Dying brain coral (1 Viewer)

[Bschowa]

My open brain coral has deflated and even has holes in it now. I don't know what is wrong with it. Every other coral in my tank seems to be doing fine.



Here is what it used to look like


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[David Grigor]

Whenever my LPS are deflated, I run some carbon and they perk up within 24/48 hours. If you don't normally run carbon give it a shot. I'm pretty mine occurs becuase of brown algae buildup, either too much on the ats screen or growing on back glass etc. Could be other things that are irritating but for me that's the main suspect.

 

[Bschowa]

Thanks do I need a reactor to run carbon or could I dump some in the bottom of an old filter sock and put that on my drain?


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[David Grigor]

That would be fine, just to see if it helps.

 

[Bschowa]

Okay thanks. I'll give that a shot when I get home tonight


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[Bschowa]

Wow, awesome advice as always! Got home from work today and it has already started to inflate itself back up!


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[Bschowa]

How long should I run carbon for?


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[David Grigor]

I run ATS no skimmer and whenever I get more brownish slime buildup on the screen or the tank glass it, something the algae produces or excretes doesn't make LPS ( pretty much all of mine in tandem ) happy. So I pretty much run carbon ( in small amount, 1 cup per week for a 250g system ) and it keeps things happy. I also notice from running ATS for a while now that without the carbon the tank will have an odor so the carbon for that too. But if your using a skimmer less likely to have those effects when running a ATS.


So based on my experience, something is building up in the water column over time in your tank that irritates. Could be algae related like mine or something completely different. You can test your water also by adding some ro/di water in a white bucket and compare with some tank water in a white bucket if you have lots of discoloration in the water that could be whats irritating and may be a good way to test when you need to run carbon and when not.

I personally like to avoid adding things to the tank that have a recurring costs such as carbon so I wouldn't say stick with it 24/7 just yet. Run carbon to give the coral plenty of time to recover. Then take it offline again, if/ when you see it getting irritated again add a small amount and see how long you can go without running carbon just to keep recurring costs down.

If long term you find you need to run carbon more often than not, I highly recommend using the Rox .08 carbon. It's simply the most effective carbon you can buy. While it may seem more expensive it really isn't becuase you can use less carbon to get the same results as the inferior grades of carbon.