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Chris Scott 
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 Topic: Red open brain not looking good
Posted: September 18 2010 at 5:21pm |
Hi,
I've only had this red open/folded brain for about 4 weeks and he doesn't look so good. He has lost about 2/3rds of the volume that he used to have. I have a before picture, but I don't have a good pic of it now. During the day, it doesn't expand it's flesh anymore. It hasn't for about the last 3 days. At night it still swells up a little bit, but not much. I have 2 other brains, a green open brain and a blue wilsoni that still look great. I also have candycanes and frogspawn that look healthy.
My levels are the following:
cal - 475 alk - 3.0 meq/l amm - .1 ppm nitrite - 0 nitrate - 10 ppm ph 8.3 pho - 0 temp 78 sal 1.023
Here is the before pic. he is only about 1/4 the size now, and doesn't have his tentacles expanded. I tried to spot feed him last night with a turkey baster, but he didnt seem to grab much. I guess I'll try to continue to feed him chopped mysis via a turkey baster each night?? anything else I can do???
Thanks!
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55g Bowfront Corner Reef
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bugzme
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 5:25pm |
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Have you determined why you have any ammonia? Why is your SG so low? I run mine at 1.025
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Jeff
125 tank
50 gallon sump
T-5 lighting
Rum drinker, Carbon User
I KNOW ROCKS THAT ARE YOUNGER THEN ME!! I AM A Realist! I write what I think!!
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Chris Scott
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 5:45pm |
I just double tested my ammonia, and it looks closer to 0. but i do occasionally have ammonia, usually between 0 - 0.2 ppm. Not sure why.
My salinity probably got a little low because I changed the canister filter without adding some more salt water. I just added a gallon of salt water, to try to get it back up to 1.025-1.026. but still, these small amounts don't seem to be making this coral shrink so much.
My foxface rabbit fish does pick at it from time to time. But he picks at a lot of my corals and they seem to do fine.
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55g Bowfront Corner Reef
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kellerexpress
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Posted: September 18 2010 at 7:15pm |
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I could be from your fish picking at it. I had a large open brain die, and I'm pretty sure its from my blue tang picking at it.I had to remove another welso from my tank because I noticed the tang picking at it as well and it wouldn't expand. Now it's in my other tank doing well and looking normal.
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IM 30L
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SGH360
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Posted: September 19 2010 at 12:27am |
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what have you done to your tank before the brain started to not grow? Did anything touch it? Hungry fish?
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: September 19 2010 at 8:15am |
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I'm waiting to come visit. Give me a call with your address.
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Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks:www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member 
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CapnMorgan
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Posted: September 21 2010 at 6:38am |
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This is the tank w/ the newer pieces of vida-rock right? If so you may have overloaded the bio load and there are still mini cycles taking place as the filtration builds up to handle the bioload. What lighting are you running?
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Steve My Old 180G Mixed ReefCurrently: 120G Wavefront Mixed 29G Seahorse & Softies Running ReefAngel Plus x2 435-8
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Chris Scott
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Posted: September 21 2010 at 9:48am |
Yes this is the tank with all vida-rock.
This may be a dumb question, but do you consider corals in the bio-load equation? I always thought of them as neutral or beneficial to the filtration of the tank. Also, if it were cycling, I would expect my other brains and LPS and polyps to look bad right? The others look just fine.
I'm running a 150w MH 14,000 phoenix bulb (on 7 hours a day) and 64w of actinic (on 12 hours a day).
I'm also trying to feed the foxface more in case he was nipping at it. I got some nori sheets but he doesn't eat it. Which is surprising, considering he usually eats anything that goes into the tank, including fingers. 
I'll try some lettuce next.
Thanks,
Edited by Chris Scott - September 21 2010 at 10:53am
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bur01014
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Posted: September 21 2010 at 11:23am |
I'd feed it less...give it a break, feed the tank less in general for a few days, just some frequent small waterchanges, and get some Carbon running ASAP......when it doubt run some fresh carbon :)
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CapnMorgan
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Posted: September 21 2010 at 5:46pm |
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You shouldn't necessarily consider them part of the bioload, but you had twice as much rock before, then you took half of it out leaving the vida-rock. So essentially you cut your bio filtration in half. To keep the bacterial population up, I would have removed the other rock a couple small pieces at a time over a couple months. You could be experiencing mini cycles, some corals are more sensitive to changes in water chemistry than others. In my tank I can tell when my alk is a little low because my duncans don't open. All my other LPS and SPS corals always look fine. As soon as I dose alk the duncans open right up.
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Steve My Old 180G Mixed ReefCurrently: 120G Wavefront Mixed 29G Seahorse & Softies Running ReefAngel Plus x2 435-8
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SGH360
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Posted: September 22 2010 at 8:41am |
 Chris Scott wrote:
Yes this is the tank with all vida-rock.
This may be a dumb question, but do you consider corals in the bio-load equation? I always thought of them as neutral or beneficial to the filtration of the tank. Also, if it were cycling, I would expect my other brains and LPS and polyps to look bad right? The others look just fine.
I'm running a 150w MH 14,000 phoenix bulb (on 7 hours a day) and 64w of actinic (on 12 hours a day).
I'm also trying to feed the foxface more in case he was nipping at it. I got some nori sheets but he doesn't eat it. Which is surprising, considering he usually eats anything that goes into the tank, including fingers.
I'll try some lettuce next.
Thanks, |
Try the Ocean Nutrition Green Seaweed sheets my foxface goes crazy about them. he wont eat anything else even nori
Edited by SGH360 - September 22 2010 at 8:41am
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Ryan Thompson
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Posted: September 22 2010 at 9:38am |
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Just a couple things I see going on.
1) I HATE herbivorous fish for this exact reason. People say they are reef safe but the second they find out that coral can be eaten, it doesn't matter what you do, they will eat the coral. My uncle lost well over $5k in corals due to his tangs and a potters angel chomping on them. The tank had plenty of natural algae to eat and he fed them a ton. Once he tore the tank apart and removed all of the herbivorous fish, his tank has done amazing. Mark won't agree with me but I have had too many bad experiences with algae eating fish to change my mind. I can use snails to eat the algae instead.
2) That frogspawn is more than likely stinging it. They can put out sweepers like you wouldn't believe. 6+ inches is very easy for them to find a neighboring coral and kill it.
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Luckedout
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Posted: September 22 2010 at 10:27am |
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I agree with Ryan on both accounts. If a fish decides to start eating a coral.... it's going to eat that coral. What's worth keeping, the fish or the coral?
Also I don't put anything close to my frogspawn. It can stretch out those sweepers longer than you can believe sometimes and it kills corals fast! I just had a candy cane that i thought was safe by it, about 3" away from the closest sweeper, the next day 2 heads were getting killed because that frogspawn stretched towards it....
Your water parameters could be a bit better, but I don't think they're so far off to be causing you the problem you're having.
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-Ben
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www.body-balancechiropractic.com
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Chris Scott
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Posted: September 22 2010 at 10:47am |
thanks guys. Well I moved the brain far from the frogspawn, so lets see if it recovers. If it recovers, that might tell me it was the frogspawn not the foxface.
Now that I think about it...I have candycane on the otherside of the frogspawn, and 1-2 heads sometime look bad. Maybe its time to find a nice isolated space for mr frogspawn.
Edited by Chris Scott - September 22 2010 at 10:47am
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Chris Scott
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Posted: October 13 2010 at 2:12pm |
Well it took over 2 weeks of my red brain looking tiny with no flesh exposed, but finally yesterday he magically appeared healthy again! Moving him away from the frogspawn was the answer! 
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SGH360
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Posted: October 13 2010 at 2:24pm |
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cool looking pic, like the foxface
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Luckedout
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Posted: October 13 2010 at 2:25pm |
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That's awesome! Frogspawn is a tough sob.
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-Ben
90g Mixed reef
www.body-balancechiropractic.com
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Chris Scott
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Posted: October 13 2010 at 2:49pm |
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yea that pic was just from my cell phone! Not a bad camera on this samsung captivate.
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