Flaccid Toadstool.

[Guest Keyoke]

So I picked up a toadstool yesterday (thanks krish!), and it's gone limp. I'm wondering if this is normal behavior for these animals after a tank-move, or if this is something I should get concerned about? I'm assuming this is normal, as capanella, sinulara, etc all seem to go limp after a move, but I'm just makin sure, as I've never owned a toadstool before.

 

I noticed a few hours ago, that there were a couple of polyp nubs extending a wee bit, but now the polyps are completely retracted.

 

Water parameters are good, 80 degrees, 1.024 sg, no measurable Nitrate/Nitrite/Amonia, PH is at about 8.1, dunno about dKH / Ca (don't have a test kit)

 

Lighting is provided by 4x 96W PC (2x Actinic, 2x 10K), tank is a 90G with about 2" of substrate, and I wonder if perhaps the frag might be too low for my lighting? maybe? I didn't think toadstools needed a ton of lighting...

 

Image is below, tho it's kinda blurry, sorry but I lack a "real" camera, this comes from my Treo.

[emissary]

Lighting is provided by 4x 96W PC (2x Actinic, 2x 10K), tank is a 90G with about 2" of substrate, and I wonder if perhaps the frag might be too low for my lighting? maybe? I didn't think toadstools needed a ton of lighting...

 

No it's fine. It's probably going to molt -- you'll see it discard a thin skin in a day or two... or three. Maybe four. Five is right out. They tend to do that after "significant" changes in water parameters.

 

Mine molt every time I do a water change. But then I do water changes VERY infrequently. Anywho; have you tried SunPaq SmartLamps? I used to run the exact same kind of setup as you -- pair of 10k and pair of 03 actinic. I went to smartlamps and noticed a drastic improvement in the overall look of the tank AND the perceived health (vibrance, polpy extenduity, growth, etc).

[Guest Keyoke]

No it's fine.  It's probably going to molt -- you'll see it discard a thin skin in a day or two... or three.  Maybe four.  Five is right out.  They tend to do that after "significant" changes in water parameters.

 

Mine molt every time I do a water change.  But then I do water changes VERY infrequently.  Anywho; have you tried SunPaq SmartLamps?  I used to run the exact same kind of setup as you -- pair of 10k and pair of 03 actinic.  I went to smartlamps and noticed a drastic improvement in the overall look of the tank AND the perceived health (vibrance, polpy extenduity, growth, etc).

32660[/snapback]

 

Hmm. nope, actually the tubes in this fixture are fairly old I'm assuming.. it's in the budget this month to replace 'em, tho I'm awfully tempted to keep these bulbs and suplement with 2x 250W MH (maybe 175.. dunno yet) and replace 'em later..

 

You using the 6500K/10,00K daylight bulb? Or the Actinic/10K bulbs?

[emissary]

Hmm. nope, actually the tubes in this fixture are fairly old I'm assuming.. it's in the budget this month to replace 'em, tho I'm awfully tempted to keep these bulbs and suplement with 2x 250W MH (maybe 175.. dunno yet) and replace 'em later..

Well halide's halide. I've been doing PC on my 75G for years now and have been fairly satisfied with them -- and recently VERY happy with them with these new lights. Though I'm yearning for the pinpoint light sources halides bring. Soon enough -- the 180 I'm setting up will have three halides. But I digress...

 

You using the 6500K/10,00K daylight bulb? Or the Actinic/10K bulbs?

Actinic/10K. The end of the bulb reads:

TRU

10,000K/Actinic 03"

 

Watch out for lots of lighting. As it is I have a bit of a hard time finding a place where my mushrooms can be _happy_. They get upset in high light... I have them under an eave right now.

[fishface]

I met Krish too, and went on Saturday afternoon. I don't Know if the original Sarco was still there, when you visited but it was big enough to be housed in a public aquarium. He moved it into it's OWN 45 Hex because it's just that big. And dropping colonies left and right. I just got one from Khim that I placed in a second tank.

 

Read up on the Sarcophytons. They can bruise from being handled, but I've have to move a 1 yr old one around a bit without any damage.

1. They develope a shiny mucose layer and shed it. Mine does it around every 14 days.

2. They use this layer to collect particles of food and bacteria, and this is part of their feeding strategy.

3. A little extra current helps them shed this.

4. They are fleshier than other softiew, but mine alters its size periodically appearing to grow nearly 20%.

5. Laying down for more than 1/2 day or a day might be a bad sign, but mine repeatedly stands up like nothing happened.

6. Remember to do a water change when adding a stressed softie to your tank.

 

** Krish's colonies had longer polyps than any I've seen. I won't say that I have a lot of experience propagating them or anything, just that this looked either extremely healthy, or slighty different to what is usually in the stores, so I had to take one.

 

I hope that helps a little. They seems to have more "moods" than many other softies. I think that it will be fine since you have kept softies.

 

FF

[HowardofNOVA]

Guys,

On the Subject, If anyone is looking for a HUGE Sarcophyton, KRISH has one that I believe is still for sale (mentioned above) that would do well for a large tank. The head is about a foot across!

 

Also Chip and I stopped over at Nick yesterday and his tank was IMPRESSIVE!

I've never seen a tank (225g) that has so many FULL Colonies as his! Chip and I are trying to convince him to enlist in a tank tour soon!

Nick has several HUGE Softies/Leather Colonies that he wants to get rid of.

One that is huge Sarcophyton with about a 10" head also for sale? I believe he also has several HUGE Capenella's, Colts, etc.

LMK, I'll try to hook you up?

Howard

[steveoutlaw]

Of course I'd be interested in it. I have some torch frags I can trade for them.

[HowardofNOVA]

Steve,

No offense, but as nice as your Torch was, his will blow you away! You have got to this guys tank! Again, I've never seen a tank with so many full colonies as Nick has done over the last YEAR!

Roozens, TRT and MarineScene has done well with this gentlemen!

He has several RICORDIA's that are almost TEN 10" INCHES ACROSS!

Howard

[steveoutlaw]

No offense taken.......I'm just trying to get in on the action.

 

BTW - Don't they make a pill to take care of the flaccid toadstool?

[HowardofNOVA]

Thanks Steve, it was too easy!

It was killing me not to comment on this one

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Hope you took your time to acclimate it. Krish's salinity was at 1.021 from

what he was saying.

[emissary]

Hope you took your time to acclimate it. Krish's salinity was at 1.021 from

what he was saying.

 

Interestingly enough, the guys at TRT throw corals into their tanks without acclimation. At least... they have, I've watched them. I've started doing the same at my house and have observed no ill effects...

 

Granted I think they assume everyone's running about 1.023-5.

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

In my opinion, if the pH, temp or salinity in the originating system

are extremly different from your system, aclimation is probably a good idea.

No sense in shocking the animal. There's nothing to loose by aclimating.

I do it rather quickly - first get the temp back up by floating the bag

for 15 mins, then aclimate in a small container over 15 mins before

moving it to the main system. But folks go to both extremes - some

dumping it right it, while others aclimate over hours.

[Guest Keyoke]

Well, I didn't acclimate it much (about 10 minutes floating, added 1/2 the amount of water from the tank into the bag)

 

I'm wondering tho.. I picked up the toadstool and a rather large frogspawn at the same time, both in the same bag.. the frogspawn got damaged a wee bit, one of the little soft fleshy parts (whatever they're called) got cut, and when I puled out both the frog and the toad, they were both _very_ slimy.

 

I'm pretty sure that the toadstool didn't like that. It's been a few days now, and while I'm starting to see polyp "nubs" now, the frag is still flopped over like a limp.. er.. noodle.

 

I'm geting some brown now on the "poores" where the polyps are.. Please, someone tell me that's zooxanthelle (sp?)

 

Now lemmie just verify what I know about toads, everything else in the tank (Zoas, a brown/orange acro, purple polyps, shrroms, gsp) are doing fine. It's just this toadstool..

 

well, and the frogspawn. After seeing what a "real" frogspawn is supposed to look like this evening @ Emissary's place, I've got frogspawn envy.. It's open, but doesn't seem to be reaching it's potential... and all of the sudden (last couple of days) I'm getting a bad cyano and algae problem right now - Cyano is growing in clumps on my rock and sand in thick sheets, it seems to be covering just about everything except anything "alive". I'm pretty sure it's from my latest addition of LR, which was covered in a mossy red algae, that I now know probably isn't "A Good Thing", as the algae is dying in huge swaths wherever there's low light, or poor circulation (which is good, because I can SEE the dead zones in the tank). The algae goes from red moss-like (alive) to a patch of white.. slime. If I blow it away with Mr. Bastey, it's almost a flourescent orange color underneatht he slime, day or two later it becomes just a patch of white rock... Hermits and Emeralds love the stuff tho. The're getting mighty fat grazing..

 

Water params are good tho, I'm still reading 0's on what I'm testing.. tho I'm going to go order a better kit just to be safe. With the amount of dieoff I'm seeing with that red moss stuff, and the cyano, I think my test kits are lying to me.

 

I cranked up my skimmer to produce a more "wet" skimmate, instead of the thick black/green gunk, I'm getting nasty crap that looks like starbucks espresso, but smells like .. well, crap.

 

Since I lack RO/DI, I've been using distilled water (yeah, not the best choice) and I think that's a major component of my problem. I'm gonna see if I can't locate 10-20 gallons of RO and do a water change this weekend, get a RO unit on order.. dunno if it's in the budget this month or not, but I might not have a chocie.

 

Anyway, back to the toadstool - these things are medium to high light, medium flow right? I'm running 4x 96W PC (2x Actinic, 2x 10K, but I need to replace the bulbs I think) on my 90.. I'm gonna see if moving it higher up in the tank helps, but.. sheesh.

 

funny, all these problems seemed to just "appear" overnight....

[fishface]

In the future, particularly since you'll probably pick things up at the WAMAS meetings, bring bags and make sure you bag the softies separately. They will impact stoney corals. And discard the water since it's full of slime.

 

If your tank has a lot of soft and hard corals, if something suddenly goes off kilter, like the temp or salinity then either change water or run carbon for a few day. The softies may slime and degrade the conditions for the hard corals so you want to filter that out of the tank. In general they don't recommend a lot of softies in a tank with hard corals. Xenia are a low toxicity colonial animal and are fine though. Sarco, Colts, etc are noxious.

 

FF

[fishface]

How's the Sarco doing?

[Guest Keyoke]

How's the Sarco doing?

33395[/snapback]

 

It's still slumped over, but appears to be moving.. first it was slumped over to the left, then to the right, now it's slumped back over to the left.. it's picking up some color now too, and I'm seeing some polyp extension, tho I wonder if this is the short-polyp version of the coral (is there such a thing?) - as it's raising what appears to be stubble of some sort.

 

coloration is brownish, especially around the pore area where the polyps reiside. i also notice that it's budding, there's a pea-sized head sticking out of the base.

 

I assume that the 'movement' or slump from side-to-side is the coral attempting to right itself, but falling back over somehow.. water params are still good. I'm going to clean the impellers on my pumps this weekend, I shut the returns off, briefly as I was making some wiring changes, and noticed that the back-flow from water trapped in the plumbing pumped a lot of chunks of slime back into the sump's return area. I wonder if this slime is somehow related to the coral's first entry into the tank, both the frogspawn and the toad were covered in a mucus that got all over the tank when I first put them in. I suspect that's what this slime is, and could potentially be causing the water to be slightly irritating to some of the animals in the tank. I've siphoned most of this out, as best I could, but I suspect a cleaning of all pumps in the tank is in order.

[emissary]

Did you baste it recently? I'd say baste & wait is your best bet at this point.

[fishface]

Two comments:

 

1. I remarked earlier that I was surprised that I had never seen the long polyps on another Sarco. In my tank the poylps are now short, but it is inflated and healthy anyway. I'm going to do a few water changes to see whether that helps.

 

2. If you have slime and stuff in the water, consider that softies will exude toxins ino the water. So again, you want to do changes to dilute them.

 

Right now the recovering corals are sitting in a combination of various chemical defenses.