Do you have long term success with brain corals?

[choff]

Brain corals are probably one of my favorite corals, but they seem to die on me after about a year. I have tried various locations for flow and light intensity, but they seem to follow the same pattern. Look great for 6 to 8 months when the color only starts to fade. Then they start to slowly receed from the skeleton.

I recently lost a stunning rainbow and now my toxic greens color is fading.

I run a mixed reef with combo led(Kessil 360s) t5 lighting. I have no other issues with my other LPS (several plates, torch, grape and hammer corals). My sps are well colored and growing. My zoos grow like crazy.

I ordered some fauna Marin LPs pellets to try to feed. I typically feed LRS reef frenzy with all pumps off and while I don't target feed plenty makes it to the bottom for them as well as my plates.

Any help is appreciated.

Regards
Mike

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[delta]

where are you keeping it in the tank?

Anything other corals around it?

open or closed brain?

 

[reefkeeper2]

You have to feed them. I use ordinary sinking pellet fish food. I use the pellets because they are heavy and will stay on the coral until the feeding response begins. If you have a lot of flow, you might have to turn off a powerhead or two for 10 minutes or so. You need to sprinkle the brain with the pellets at night or the fish will eat the food. Once the feeder tentacles appear and snag the food you can turn your powerheads back on. The difference is remarkable and they will color up fast.

 

[choff]

My shrimp are my trouble makers with target feeding. I'll try tonight.

Thoughts on light? I usually start them on the sand bed to see how they react and sometimes I push them back a bit under my arch that is kind of a lattice so they get some direct light, but a bit more shaded. No other corals are remotely close to them. A solid 12 to 14 inches and even then it's zoos, rics and favia.

 

[wpeterson]

Do you feed them late enough after dark when they are open and ready to feed? That was one thing I recognized - target feeding, but when the corals are ready to eat.

 

[choff]

No, I have never target feed them after hours. Once a week at night I feed various powders (reef chili, reef rhoids, FM ultra sea fan etc), but nothing substantial like pellets. Looks like this might be my issue.

I forgot last night, but this morning a few hours before light it was all closed up. I'll try again tonight before bed.

Thanks for the input.

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[wpeterson]

I've had good luck feeding really meaty foods. If I buy a small scallop (2cm), and dice it up into tiny pieces with a razor blade, my LPS seem to love this the most. My favia and favites both love to trap bits of meat with the tentacles and eat them. Both of my Fungia as well.

 

[delta]

I rarely if ever direct feed corals once they are established. but then again I am not a zero nutrient tank guy either.

They key here is does it have an eating response when food is added? Add some cyclopese (little goes a long way) and some mysis and see how it does. I hit the tank with a quick shot wait about 5 minutes then feed the tank. Any corals that do not respond in a week or so are not happy and something else is not right.

Also remember bigger food isn't always better. You want the coral eating on a regular basis small balanced meals.

 

[dz6t]

Do you have a purple tang or foxface? Sometime tangs just like to pick on brain coral especially the fleshy kind.

 

[choff]

I do have a purple, but have never witnessed it going any where near it or any other fish for that matter.

I generally don't target feed either. Feeding LRS reef frenzy with all pumps off initially and then several minutes later my mp40 kicks on, followed by my 4 main powerheads after that and then finally 10 min later my main pump (60 min elapses before the main kicks on). I have always felt everything was taken care of with that process. A lot of the reef frenzy makes it to the sand bed and there is plenty of time before any pumps kick on for them to secure it in their mouth. I watch the plates a bit more closely as sometimes I have to defend them from the shrimp.

The brains are puffy and full, but faded color. The next phase is compacted which is what my toxic brain just went into. If the trend continues he will continue to shrink then receed from his skeleton. This would be my third one to do this over the past 20 months.

Thoughts on lighting? I keep going the less route putting them in more shady areas. Maybe the opposite?

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[delta]

Finding the right lighting and flow is as important as feeding the coral. If less light ins't working try more. also note the flow too.

Funny now I think of it, it used to be standard practice to list the light intensity of a coral and the flow it was in. High light, medium flow. Low flow, low light. etc. etc.

There is more to all this than one aspect you need to get the majority in line

what are your parameters and maintenance schedule like? Lets rule out as much as possible

As dong pointed out the possibility of harassment is there but is less likely if you have similar corals in there doing fine

 

[choff]

You think it could be parameters when the death is so slow? We are talking a long slow decline in only my brains (kinda sounds funny when i reread that). My 50 plus sps with half being acros would be toast long before a brain I would think?

My twv is approx 330 gal and I religiously do 40 to 50 gal weekly water changes. This duty was just last week turned over to a genesis automated system doing 1 gal every 4 hours (42 gal/wk). My sump and ft are very clean.

My nitrates are generally .5 to .75 range and phosphates mostly 0, but max .01 (Hannah). I have almost no visible algae to speak of.




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[delta]

I think ruling everything out as a rule of thumb is the best way to a solution. Given the only thing we can see are your posts, the bigger picture you paint the better chance we have of helping you find the issue.

Given you only gave a sale pitch/designer coral name I haven;t put much into this. But a quick search tells me moderate to high light and medium flow.

So start there food will make it happier only if it is happy to begin with. If lighting and flow are too far off it will just die as food cannot substitute for the entire gamut.

And while parameters are not as important fro LPS they are not irrelevant either

 

[choff]

Hi delta, thanks for posting. I actually didn't know when I called the brain toxic I was giving it a designer name. Always thought that was used to signify electric/bright green. This is not a designer brain and I'm sorry my post seems to have rubbed you the wrong way.
While I said I didn't think it was a parameter issue I still posted the information. I believe l I have painted a fairly solid picture of my system across all the posts, but perhaps I will consolidate.

The brain sits 18" down on the sand bed in the center of the tank that is partially shaded. I would consider the flow to be medium. Once I have noticed the decline I have tried several different locations with varying degrees of light and flow with little success thus far with the 3 brains I have owned in my 18 months of reefing.

The tank is an modified RSM 650. 4 powerheads in the rear of the tank facing forward and an mp40 on the side for flow.

150 gal DT with an attached 125 g sump, 40 gal fuge (chaeto only), 40 gal ft.

Kessil 360 + 4xt5 combo lighting

Carbon filtration is the only chemical filtration or addative used.

Large SRO 3000 skimmer
Matrix reactor for additional biological filtration.

Weekly 40 to 60 gal WC

Parameters
Salinity 1.026
Temp 79 to 81
PH 8 to 8.2
Nitrates .5 to .75
Phosphates 0 to .01 ppm
Can 420 ppm
Alk 8.5 dkh
Mg 1300
ORP 420

Feeing: LRS reef frenzy daily to the tank with pumps off. Occasionally sinking pellets are fed and once weekly there is a night time feed of powder based coral foods. No target feeding is done.

Between the DT and ft ib would estimate 50 sps of various sizes and another 25 LPS along with an array of Ric's and zoos.

My fish population is very low for a tank this size and I have very little algae present.


I agree parameters are important for LPS as well as any request for diagnosis, but my intent was meant to imply that if my sps and other lps were stable then I would think global parameters would be of the table and this speaks to something isolated to the brain.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Mike




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[delta]

Not rubbing me the wrong way. I was just explaining how I approach answering a question. Everyone has their own approach

 

[dz6t]

Did you buy all the brain coral that going through slow detah from the same source? just a thought

 

[choff]

Divers den

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[dz6t]

I have a fleshy wellso brain since 2006, never feed it, it does good under MH, t-5, PC, and now LED+MH

 

[delta]

Dong presents a case and another possibility. I do not see anything that is out of the ordinary.

But I would try more light and target feeding of meaty foods. I read through but didn't see whether it shows a feeding response to food being added, but that should be an indicator as to whether or not it is eating via passive methods.

 

[choff]

I moved it to a higher light area last night, see if that helps when I get home. I also melted a thumbnail size chunk of reef frenzy and had all if it sitting on top of it along with a few a NLS pellets for good measure. I did not get a feeding response.
I did try this during the day too and didn't get a response either.


Maybe the magic fauna Marin LPS pellets that arrive on Friday will do the trick.