Candy Cane Problem

[bluespotjawfish]

I have a few candy cane corals that the stems have turned completely white. It happens suddenly. One is a pink one and the other is green. I have other green ones in the same tank that are fine. I lost a few heads on the first green one, but the remaining frag heads seem to be ok.

What causes this? I supplement the tank with kalk, strontium, and iodine (I also test for all of these). Nitrate 0, Phos 0 alk 140, calc 420, mag 1340.

[sasquatch]

any changes in lighting, or flow? chemical warfare/ how old is your carbon? oops! no answers only questions lol

[bluespotjawfish]

Carbon is less than a week old. Hum, now that I think about it, my Phosban reactor (that runs my carbon and phosban) was shut off for a few days while I learned about my Neptune Controller. I wonder if something happened with associated with turning it back on (with the old stuff in it). None of the other lps were affected though.

Lighting, well, I have had these in high, low, and medium lighting and it hasn't seemed to bother them before. These particular ones were at the bottom, right by my other ones that are fine.

Warfare in my tank? They wouldn't dare! Maybe. Brain, mushroom, spagetti leather nearby. I would think it would attack the heads first though. The ones that were affected were closest to the brain, but not touching it.

[tbittner]

The other corals can send out some pretty long stinging tentacles after lights out. I wonder if one of them did that and the tentacle stung the base of the candy cane?

[aaromano]

I think I read some where that different color types of calustrea candy cane are different species curvata and furcata I think. The article or post said they would attack each other when kept at close range . They are way less agreessive than some other LPS but I have seen mine put out stringy tentacles in addition to the usual feeding ones around the mouth. They are not very long though about an inch or two. Mine can't reach any thing else in the tank.

[2FarNorth]

Is it just the skeleton, or the actual polyp/tissue? Sounded kinda like just the skeleton, any type of critters by it? such as Urchins or anything? Would you happen to have pictures?

[Woodstock]

Bummer Lorraine.
Bleaching can be from a number of things.. maybe your tank had a drastic lighting or temperature change and those were the most sensitive to it?
You mention new carbon a week ago. Carbon can clarify water very quickly and cause UV burns.

The stagnant water in the the phosban reactor probably did pollute the reef a bit but with your large system it would not have caused a crash.

[bluespotjawfish]

It does appear to just be the skeleton that bleached. I lost one head, but all the others are still good and fleshy and appear to be stable (no critters). No urchins in the tank. I moved it to my daughters 29 with stock flourescent lights for now and will target feed it for a while. It really seems to be the only thing in the tank that was affected. I don't think it was lighting, no changes and they were at the bottom under the 20ks. Something did spike in the tank enough to have me fighting with about 5 ppm of nitrate.

[zy112]

Hmm... I've actualy had that happen too. I gues the smallest thing could have caused this. However on a good note I have had a polyp or two die off but the rest survives and ends up thriving.