Galaxea help

[Neptunesghost]

I bought a beatuiful Galaxea coral about 10-11 months ago. It was large and bushy. We switched from 10,000K to 14,000K bulbs shortly after we got the coral. It has been slowly dieing off, and losing color. We just last week, switched back to 10,000K bulbs, but I haven't seen much, if any, improvement. I have tried spot feeding Cyclopeze, but it doesn't seem interested.

Parameters:
120G DT 5G Fuge
250W MH w/ actinic and night LED (Outer Orbit 48")
SG: 1.026
PH: 8.2
PO3: 0.0
NH4: 0.0
NO2: 0.0
NO3: 0.0
CA: 450
dKH: 10
WWF: 1.0
Temp: 78
Current: Tunze Wave Box

All other inhabitants look good, including FS, Hammer, Xenia, Anemones and 2 clowns.

 

[tex5620]

Don't have any experience with these. I was told they can be hard to keep. Is there any corals anywhere close by that could be doing any stinging or anything chemically to it. Hopefully it will pull through. I'm sure somebody with experience with this coral will chime in. good luck. just interested and wanted to bump this up.

 

[Neptunesghost]

Anyone?

 

[Phyxius]

I have one in mine and have had it for almost 5 yrs now and it has grown huge, been fragged and growing huge all over again

Lighting they seem to prefer mid lighting like you have and moderate flow. Mine has always been in the sand bed under 10k Reeflux MH bulbs. It has enough flow it moves back and forth some but nothing too much and its a changing flow with a wavemaker. I have also had it under lower lighting and it still grew but much slower in my sons nano.

I have also never really target fed mine as it always gets whatever is in the water column when I`m feeding everything else. I have once in awhile hit it with brine or cyclopeeze though.

I would be more worried about it stinging other things in your tank than other things stinging it. They can send out some pretty long feeder tentacles when healthy.

 

[Neptunesghost]

It used to have huge sweeper tentacles, but not now. It is easily half of it's original size and not very green at all.

I will try moving it lower in the tank...which seems counterintuitive for a fading coral.

 

[Phyxius]

What kind of flow is it in?

Health wise is it showing any skeleton? brown jelly looking stuff?

 

[Neptunesghost]

I have a tunze wavebox, gentle rocking side to side. The anemones look great in it. It has some exposed skeleton now, but it is clean. not "brown jelly" or anything. Just very short tentacles and a look of general unhappiness. It is also very light in color. It used to be a dark green, now very pale.

 

[Neptunesghost]

I am thinking of moving it to my 24AP, it has an upgraded 100W T5 current fixture and a little less flow. There is more room in the AP, incase he starts to come back. I don't think he would bother my Blenny.

 

[Phyxius]

It wouldnt bother the Blenny. My sons jawfish dug under the one in his nano..

They are prone to necrosis and recession as well as brown jelly but you have had yours for 10mths so it would have done it by now....
I have smacked mine with cleaning magnets, fragged it and abused it a little doing so, left it under PC lights in a QT tank while I upgraded to my 210g for a long while and it always stayed healthy.
Your water parameters are good and lighting is okay so its strange its slowly fading off and all else is doing well.

 

[Neptunesghost]

I didn't feed it for a long time...months....because I didn't realize I needed to. I thought it would grab what it wanted out of the water column. Maybe in a tank that big, there wasn't enough available. But it is a colonial animal right...it should be able to recover with the lower lighting and some spot feeding.

 

[Phyxius]

Feed it at night when the feeders come out the most if you can. Play around with the placement a little and see how it reacts the best in your tank . Different tank/lights/reflectors will all react different on how the light penetrates the water. I found that out real quick upgrading to better reflectors on my last upgrade

Good luck with it I know its frustrating to see something do this all of a sudden.