Frogspawn question

[tangreef68]

I recently recieved a nice 3 polyp frogspawn frag. One of the 3 polyps has not been looking good since i bought it. it's tissue has started to recede off of the skeleton. What should i do? should i move it to another location?

Thanks,
Kevin

[edwing206]

what are your parameters?

[tangreef68]

calcium- 420ppm
ammonia- 0
phosphate- 0.01
nitrate- < 5ppm
nitirite- 0ppm
ph- 8.2
specific gravity- 1.025
alkalinity- 3.0 meq/l

[tangreef68]

by the way, my only fish is a small 2.5 inch foxface

[BLANKENSHIP76]

I wish I had those water parameters, but all my frogs do well with just about anything. Mine love high light???

If it continues to go down hill, I would either break it off or scrape the dead tissue away. I would probably snip it off if it continues to go down just in case whatever is wrong with it doesn't spread to the other 2 heads.

Also, make sure it is low to med flow.

[BLANKENSHIP76]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/blankenship76/tankpics003.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/blankenship76/tankpics007.jpg

Here a few pics of mine

[SuperNerd]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8430058#post8430058 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BLANKENSHIP76
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/blankenship76/tankpics003.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/blankenship76/tankpics007.jpg

Here a few pics of mine

I've never seen so many aiptasia with such green in them...do all of yours have those colors?

[BLANKENSHIP76]

Those aren't aiptasia they are just a green polyp with a redish center. My aiptasia are brown just like everyone elses.

However those polyps do spread like wildfire, when I had them under 12K lighting they would be fully expanded reaching like that and a little brownish i the middle, but when I switched to 15K lights they laid down a little and green began to pop and the center have a red look now????

[BLANKENSHIP76]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/blankenship76/fiheggs.jpg

Here is a pic excuse the quality the haildes weren't on yet and the flash was on in my camera, but you can see the polyps in the middle and there is a big nasty apitasia in the top right. He just got some Joe's juice after the pic though!!!

[nmprisons]

for the frogspawn - what is your magnesium? this is apparantly an important indicator that that species.

[tangreef68]

the euphyllia has started to look much better. The polyps (2 out of 3) have been fully expanded.

[Sk8r]

They can sometimes reclaim a head that's still got live tissue.

[isotope21]

So... I need a little help with my branching frogspawn.

Here it is in all of its glory (apologies for the bad pic):

http://www.ece.unm.edu/~poelsch/images/frogspawn.jpg

When this picture was taken, the colony measured 14" left to right, 8" top to bottom, and 10" front to back. I obtained the colony when it had only 4 polyps in September 2002. The polyps are impossible to count given the density of the tissue. Since that time I have fragged it multiple times. As it has grown over the years, polyps toward the bottom of the colony have withered away when they became fully shaded or enveloped by other polyps. This, of course, is "nature taking its course."

However, in the past few weeks I have been losing polyps at an alarming rate. The loss is occurring from the bottom up. In other words, only the bottom-most polyps are dying. Unfortunately, after they've died, the "new" bottom-most polyps begin to retract their tissue and perish, typically in a matter of 2-3 days. This is most troubling given the 4+ years of problem-free success I've had with this critter.

My digicam is out of juice and I'm recharging the batteries overnight. I will post pictures tomorrow evening of some of the damage.

I've only ever lost one Euphyllia colony (a torch) in its entirety - and that was to brown jelly disease. The other Euphyllia (a hammer) in the aquarium (along with everything else) is still thriving. These polyps, the ones that are perishing, appear disease/parasite free.

In a later post, I will post water parameters (not that it matters a whole lot in this case, since this Euphyllia could probably grow fine in a cesspool) along with a list of what I suspect may have catalyzed the recent polyp loss. But for now, I'm going to preserve the mystery NOT for the hell of it but to prevent "priming" anyone's brain and freezing it up from giving some real answers/clues/experiences. This is such a bizarre case since it's been such a prolific colony.

So, my question is this: has anyone else experienced what I dub "bottom to top" death of a Euphyllia colony, and why?

Many thanks for the help folks,
Pete

[GSMguy]

that sounds all bad