Last ditch effort

[Marco3995]

I have a favia coral that is withering away and has been sice 6 months ago, it started off healthy but has lost some of its flesh, 15% / month and now I am left with 20% left. I have tried diffrent postions with more water flow and diffrent heights in the tank, I feed it every other night with cyclopeeze and accepts is quite readily. I am at a loss.

Here is where I am at, see if you spot something a miss.

calcium 400 mg/l
Alk. 9 dkh
Phosphate 0
Nitrate 10mg/l
Nitrite 0
ammonia 0
Ph 8.2
temp. 78.2 F

All these parameters have been stable since the addition of the calcium reator 2 months ago.

Lights 2 175 watt MH 5" from water
Actinics (not in the fixture due to complication of replacing ballast, the bulbs have been out for 2 months)

Water flow medium
Favia sits about 11" depth from MH bulb.

Thanks for the help.

[GatorReefman]

Just a guess, but favia may not like direct lighting so try positioning the coral off to the side maybe with a little shade. Also look into its current requirements.

[tgfrench]

feed it some chopped up krill or mysids

[MNreefer386]

I agree with gatorreefman, I have bleached some lps under mh and they only recovered when I moved them to my pc lit tank w/ the same water chemistry.

[Marco3995]

Thanks I`ll give that a try

Lets hope for the best and a speedy recovery

[DJ88©]

[moved]

[lizardking38]

I agree with both MNreefer and gatorreefman. Try to move it into a shaded area (less direct MH light) and into a lower flow area. When flesh starts to recede, moderate to high flow can cause more damage. Continue to feed and add some meaty foods like chopped up shrimp or krill. Good luck

[yardboy]

A personal anecdote. I bought a nice round Favia brain as one of my first corals four years ago. It suffered through the trials of a newbie with no ill effects, including leaving the metal halides on for four days straight, with increases in salinity and the top of the coral bleaching, from which it recovered. I put it in a 150 and thought it would finally live a comfortable life, which it did for several years. Work demands increased, and I didn't do frequent enough water changes, DOM inceased, and a cls pump got restricted flow, so the coral was in a low flow area for several months. This resulted in 25% tissue recession along the bottom. Conditions are stable once again but the area that receded has not grown back. Moral of the story is that I think they like good flow and clean water.

[Marco3995]

Well I moved it to the far corner of the tank with less MH pumping at it and it does have less flow there as well and as fate would have it I am about to give it some cyclopeeze, just waiting a few minutes to his feeders come out.

I will write down any progress I see.

[Testhead1313]

I agree with the above, try feeding it something meatier than cyclopeeze. I feed mine mysis and cover the coral with the top of a 2-liter bottle cut off so the fish, shrimp, etc. don't steal it. I recently purchased a brain that has lost a lot of tissue. I have pulled several parasitic gall crabs out of the coral which seems to have helped a lot. There are also a few burrowed barnacles and such in there as well. If I don't continue to see progress, I may dip the coral in interceptor to remove the rest of the crustaceans. Many people here will tell you gall crabs will not harm corals, but Dr. Shimek has had several other reports of such parasitic events. You can find my post about it on the marine depot forums if you're interested. Good luck!
Chris