed for kfc dip. Or I can isolate ingredients to do individual / single product dips

Amoxicillin
Ciprofloxacin
Chemiclean
Revive
CoralRx
Lugols
Restor

I have a multitude of food products as well.

Aminos:
Reef energy ab+
Tropic Marin Amino Organic

I’ll retest any parameter that’s suggested. I’ll follow any advice or suggestions I possibly can

I’ve already lost one and am at a loss of ideas. I’m not an inexperienced reefer by any means, however, these are my first times keeping acantho.

I have successfully been keeping Cynarina for years, and figured acantho is the same thing (parameter and requirement wise) but larger. So I bought the green and red ones, after a few months of apparent success I got the large 24k. Which does remind me…I always suspected something was going on with it from the start. It showed a skeletal protrusion most of the time. Sometimes it would inflate properly and look normal. But it always came back. Especially at night. I remember thinking my other acantho’s don’t show that at night. I posted here about it and talked to the vendor, and was reassured that it was from stress and would heal up in a few weeks to months. And then the gold acantho declined rapidly.

If it helps I can post pics of the gold one at various times during the decline process, and the day before I officially gave up on it and said “this is too rough to put back in my system, it’s going to rot flesh and cause issues” and tossed it

 

[jonray]

My rainbow cynarina. A lovely little coral

 

[Mr. Acantho]

Anyone here done business with MarinePleasures?

They have some cool livestock on the website. But doesn't look reputable based on the few Google reviews and low ratings.

3" Holy Grail Acanthophyllia - (Ultra Rainbow)

WYSIWYG.! First Ultra Holy Grail Acanthophyllia Deshayesiana ever found. You will be purchasing the actual coral shown in the picture.

marinepleasures.com

 

[Mr. Acantho]

@VintageReefer can you share all parameters: Alkalinity, calcium, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, and ammonia

Par reading

Weekly feeding habit

Coral warfare? I know your pics shows the corals near each other

I don't agree bristleworms would kill an acantho. All of my corals have worms, copepods, etc. Living under the base

I even have two hielfrichi since two months thar are burrowing under an acantho

Do you have a vet in your area? May need to get a lab report of the water and possibly of the acantho... but you threw it out.

 

[VintageReefer]

can you share all parameters: Alkalinity, calcium, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, and ammonia

Par reading

Weekly feeding habit

Coral warfare?

Alkalinity was fluctuating 7.5-8.5. Just added auto dosing system, it will remain stable at 8.5 as of 2 days ago. Testing every 4 hours, auto dosing back to 8.5 if it drifts under

calcium 400-420
salinity 1.026
nitrate 6.5-8.5
phosphate .38
I changed broadcast foods (2 new ones) and in a week my phosphate spiked from .08 to .98. Stopped using them completely. I was able to reduce phosphate to .5ish in 3 days. Then worked on reducing slowly. Approx .1 per week. And am down to .38 and working to get to .1 slowly

ammonia never tested
Temp - 76-77

Par reading was 100-125. Due to bleaching, I have reduced lighting approx 10%

Weekly feeding habit - mysis, sinking freeze dried food (plank reef jerky (that’s been re-hydrated), benereef

Coral warfare? The gold one I lost…it was attacked by a scoly. It could have been the start of the decline. They coexisted for weeks and no issues. Then one night I caught the scoly attacking with its filaments. I relocated the scoly. Could have been doing this at night for who knows how long. Scoly was only 2” and gold acantho was 8”

Other acantho’s are not in range of anything.

Green acantho - receded and showing skeleton ridges

Red/orange acantho - not receded, but bleached and translucent like a Cynarina.

Can get updated pics of both in daytime tomorrow

 

[VintageReefer]

Gold one was a loss and thrown out

Main goal now is recovery of the 2 remaining acantho’s

No other corals in my lps dominant system showing any issues


Here’s current pics of my Cynarina collection

 

[Mr. Acantho]

I would check ammonia

Lower lights to 100 PAR or less

Try to get alkalinity to 10. 8.0 is the bare minimum and I found this as the the #1 concern and the only tier 1 concern after reviewing your reply.

Continue weekly feeding, but do mysis only. Consider feeding 2x a week -- 1x every 3 - 4 days. Direct feed, give them 30 - 45 minutes to eat. Don't allow anyone to steal their food.

Can you try to get salinity to 1.027 or 35 ppt?

If all of this fails, time to find an aquatic veterinarian in your state since a medical professional will have to diagnose. Assuming you already did an ICP test for your water.

 

[VintageReefer]

I would check ammonia

Lower lights to 100 PAR or less

Try to get alkalinity to 10. 8.0 is the bare minimum and I found this as the the #1 concern and the only tier 1 concern after reviewing your reply.

Continue weekly feeding, but do mysis only. Consider feeding 2x a week -- 1x every 3 - 4 days. Direct feed, give them 30 - 45 minutes to eat. Don't allow anyone to steal their food.

Can you try to get salinity to 1.027 or 35 ppt?

If all of this fails, time to find an aquatic veterinarian in your state since a medical professional will have to diagnose. Assuming you already did an ICP test for your water.

Ok

Fairly sure my acantho are all in <100 par. Will confirm when I get my meter back.

I always give 30ish min to eat and I ensure there is no stealing. I’ll switch to mysis only

I can increase salinity a point to 1.027

I can increase alk also but not sure the impact this will have on my system. Maybe compromise and do small bump to 9?

I’ll get an ammonia test. I would be shocked if I had any.

Didn’t do icp. I have one though and plan to use it. Will post results

Thank you for the advice

 

[Mr. Acantho]

Ok

Fairly sure my acantho are all in <100 par. Will confirm when I get my meter back.

I always give 30ish min to eat and I ensure there is no stealing. I’ll switch to mysis only

I can increase salinity a point to 1.027

I can increase alk also but not sure the impact this will have on my system. Maybe compromise and do small bump to 9?

I’ll get an ammonia test. I would be shocked if I had any.

Didn’t do icp. I have one though and plan to use it. Will post results

Thank you for the advice

Yes post the ICP results

In general, Alkalinity helps acanthos build flesh and calcium helps build skeleton.

Alkalinity range in an aquarium is usually 8 - 12 dkh. 9 is on the lower end. I'm at +10 for my acanthos.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Anyone here done business with MarinePleasures?

They have some cool livestock on the website. But doesn't look reputable based on the few Google reviews and low ratings.

3" Holy Grail Acanthophyllia - (Ultra Rainbow)

WYSIWYG.! First Ultra Holy Grail Acanthophyllia Deshayesiana ever found. You will be purchasing the actual coral shown in the picture.

marinepleasures.com

That coral was featured in a Reef Builders article some years ago, was sold to a high end collector, so I definitely think that business is a scam. That's the same picture from the original 20K listing.

 

[Reef Regeneration]

Red or Yellow?

Love that one on the right!

 

[Mr. Acantho]

That coral was featured in a Reef Builders article some years ago, was sold to a high end collector, so I definitely think that business is a scam. That's the same picture from the original 20K listing.

Thanks for the input and supporting my suspicions

In general, if the Google Reviews are bad or missing I don't do business with them

 

[VintageReefer]

They are nice. I have a rainbow lobophyllia but my dang goby the other day decided that it should be covered with sand and it bleached out in a few spots

Did your rainbow lobo ever recover?