Birdsnest Coral Care

100%hydrophylic

100%hydrophylic

New member
Hey all, from reading on this site, Birdsnest corals seem to be a pretty hardy, fast growing SPS that does not need insane amounts of care. But, online vendors always list this coral as Difficult...

i find it kinda confusing that on liveaquaria they have birdsnest listed under begginer corals then the profile says its a difficult coral http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=597+2856+418&pcatid=418

are these corals easy or difficult? are they ok with a little bit dirty water from feeding LPS corals and do they neeed a skimmer? i ask because i thought about trying something different in my pico. but i dont want to get one and fight a definite loosing battle.

thanks for any help!
 
its an sps. its not for beginners, it is difficult. yes u need a skimmer. itll be fine with the feeding needs of ur lps. medium to high flow, lots of light, high calcium levels, stable params, etc. it will not be fine in ur 3g pico.
 
They do allow a bit more leeway in terms of water quality than acros, and I find them very easy to care for and super fast growers. The one thing I will say is that they do NOT tolerate being out of the water for very long at all. If the tips dry out, you'll have a good amount of death on the coral, but they recover pretty quickly. If I were you, I'd give it a shot.
 
i dont really buy into the "all tanks need skimmers" fad (because ive kept 3 nanos without them), but i do recognize some species need the cleaner water.

i keep monti caps and digis just fine in my 75g, but thats as far as my experiments with sps go. i was thinking of putting something a little more light demanding in my pico because i am in the process of mounting some DIY LEDs :) which led me to sps, which then led to birdsnest.

so far i have two contrasting answers. any other opinions?

oh and thanks guys!
 
I'm on the do it side. I,ve grown several coloies out to football size. I dont feed them, but I do skim because of my fish load. They are super growers, My green went from a 4 stem frag to 8" round nest in less than a year. Only down side is that they are more prone to RTN on you than most corals.
 
crvz said:
They do allow a bit more leeway in terms of water quality than acros, and I find them very easy to care for and super fast growers. The one thing I will say is that they do NOT tolerate being out of the water for very long at all. If the tips dry out, you'll have a good amount of death on the coral, but they recover pretty quickly. If I were you, I'd give it a shot.
Click to expand...

Trust him on this. My fist sized colony turned white and lost about 70% of branches. Now its all green with algae. Will the living polyps grow over that?
 
I have one in my 30G that is lit with 2x96W PC. It is as high up in the tank as I can get it. It has grown like wildfire for me.
 
My birdsnest is the fastest growing of my sps (also have green, red, purple cap, poker star, sunset, rainbow monti's and hydnophora (sp?), purple, orange, green digi, yellow scroll and a couple of small acro frags whose names escape me right now)...the birdnest started out as a 4" twig 6 months ago and I've already fragged it 2x (cleaning/aquascaping incidents ;-) and all 3 are growing like weeds...
 
micrors4racer said:
Trust him on this. My fist sized colony turned white and lost about 70% of branches. Now its all green with algae. Will the living polyps grow over that?
Click to expand...

I would try and trim back any of the dead parts of the coral. The algae will probably fade away in time, but birdsnests don't really encrust like and acro or monti would. If you can get to the dead parts of the skeleton with ease, I'd certainly remove it.
 
I say do it. I have a small frag of another birdsnest-like SPS (don't know the name, but it's a green deep-water SPS) in my 10 gallon DIY nano. I don't have a skimmer, am using PC lighting, and the growht and coloration has been very good.

It's a good little coral, and if you want to try it, go ahead.
 
Falconeer said:
I say do it. I have a small frag of another birdsnest-like SPS (don't know the name, but it's a green deep-water SPS) in my 10 gallon DIY nano. I don't have a skimmer, am using PC lighting, and the growht and coloration has been very good.

It's a good little coral, and if you want to try it, go ahead.
Click to expand...

I'll second this - birdsnests seem to do quite well in high-nutrient, lower-light tanks.
 
I have a birdsnest frag. It was doing great and beginning to grow. Now the base is turning white. Tips look fine. The only thing I've done around the time it became white was treat the tank for cyano with chemiclean for red slime. I am dosing AA and once a week reef snow (because I still have a slight HA problem even with bio pellets, microbactor 7 and phosban). Is my birdsnest dieing?
picture.php

picture.php

No3=0
P04=0
CA=480
ALK=10 dkh
Mag= 1305
PH-8.3-8.5 (I leave my sump light on at night)
Temp=76*night-78*day (it does this naturally)

My other coral frags are doing great, growing and tripling! (toadstool and finger leathers, frogspawn, torch, fire and ice zoas, orange monti, candy cane, pulsating xenia and waving hand xenia).

I don't have iodine and strontium test kits so I rarely dose (every other week and as recommended on the bottles divided by 2 so I don't overdose) I change 30g water every 2 weeks (opposite of dosing and reef snow)

One more thing... I have AI Sol Blue LEDs. It is placed 24" down from the 70* lenses at varying par. (sun - up/down) lights are not set at more than 80% at their brightest. The white base is completely around with no shadowing. The flow is on a wave maker and the BN is near the overflow end of the tank.
 
You should probably start a new thread. But the chemiclean is probably the culprit. I'm not sure why people try to treat algae or cyano with chemicals...
 
f3honda4me said:
You should probably start a new thread. But the chemiclean is probably the culprit. I'm not sure why people try to treat algae or cyano with chemicals...
Click to expand...

Yes, I just hate to post something is someone else brought up the subject before (sometimes forums get a little ticked if you do that).

I haven't treated my tank before with chemicals but tried everything previous to it and no luck.

Do you think the birdsnest is dieing?
 
f3honda4me said:
You should probably start a new thread. But the chemiclean is probably the culprit. I'm not sure why people try to treat algae or cyano with chemicals...
Click to expand...

Start a new thread in the SPS section. Most "New to Hobby" people don't keep SPS. I'm one of them and I have no idea if your coral is dead. It just looks out of focus to me.
 
I just added one to my tank, well it was one big one but now it is 3 better sized for my tank ones. they seem to be growing fine already, IDK why but sps coral grow really fast in my tank/ I say add it, they are great to have in a tank.
 
I had the opposite success with sps. I got a bonsai, green acro, birdsnest and digi. the last two were supposed to be the easiest to care for, same acclimation for all 4, only two i lost were the digi and birdsnest.
 
I do agree that some corals work in some tanks and some don't. I have two sps doing just fine, but had no luck with a birdsnest.
 
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