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

[Red_Beard]

Thanks for these answers! Did you see any differences in growth rate as well in under clean vs dirty water? How fast is your growth rate now?

When the water was dirty and there was no skimming, was there more detritus buildup and more uneaten food in the water? Did you get a sense of whether more organics-rich water affected the Euphyllia in a negative way, or was it in fact the converse (crystal-clear water was bad for Euphyllia)?

Yes, more organics in the water was way better for them than crystal clear water. Growth rates have slowed significantly with less no3, for me anyways.

 

[ryukendoK]

Do you target feed?

Yes, when I can. Come to think of it the period when my hammers declined in health coincides with when I stopped target feeding my euphyllia.

People online say hammers don't eat anything, but that's not been true in my experience--they are just very picky about what they eat. Most dry foods are sloughed off with mucus--they try to get rid of reef roids for sure. Tidal Gardens said they've tried Sustainable Aquatics Hatchery Food, and I've had hammers eat those once or twice, but the rest of the time they spit out the food undigested about half an hour afterwards. They've accepted TDO chroma boost pellets, but some heads will eat that and others won't. Interestingly their tentacles don't adhere to dry foods all that well, and they don't show a very strong feeding response either, so that you have to turn off the flow for them to eat successfully.

The process is very different for small pieces of freshly-chopped shrimp--the tentacles really stick and grab hold of them and the whole polyp closes around it quite quickly, so that you can feed even with the flow turned on. But even then the response gets weaker when you are feeding thawed shrimp. When I have the time, I try to feed every other day, and that coincided with the period when I had the fastest growth.

 

[danreef55]

Yes, when I can. Come to think of it the period when my hammers declined in health coincides with when I stopped target feeding my euphyllia.

People online say hammers don't eat anything, but that's not been true in my experience--they are just very picky about what they eat. Most dry foods are sloughed off with mucus--they try to get rid of reef roids for sure. Tidal Gardens said they've tried Sustainable Aquatics Hatchery Food, and I've had hammers eat those once or twice, but the rest of the time they spit out the food undigested about half an hour afterwards. They've accepted TDO chroma boost pellets, but some heads will eat that and others won't. Interestingly their tentacles don't adhere to dry foods all that well, and they don't show a very strong feeding response either, so that you have to turn off the flow for them to eat successfully.

The process is very different for small pieces of freshly-chopped shrimp--the tentacles really stick and grab hold of them and the whole polyp closes around it quite quickly, so that you can feed even with the flow turned on. But even then the response gets weaker when you are feeding thawed shrimp. When I have the time, I try to feed every other day, and that coincided with the period when I had the fastest growth.

Try Reef Nutrition foods. It will be readily accepted. The also readily accept brine and mysis. The proper amount of flow is also important and can be visually determined. Best of luck

 

[dakoop]

Tagging along

 

[VintageReefer]

Sorry, when I referred to Euphyllia growing incredibly fast I was referring to you actually (not to Red_Beard) Your results are incredibly impressive and I want to achieve something like that!

Thank you!

What are your nitrate levels?

I don’t track nitrate as much as other things, but this graph shows them. Feb 2023 to nov 2024. Haven’t checked since then

Does your current tank have a lot of fish?

I currently have
4” tomini tang, lyretail anthia, cardinal, yellow damsel, yellow (coris) wrasse

I used to have two anthias but lost one to bullying, and I had a purple firefish and he just…vanished

And when you mention flow, how much flow was it? Do you have a video of your Euphyllia in your current flow?

I don’t have a video of flow but I would dedscibe it as broad and gentle. The green candy cane gets whipped around, the large 9 head banana colony gets high flow, and all the other torches and hammer I would say is low to medium, gentle swaying.

Do you ever experience flesh band recession, or does your flesh band never recede even as the coral grows?

Yes. I think a lot are plagued by it. It’s a mix. I have some torch with large flesh band and others with very small. It concerns me…but doesn’t seem to impact the torches unless it completely erodes away. I’ve had convo about this with two specialty torch vendors, one of them being Coral Kai, and am told that some species of torch just naturally have thin flesh bands. A wholesaler I am friends with confirms this also. To this day I have not figured out how to make them larger. A lot of my torch are “specialty” and with specialty things come more delicacy so that could be why. A common torch might have a 1”+ band and a banana might have 1/4” naturally

I have a torch, from another system…it was nearly dead. Flesh band completely eroded. But the torch was alive. I moved it to this tank what happened over a few months was wild…I was hoping the fleshband would regrow and it would heal. It. Did. Not. Instead…it grew an entire new stalk, almost completely covered in a fleshband ON TOP of the dying torch head.

Here you can see at the base there is a dead torch head and coming right out of it is a new torch.

So that guy regrew a flesh band…these ones have good flesh band

But at the same time I have others in this system over a year and they have tiny thin ones that never grow.

I have researched this and can find no info that seems to be responsible, or that seems to be a cure.

Also, this might sound like a weird question: do you ever get situations where your hammer coral tentacles lose their "hammers" and just become round?

No. Never seen this “happen”. I do have hammers with the hammer shape polyps and one other with circle ones. I had a discussion with Encrusting Acro and he says the round acrospheres is a trait some hammers get in captivity.

I run a tank with very low nutrients (nitrates and phosphates are always undetectable) because of its a mixed macroalgae-SPS-LPS tank and the macroalgae go through a lot.

You could reduce photoperiod on the macro to naturally allow nutrients to rise a little

I dose around 4ppm of ammonia and .04ppm of phosphate daily and am steadily upping the dose, though NO3 and PO4 are always undetectable by the end of the day. However, I find that the "hammer" shapes come back whenever I can get the hammers to eat, typically small pieces of diced shrimp. This makes me suspect they may lack nutrients because all the ions get absorbed by the macroalgae and they can't pump any into their tissue at that low concentration.

interesting. I’ll have to experiment on my round acrosphere hammer and see what happens. I too fond hammeds arr very picky and difficult to feed, but they will eat if given something they like

I believe this is a cristata or a short variety torch but after extensive discussion with a person I trust…they tell me it’s a hammer with round tips…

 

[Cichlid Dad]

This is my flow in my 120.

Parameters
Cal 425
ALK 9.5
Mag 1425
Phos .03-.1
Nitrates 10-20

T5 6 bulb 12 on 12 off
Par ranges from 75-140

Hope this adds to the discussion.

Flow is in a pattern of on and off and moves right then left with the center of the tank is in all directions

 

[ryukendoK]

This is my flow in my 120.

Parameters
Cal 425
ALK 9.5
Mag 1425
Phos .03-.1
Nitrates 10-20

T5 6 bulb 12 on 12 off
Par ranges from 75-140

Hope this adds to the discussion.

Flow is in a pattern of on and off and moves right then left with the center of the tank is in all directions

Thanks for your video and params--all these are very helpful! I think my flow is a little bit too low and laminar compared to yours.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Thanks for your video and params--all these are very helpful! I think my flow is a little bit too low and laminar compared to yours.

If you watch the hole video it gets pretty heavy at times

 

[schooncw]

My overstocked and overfed 120 LPS dominant system has PO constant at 1.0 and NO3 40-60. Corals are relatively happy, no nuisance algae and the fish are fat!

 

[FernBluffReef]

I was having similar issues until I started dosing trace elements - after a ICP said I had no iodine, iron or manganese. That combined with making sure my nutrients don’t get too low and they seem to be doing quite well. Flesh bands are long now while before they receded slowly over time.

I have one not doing so wall lately due to fighting as one was stretching a long ways and i guess the two didn’t get along.

 

[MrGisonni]

Available space is a limiting factor that impacts growth as well. I have frags from my own corals that are growing twice as fast and large in my classroom 175 as the original colony in my 30. Sure frags grow faster, but space to grow without the chemical signatures of a competitor coral nearby clearly makes a difference. Water chemistry and lightning is similar, and both are dosed with AFR.

 

[ccole]

Here’s my mostly LPS mixed reef. All euphyllia have started as either one head or two heads. I do not worry about feeding my euphyllia personally though I’m sure they catch food when I feed the fish.

From my last tests, these were my parameters. I’ve had Alk as low as 6.8 in the last (on accident) and kept it in the high 7s for a while. I haven’t noticed any differences in growth rate. I also have to dose phosphates, so they fluctuate between .06-.16.

Calcium: 420
Alk: 8.5
Magnesium: 1340
Phosphates: .1
Potassium: 410
Nitrates: 22 (down from upper 40s after skimming and using bacto-balance)

Parwise I keep everything between 250-150. I have lost heads before due to shading. They lose flesh band, shrink, bleach pretty badly, and eventually disappear. The colors are better under higher par.

I’ve found what has been very helpful is gluing the torch down and not touching it. The sand in particular seems to be very irritating and will cause tissue loss after too much contact. This would occasionally lead to infections. I kept some in the sand bed and they would inevitably be pushed over by snails.

No matter what I do, I can’t keep Australian torches. They always lose flesh band and eventually bail out. I’ve had especially good luck with aquacultured Indonesian torches.

 

[gregrock68]

Sorry, when I referred to Euphyllia growing incredibly fast I was referring to you actually (not to Red_Beard) Your results are incredibly impressive and I want to achieve something like that!

What are your nitrate levels? Does your current tank have a lot of fish? And when you mention flow, how much flow was it? Do you have a video of your Euphyllia in your current flow?

Do you ever experience flesh band recession, or does your flesh band never recede even as the coral grows?

Also, this might sound like a weird question: do you ever get situations where your hammer coral tentacles lose their "hammers" and just become round? I run a tank with very low nutrients (nitrates and phosphates are always undetectable) because of its a mixed macroalgae-SPS-LPS tank and the macroalgae go through a lot. I dose around 4ppm of ammonia and .04ppm of phosphate daily and am steadily upping the dose, though NO3 and PO4 are always undetectable by the end of the day. However, I find that the "hammer" shapes come back whenever I can get the hammers to eat, typically small pieces of diced shrimp. This makes me suspect they may lack nutrients because all the ions get absorbed by the macroalgae and they can't pump any into their tissue at that low concentration.

For what it is worth, when my hammers heads lost their shape and size but not their color (yet), I was looking for parameter issues but I found that my lighting intensity was to high. It as though they were protecting themselves from the light by reducing their size. Once I reduced lighting (using par meter) they adjusted quickly to fully pumped size. Just a thought!

 

[ryukendoK]

For what it is worth, when my hammers heads lost their shape and size but not their color (yet), I was looking for parameter issues but I found that my lighting intensity was to high. It as though they were protecting themselves from the light by reducing their size. Once I reduced lighting (using par meter) they adjusted quickly to fully pumped size. Just a thought!

What was the PAR you were at when it was too high?

 

[RBarth]

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

 

[gregrock68]

What was the PAR you were at when it was too high?

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

 

[CHSUB]

0 no3 and LPS, including Euphyllia, are fine. Long history of success with torch corals at 0 no3. Raising no3 to some number, for example 10 ppm, and suddenly claiming success is, imo, hobby observation and coincidence.

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