Candy Cane Coral

[DadE02]

Complete rookie to the hobby.

We purchased this candy cane coral a few months back and they recently have shriveled up.

The first was taken a few days after the coral was introduced to our tank.



Unfortunately our blue tang had a 4 week bout with Ich where we used a reef friend treatment to help cure.

The blue tang has done well and is free of ich, but my candy cane coral has shriveled up as seen in the second photo.



Two other soft corals have died since the treatment. Have we lost the candy cane coral as well?

Please help.

 

[Sniperhank]

You treated in the display tank? That can cause all kinds of problems, to include making the tank unlivable for both corals and inverts.
Can you tell us more about the system?

 

[54seaweed]

no treatment is reef friendly , it is always recommended to QT fish for treatment.
most of the things used for treatment are bad for coral and inverts as said above.
most of these chemicals can leach into your rock causing long term problems , and treating a display can also kill all the beneficial bacteria which can cause another cycle or worse crash your tank .
I never listen to a clerk at any fish shop as half the time there advice causes more issues than good .

 

[DadE02]

Wish I had k ow about this blog before hand...

Our LFS owner had recommended a product called Kick Ich that actually advertises itself as being reef friendly.

Just finished a water change about 2hours ago and measured the tank parameters to be:

SG -1.022
pH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0.12ppm
Nitrite - 0ppm
Nitrate - 20ppm
Calcium - 400ppm
KH - 8dKH (143.2ppm KH)
Phospahte - 0.25ppm

 

[Sniperhank]

Any reef safe 'cure' is just herbal garbage to try to strengthen the immune system. It is no solution as the only known ways to kill the parasite is copper based medication or hyposalinity.
That said, I'm concerned that there is ammonia detected at all. No properly cycled tank should have an ammonia or nitrite on a detectable level. I'd do water changes until that is 0...which will also bring down the nitrates and help things out some too.

 

[Vague]

I wouldn't give up on the candy cane yet. I have afew of those an they are pretty hardy. Yours doesn't look dead to me.

 

[DadE02]

Thanks guys. I got the ammonia back down to 0. Just working on getting the last bit of Nitrate out, but I don't seem to be having any issues with algae (thankfully).

I have been trying to target feed it (with Coral Frenzy, Coral Accel or PhytoPlex), but have not seen any change.

Is there anything that we could do to help the candy cane coral revive?

 

[Sniperhank]

Stop feeding for one. There is no need and you are only continuing to foul up your water column.

 

[Vague]

I agree with sniper I don't feed mine and they do great.

 

[Vague]

I would leave it alone an let nature do its thing.

 

[DadE02]

Just wanted to provide an update on my cane coral, which appears to be finally coming back.

Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Sniperhank]

Looking really nice. Good inflation on some of the heads.