Torch Coral looks unhappy

[Smallreefer]

Hi guys,

Some of you may have seen my 30l nano reef build thread here however I have recently (2 weeks ago) added a torch coral once all of the main parameters checked out. For the first week or so it looked fine however recently it has started to recede back into its skeleton and is not extending much at all during the day. Currently it is under 30W of T8 lighting in a 30cm deep tank, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate are testing 0 (nitrate may be a fraction higher - was hard to say), PH is around 8.3, Specific gravity 1.023, I am not currently testing for anything else however is it possible that phosphates / calcium issues could be causing this or is it more likely to be a lighting issue? (I have a 150W MH I could probably try)

Also further info regarding my maintanence schedule... I feed once per day alternating each day between dried and frozen food (rinsed). I do 2x 5l water changes weekly with Red Sea Reef pro salt + RO/DI water and my plate coral / other life appears healthy.

Thanks in advance

-Dan

[livingart]

too much flow on it?

[Smallreefer]

I have recently moved my power head to reduce the flow to it as well which did not seem to help as it used to be quite happy in the higher flow it did receive. One of my Clown fish does brush around it a lot however it was doing this over the first week as well which leads me to believe that it is probably something else?

[Smallreefer]

Before:

After:

[livingart]

maybe flow

try a bigger water change on tank

[suphew]

I almost posted in your other thread that you were moving too fast with your corals, both the torch and fungia are not really starter corals.

You need to move your salinity up to 1.025 although at the level you have it it's not likely to be the problem. Are you testing with a refractometer? If not then chances are it miles out. You can do a quick and dirty test of your measuring device by testing fresh water (which should of course be zero) and some natural sea water which in NZ usually sits around 1.027. But any half decent LFS should let you calibrate it against their refractometer.

Feeding frozen every second day is far too much for a new tank, cut it back to weekly at most, if not stop it altogether for a while, it's likely you have high phosphate levels and this could definitely be part of the problem.

Although 1watt per liter is the rule of thumb for marine tanks, the rule is really for more efficient type's of lighting like metal halide and at a pinch T5's. T8's don't give you much light per watt. Put the 150mh on, if you don't have a 'marine' bulb don't worry about it, the bluer light is more for making it look nice than the health of the corals. If you can start the light off a bit higher than you plan on keeping it and then lower it over a week or two, this will reduce the shock.

Lastly as LA suggests, you can't beat doing water changes if corals are looking a bit sad.

HTH

[livingart]

I almost posted in your other thread that you were moving too fast with your corals, both the torch and fungia are not really starter corals.

+1

[Smallreefer]

Cheers for the advice / comments as I do realize I probably should have taken things more slowly :oops:

In regards to the points that you made I am currently just using 2 hydrometers to test with so that I can take the average from them and I will slowly increase my salinity through water changes as suggested – will get hold of a refractometer soon. In regards to frozen food I have really just started this over the past few days but I’ll try cutting this out all together for a while to see if this may be causing the issue and I’ll probably also grab some phosphate remover to be sure (I’ve heard seachem phosguard is quite good?).

I would normally just swap over to the 150W MH if it were a larger tank however I am quite worried about the heat it produces and not being able to mount it very high above the top of the tank means that it will heat things up quite fast which may cause issues on hotter days so I have ordered a Chillier from overseas which should arrive within the next 10 days but I will try to organize something before then. (Maybe a large fan blowing at / over the tank will suffice?)

-Dan

[livingart]

we all made haste when we started, the buzz of getting the tank looking good takes over

even though you may be getting zero readings it is still a new and delicate balance

just like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs

go carefully

[Smallreefer]

Thanks again for the advice all, its looking much better now.

Also on a side note my turbo snails have been spawning the last couple of nights and there are quite a few eggs... does anyone know how long these take to hatch?

Cheers

-Dan