Help - I think my Coral is dying!!!

[H2oH2o]

Hi I bought some coral about 4 months ago (I am having a brain fart right now and I do not remember the name for the life of me) and it has been doing well ever since I got it, till today!!!! The very bottom head is usually what every head looked like.There is a picture below that I took today, I do not know whats going on with it. Does it look dead, or dying, or is it just stressed?

Thanks alot,
Josh



http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/1201/img1542q.th.jpg (http://img31.imageshack.us/i/img1542q.jpg/)

[100%hydrophylic]

it looks like its reallly really retracted. i would suggest testing all your water. idk usually when i see dying corals they bleach and retract. or just bleach. yours still looks pretty well colored. might just be stressed or something. but again, test your water. IM NO EXPERT. just my opinions

[luther1200]

I agree that it looks like it receded. Any sudden changes to the tank.

[replicaprops]

What do you feed it? Nutrition is the first thing to look at.
It looks like some sort of trumpet, I would feed it some oyster feast, that seems to be a health boosting food.

[ReeferChick85]

Is that a candy cane/trumpet coral? Anyways I used to have one and mine did something similar to how yours looks and after checking all parameters and everything came back good,I decided to take it out and put it in a container and blasted it with a turkey baster a few times and I noticed some type of little worm fly off it one of the heads. Maybe you could try doing that or dip it for a few minutes. Hope it gets better! Good luck! :)

[H2oH2o]

Someone just told me to do an Iodine dip, how would I do that?

[H2oH2o]

Yes it is a Candycan trumpet and as far as recent changes I have added 3 Wrasses n the past 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago I added a Blue Headed Wrasse. Last Saturday I added a Marbeled Wrasse, and today I added a Lunare Wrasse. All of them are suppossed to leave my coral alone. Hopefully.

[100%hydrophylic]

Blue headed wrasse- reef compatible WITH CAUTION
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1379+2766&pcatid=2766

Lunare Wrasse (also called lyretail i think)- NOT REEF COMPATIBLE
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1379+346&pcatid=346

Marble Wrasse- reef compatible WITH CAUTION
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+1379+353&pcatid=353

im no expert on wrasses. but watch them. usually i hear they nip at polyps and sps. not so much LPS? but idk. no website is right 100% of the time. but i trust dr foster and smith pretty well

[H2oH2o]

Yeah I checked there site out already and looked at there descriptions. If you notice in the stats on the right in the box 2 indicate reef safe with some caution and under the lunare it says no under reef safe. However if you look at the descriptions it says at the end that all are reef safe and will not eat corals.

I havent seen any fish eat at the coral. Also what gets me is when corals get stressed or there starting to die wont they put out some slimey discharge?

[luther1200]

Not always.

[100%hydrophylic]

ive had some trumpet corals die on me just out of no where for no reason(apparently). very random. nothing testable was wrong with the water. no slimy discharge. yea i read that part about not eating corals. but i thought maybe they would bother them or something. as i said earlier im no wrasse expert. well if you know for sure its not the wrasse then has there been any sudden parameter changes? change any power heads? added any supplement you dont usually? changed salts? temperature changes in aquarium? umm....... light schedule changes? im just thinking of things that could possibly make your coral not such a happy camper. oh and about the slime. i usually only see corals slime right when somethings bothering them. not constantly for days at a time. but this observation could be off.

[H2oH2o]

For my flow I had my return line, and 2 Korilia 3's in my 65 gallon 36" long tank. None of my corals really did ot open up all the way with this flow, I figured it was to much for my tank so I shut my Korilias off for a week now and have flow just from my return. Ever since then everything looked good, even my Frogspawn looks like it is opening up alot more.
I have 2 250 watt halides on my 65 gallon so temperature is not steady throught the day. I doknow however that the temperature was pretty high yesterday and the water was alittle warm to the touch, and today it was considerable cooler about 3 degress cooler.

[100%hydrophylic]

that doesnt seem too bad of a change in temp over a day. so i mean...... hm. if you can seriously find nothing else wrong or different and your coral gets better soon then thats what bothered it. ReeferChick85 said something about a worm on hers. do you see any critters on it? you could dip it real quick to make sure. i really would think that if its just one worm on one of the heads then not all the heads would recede. could anything be stinging it now? maybe you have a coral with long sweeper tentacles and they finally can reach that coral? i wouldnt think its that because i dont see anything around it in your pic. but it could be a possibility

[H2oH2o]

I have been watching the Wrasse and none of them have been picking at corals, just snails. However I did purchase a pretty large Hermit Crab and that thing is annoying, it crawls all over the rocks during the night and in the morning I have been finding Coral that has been knocked off during the night. I think he is knocking them off. I was think that maybe he might be crawling all over the corsal and ****ing it off.

[H2oH2o]

So I just tested my water and all my parameters are normal. I did a water change. However I did find my Bluehead Wrasse and the Lunare Wrasses picking at my Kenya tree coral and my GSP. I sure hope my LFS will let me trade them in. They should considering they told me that they would leave my Coral alone.... :)

[Shane Hoffman]

Good luck catching them wrasse's.....I willing to bet you will be removing all your rock to get all 3 of them,.....


You should periodocally offer your candy canes brine or mysis after lights out....I actuall place a few small pieces right on the heads of mine once a week....