# Frogspawn Dying—No Idea What to Do!



## drumlizardo

Hi all,

I'm new to reef aquariums, and my frogspawn is the first LPS coral I've gotten (so it's important to me!). It looked great for the first two weeks or so—8 heads—but has since gone downhill. I first noticed the tentacles on two heads retracting gradually after I split the skeleton so it would fit better in my tank, and the individual tentacles were flattening out and shriveling. After about a week, the tentacles started to die off of those heads, leaving just the skeleton beneath (plus little white "hand" thingies poking out of the middle of the heads, which you can see in my pictures—these are how the frogspawn filter-feed, right?). I originally thought something was eating them and got rid of two camel shrimp. Since then, though, four more heads have gone in the same way over about three weeks! There's no color change when the tentacles shrivel up, either.

I'm including some pictures: You can see that one of the heads is in the process of losing its tentacles, and the other head's tentacles are retracted. They're in the sand right now because that's basically the only place they haven't already been. I've tried moving the frags all around the tank, but I've mostly stuck to relatively well-lit and strongly-circulated areas. I'm feeding my corals Phyto Feast everyday: 40 or so drops in a 28-gallon tank.

This doesn't look like the pictures of brown jelly disease I've seen, and I don't see any "bugs" on the coral.

If anyone can offer advice, I'd be FOREVER grateful! Maybe I'll send you a frag someday if they recover. ;-)

Here's my tank info.:

28-gallon JBJ Nano Cube, which I set up about 5 months ago

Salinity: 1.024
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: ~0
Chlorine: 0
Alkalinity: ~350
pH: 8.3
Calcium: 460 (I've been dosing, and brought it up from about 360)
Temperature: 80 (I know this is a little hot; I've ordered a fan)

I dose with B-Ionic's Calcium Buffer System daily to keep the calcium up, and I do a 5-gallon water change every other week.

2 return pumps on a 30-second wave maker delivering 266 GPH
2 Hydor powerheads on a 30-second wave maker circulating 425 GPH
The lights are 150-watt power compact lights, on for 8 hours a day, plus LED moonlights, on all the time.

I don't have any activated carbon in the tank currently.

I've got 2 clownfish, a Melanurus wrasse, a goby, 2 fire red shrimp, and emerald crab, and assorted hermit crabs and snails, plus some zoanthids and some 'shrooms.


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## Reefing Madness

If you've had them in the tank with CA at 360 before bringing it up, how long were they in there before you got it to 460?
Also, LPS do like Nitrates. Keep em under 30-40 rather than at 0, and he may do better. Have you target fed anything? Micro-Plankton perhaps? 
And they get their energy from algae zooxanthellae, which is why you need good lights for them. But it appears you are ok in that catagory with your 28g. When they are hungry you will see tentacles coming from them, thats why you need to keep them away from other corals. Tentacles, other than the green fingers you see.

Your Alkalinity is 350ppm CaCO3? Thats HUGE. Way to high, that puts it at over 15.5dKH. Way to high.
Should only be 8-12dKH or 142.9-214.3CaCO3.
Have you tested your Magnesium?


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## drumlizardo

Hey Reefing Madness, thanks for the reply!

I started dosing calcium the day I got the frogspawn into the tank, and from then it was only five days or so until I got CA up to around 450—and it wasn't until about a week later that any of the frogspawn heads started looking bad. So I'm _hoping_ that calcium wasn't the problem.

I haven't target-fed any of my corals: I just add the Phyto Feast to the whole tank. I'll try target-feeding the Phyto Feast next time.

Great point about the alkalinity—I didn't realize it was so critical to keep it within normal ranges; now I'm reading otherwise. I'll try to get that down as quickly as I can with water changes. Haven't tested magnesium or phosphate yet, but I just ordered some test kits for these.

Anyone else have tips or ideas? Could it have been the early fragging that hurt this frogspawn?


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## Reefing Madness

No, I don't think the fragging did it. LPS are alittle more difficult than are led to believe.


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## drumlizardo

Hey, thanks a lot, everyone!

One more question. This might make everyone go, "Oh, THAT'S what you're doing wrong!"

I just heard from a few experienced aquarists that I've been making a huge mistake by using tap water with Prime rather than RO/DI water . . . and I'm starting to be convinced they're right.

What do people think? Could this be the main reason I'm seeing the frogspawn die?


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## coralbandit

you got it! RO/DI or distilled for reefs(coral).Too many total dissolved solids(tds) in untreated water for any invertabrates or coral.Sorry for your loss and an expensive lesson..


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## Reefing Madness

Not easy to answer. Have you tested your water to find out what it has in it? RO/DI would have 0 TDS in it. No phosphates or any other crap to bog up the water. It would all depend on what your Tap water has in it. But, general answer would be a big fat yes, you probably should not be using Tap Water.


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## Ben

I've been running for years on tap water. I'm not saying it's the best, but I haven't had any corals die... As a matter of fact, my frogspawn went from 1 head to 3 (sorry, not rubbing it in), my xenia have trippled (no big feat there), and my brain has doubled in size. Maybe I'm lucky living in this city, but RO DI does nothing for my system...


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