What is the actual secret to long-term success with Euphyllia?? Please share!!

[Dburr1014]

I believe the splitting process affects flesh bands, fragging too. I have seen them recover but it’s no rhyme or reason. Some grow flesh bands in my tank and others dont.

3 torches with prominent fleshband

Yet at the same time. I have others in this system, adjacent, that have nearly no flesh band

Flesh bands remain from splitting sometimes in my experience. I got pictures on my phone somewhere buried.

Here's a Pic, two heads, flesh is way past where it's split. The second head is to the right, just can't see the head only the stalk.

 

[VintageReefer]

Flesh bands remain from splitting sometimes in my experience. I got pictures on my phone somewhere buried.

Here's a Pic, two heads, flesh is way past where it's split. The second head is to the right, just can't see the head only the stalk.

I have seen both. Where the flesh bands extends down past the V and where each head gets its own. I think there is much to learn still…I have tried researching to find out what exactly affects flesh bands growth and it’s all hobbiest theory and it all contradicts each other.

 

[Red_Beard]

I have a 340 gallon mixed reef with a several colonies of hammers, frog spawn, and torches. A torch I found buried in the sand and was looking pretty rough, I pulled it out and placed it in a rock to see if it'd recover (This was around 6 weeks ago) The torch head looks perfectly healthy and now has a second head as well.

I have a hammer colony that went from 2 heads to 30 in the last year. I have an Octospawn that I love that went from 2 large heads to 5 large heads (Slow grower).


So, on to stats:

Salinity has ranged from 1.025 to 1.030 (the 1.030 was accidental) The hammers looked less puffy at 1.030 - how I figured out something was wrong, but nothing died.)

Alk typically keep at low 8s - I find hammers especially seem to like lower alk (when alk gets to 9 -10 my hammers open more slowly in the morning and don't open fully).

Nutrients: Nitrates - I typically run 10-20 ppm (Hanna High range test).
Phosphates: .05 - .3 ppm (doesn't seem to affect my hammers, or they're just used to phosphate swings).

I feed heavily. I have 23 fish, several of them very large (12-13" in size) and they're fat. So, lots of nutrients in the form of food and processed food (fish poop).

Euphyllia's fleshy parts are usually sticky to capture food from the water column. I don't know if dosing phosphates helps, but, wondering if in low nutrient systems dosing things like phyto or reef roids, benepets reef food, would help things like euphyllia be more successful and thrive.

I run tons of filtration but feed a lot! So, there's lots of everything available to corals to consume. from fish poop, to nitrates, to phosphates, to fish food, to other organic nutrients. Is any one of those the key to success. To me it's all about nutrition. Making sure corals have a wide array of nutrients available to them.

I also dose trace elements. I use Red Sea Trace elements - A, B, C, D, once a week. These include iron, iodine, potassium, and many others. I also dose Chaetogrow once a week for my Algae Turf scrubber. But those nutrients could go to corals as well as algae too.

I even have two colonies of gonipora growing very successfully (something I've struggled with in the past.)

I think that is a good thing to point out. They do need nourishment. The actual NO3/PO4 values may not matter, as long as there is sufficient nutrients for the corals. Heavy in heavy out seems to be very beneficial, especially if you are keeping super low numbers, there is a lot of stuff available throughout the day.

 

[VintageReefer]

My phosphate currently is .37
Nitrates about 10

 

[CHSUB]

Getting a lot of good advice here! Not sure I read how long ur tank has been going? I really struggled the first year or so with Euphyllia. My tank is in the 3 year mark and they are booming. It's funny because I've asked some of the torch masters what their secret is...they don't have one, nor do I. It's always the same answer though...stability. I have had many fluxes in numbers over the years. I aim for a nitrate around 15, phosphate around .1. I run a skimmer 24/7 so I do have to add neo nitro/phos every week. I add when I do my weekly water change.

I wasn't thrilled with some of the growth and color towards the end of last year so I decided to tinker. Unfortunately I did too many things at once, which I know is a sin, so I can't tell you exactly which one worked. Stared dosing RS trace elements. Started feeding phtyo/RR/RS energy twice a week. But I believe what truly made the difference was pods. Like lots and lots of pods. Like, my wife told me to quit ordering pods amounts of pods. Corals have never been fatter. Frogspawn the size of a basketball, hammer like volleyballs. Torches looooong. Now because of all the feeding I've started acclimating my light to get them to 250. Always had been in the 150 range.

I've got some random pics over the last few months I'll post.

THAT SAID: STUFF DIES. Thought i was king and literally just trashed two Torches I received from a black Friday sale. I honestly can't tell you why some things make it and others don't...but buy some pods lol

Side question from your picture. Noticed a coris wasse and a flame hawk in your uncovered aquarium. I have had both in covered aquariums and both multiple times end up in overflow. I’ve been considering a flame hawk in my new uncovered aquarium? How long have you had the hawk and are you concerned about jumping?

 

[RBarth]

Side question from your picture. Noticed a coris wasse and a flame hawk in your uncovered aquarium. I have had both in covered aquariums and both multiple times end up in overflow. I’ve been considering a flame hawk in my new uncovered aquarium? How long have you had the hawk and are you concerned about jumping?

Well....let's just say that's my second flamehawk. My first guy lasted 4 years but he had made it to the overflow twice.

 

[VintageReefer]

Side question from your picture. Noticed a coris wasse and a flame hawk in your uncovered aquarium. I have had both in covered aquariums and both multiple times end up in overflow. I’ve been considering a flame hawk in my new uncovered aquarium? How long have you had the hawk and are you concerned about jumping?

Why not get a cover

I know a lid guy. Quality stuff and good prices

 

[CHSUB]

Why not get a cover

I know a lid guy. Quality stuff and good prices

Prefer no lid, selecting fish that seldom jump, and have mangroves growing in two connected aquariums.

 

[VintageReefer]

Have cutout for mangrove to grow through

Cutout on rear of this lid was for access to filtration compartment but easily could be for mangrove to grow through, and cutout can be put anywhere in any needed size. Fully customizable
Paid 70$ for this

 

[CHSUB]

Have cutout for mangrove to grow through

Cutout on rear of this lid was for access to filtration compartment but easily could be for mangrove to grow through, and cutout can be put anywhere in any needed size. Fully customizable
Paid 70$ for this

Looks good! I have been lucky, only one jumper, Mides Blenny that I should have known better. Only selecting fish known to not have a propensity for jumping. Hence no wrasses or unfortunately hawk fish.

 

[kingranch2003]

250+ at the top, and with my radion g6 it was pretty much the same throughout the tank everywhere. I didn't expect the bottom of the tank to generate the same par levels is the top but that is what was happening. I backed down the intensity by 50% and everything perked up significantly, especially my hammers which are now flourishing

What overall intensity are you running and what size tank? I run one g6 on 50% in my 40 cube, euphyllia seem happy.

 

[VintageReefer]

Looks good! I have been lucky, only one jumper, Mides Blenny that I should have known better. Only selecting fish known to not have a propensity for jumping. Hence no wrasses or unfortunately hawk fish.

I understand, just know, any fish can get spooked and jump. Even spooked from another fish. Lid is a good safety measure, and then opens door to more fish choices. Also reduces evaporation, needing less top off and more stable salinity.

 

[gregrock68]

What overall intensity are you running and what size tank? I run one g6 on 50% in my 40 cube, euphyllia seem happy.

I now run 35% on my 40 cube. Prior to my par meter purchase I was 80%

 

[kingranch2003]

I now run 35% on my 40 cube. Prior to my par meter purchase I was 80%

Thats interesting to finally find out what higher percentage would cause low level par to be. Sounds like 80% would be percentage for an sps dominant tank our size though

 

[Tamberav]

Buy ones that have been aquacultured in captivity a long time. They have been pretty dang hardy in my experience but not so much with chop shop ones.

 

[gregrock68]

Thats interesting to finally find out what higher percentage would cause low level par to be. Sounds like 80% would be percentage for an sps dominant tank our size though

I agree, I think anything above 65 to 70% would /should be SPS. My corals were suffering from overexposure and polyps were shrinking to protect themselves or burning. Caught it early enough to only lose 2. Moral of the day, less is more

 

[ryukendoK]

Thank you so much for all of your answers, I think I have a lot clearer picture of what was going on. Want to give you guys an update, but before that just a tank history and what I've done to troubleshoot my issues.

A link to some photos that show my tank looked like several months ago:

The tank was started in Feb last year, and is a 10gal. I call it RK's "Red algae coral paradise" hahaha.

As you can tell the tank has a large amount of red algae that is one of the centerpieces of the aquarium, and only has two tiny fish, a sharknose goby (that I never see) and a Yasha goby. Nitrates and phosphates have always tested at zero on a salifert test kit since the tank started.

To keep at least some nutrients available, I've fed heavily with reef roids, about 1/4 of a teaspoon every day. I reasoned that the ammonium and phosphate ions released from the breakdown of this food would allow some quantity available for the corals to use, even if the overall standing stock of N and P was almost undetectable. I actually had pretty good success with this method, and my first euphyllia, a green hammer, was growing, albeit slowly. That euphyllia was fed with diced shrimp once every two to three days. The tank was dosed with all-for-reef put in the topoff water in a gravity-fed auto-top-off. Dkh was very stable around 7 for a long time, due to the constant drip.

While I was away for several months, I got a friend to take care of my tank. This friend has a very different approach to reefkeeping, and liked to feed very large amounts of powdered coral foods more infrequently. One time, this triggered a bacterial bloom. The euphyllia started to decline a few days later. I think this is a pattern--a bacterial bloom followed by euphyllia decline also happened in the friend's tank, with actual brown jelly. My tank and the friend's tank shared some equipment, which could explain how the bacterial issues got over.

I dosed cipro, but was not able to stop the decline. I threw that coral out eventually. The decline did not spread to a frogspawn nearby, however. In July this year, I got a batch of corals from Barrier Reef Aquariums, and one of them, a pink poci, had RTN in the bag. I was deciding whether to put it in or not, and decided--against my better judgement--to put it in. The other two corals I got in this batch--a pink stylo, and another hammer, almost immediately got STN.

At the same time, the frogspawn now started to decline, becoming retracted, only slightly less expanded in the beginning, but becoming more and more shrunken, eventually with the tissue sloughing off. I was not able to save it.

I went through another in-tank cipro treatment with no effect. I noticed the STN on my poci and stylo would get worse whenever I fed extra large doses of reef roids. Eventually, I stopped the reef roids feeding, and switched to dosing phytoplankton instead of reef-roids for my filter feeders (a yellow filter-feeding sea cucumber and a feather duster). To add N, I switched to dosing nitrates in my auto-top off water, about 2ppm a day. The tank appeared a lot cleaner, and the STN on the pink stylo and pink poci appeared to slow drastically, if not stop completely. The tissue recession on the euphyllia continued, however.

About a week ago, I switched to dosing ammonia in my top-off water. I have been able to dose up to 5ppm ammonia a day without any nitrate reading becoming visible, and plan on going even higher. My alk consumption almost doubled, to >18ml all-for-reef a day. The polyp extension on all my corals has improved dramatically--its very interesting, the pink stylo finally looked fuzzy with all its polyps out at the same time, and the candy cane would put its tentacles out every time a few glugs of ammonia-rich water come down from the gravity-fed ATO. The pink stylo has finally started getting fluorescent pink tentacle tips on its polyps (similar to the purple of milka stylos). I also fed the remaining hammer, the one from barrier reef aquariums, with diced shrimp for the first time.

Today, it seems like the tissue recession on my hammer has stopped or slowed as well. The hammer's tissue got a few shades darker brown in color literally overnight after I fed it. It also looked a lot puffier--the flesh band on the polyp where the tissue recession is worst actually has some thickness to it for the first time since forever.

I don't know if my conclusions are right, but just some tentative conclusions here:
1. There is probably a bacterial issue in my tank. The worst of it was probably stopped by cipro, but the microbiome is probably still bad/"fragile" in some way.
2. When I was feeding reef roids, the organics in the water probably made the problem a lot worse.
3. All throughout this time, my hammers and frogspawn were probably starving. Corals actively transport N and P into their tissue, and with such low ammonia low nitrate and low phosphate it probably took a lot of energy for them to do that, so that there was little or no tissue growth and no energy left to maintain a good microbiome in their mucus layer and fight off disease. All my other hard corals (montis, stylos, leptoseris, stylocoenellia, acans, blastos, duncans) seem to have less problem but probably corals vary in how efficiently they transport nutrients into their tissue, with sps especially being very good given the low nutrient waters they come from. (corals and other animals, including us, maintain a good microbiome by spending energy to secrete compounds into their mucus, e.g. in our guts).
4. Keeping a slightly elevated level of ammonia in the aquarium probably helps all my corals preserve their energy and direct the excess towards growth and tissue buildup. Draining their energy by having low N and P probably lets pathogenic bacteria get the upper hand.

Will continue updating things. My current plan is to continue upping the dose of ammonia and phospate, and to feed my hammers on a regular schedule. These are just my current thoughts on what might be going on.

 

[RBarth]

Why not get a cover

I know a lid guy. Quality stuff and good prices

U got a guy for everything lol! I got ur other guy making me some of ur frag racks. Who's ur lid guy?

 

[VintageReefer]

U got a guy for everything lol! I got ur other guy making me some of ur frag racks. Who's ur lid guy?

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Those single frag racks I designed are awesome, I’m ordering more also.

 

[RBarth]

Life is all about connections!

Contact Us

Elevate your aquarium experience with the best lids on the market. Our precision-crafted aquarium lids offer crystal-clear visibility and exceptional durability, ensuring your underwater world remains pristine for years to come. Explore our range today for unmatched clarity and longevity!

walterlids.com

This is the page for custom requests. If he doesn’t have the lid you need on the website in one of the categories just use this form to get a quote.

Those single frag racks I designed are awesome, I’m ordering more also.

Thank you!!!! Yeah I can't wait for
them...allowed me to get a few more torches I really didn't have room for. Lol. Do you know if the back magnets for those racks can be submerged?
Forgot to ask him.