Coral and other questions

P

palileo

New member
Hi, I don't think I ever properly introduced myself to this forum.
My name is Ryan. Around Feb/March of this year I started up my first reef tank. Only experience I've had with saltwater was a FO tank I had about 7 years ago. I had to take it down because of a move and when I decided to start it back up, I decided on running freshwater again with cichlids. Always dreamed of starting a reef tank.

I've met a few members of the club since joining Reef Central and am looking forward to finally joining MARS at the next meeting. This forum along with the few I've met in person have been very helpful with lots of information. Thanks to everyone and look forward to meeting you at the meeting next week.

I have a Green Devils Hand that kinda has it's ups and downs. It seems to go limp for a couple days then expand very large for about a week or so. What seems to happen, started again yesterday, is go limp on the rock it's attached to. It's a little ashy looking and very dark in color. I'm hoping that this is just another one it's ups and downs... Is there something I should do so that it doesn't go through this? I've been reading up in the Softies forum and found another person that seems to be having the same issues with a finger leather. Are they talking about the same type of coral? What I read in their post is that it is normal of the finger leather... Is this correct? It is in the top 1/3 of tank.

I also have a Hammer Coral that looks to be splitting or something. It has 2 heads, one is larger than the other. It looks like when the larger one is opened up, it actually has a seperation down the middle. Can't really tell if it just appears that way or not. Is this how it splits? I'll try to post a picture of it tomorrow when the lights go on.

The bleached out blasto I found growing in my sand has colored up and looks great. Can I expect this to split? It isn't secured to the rock I have it placed on because I was expecting to have to move it around to find where it likes to be in the tank. It seems to like where it is... bottom of tank in a low flow area. What should I use to mount the corals? Will I have to take it out of the tank or can it be done while in the water?

The parameters of the tank were tested using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals kit.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 10
PH: 8
Salinity: 1.021 (using Coralife Deep Six)
Temp is about 80 degrees.

At first I was using aged tap water for water changes and top offs but have been using 99% water purchased at Pure Water in Elk Grove. Water changes have been roughly 2 week intervals.
I've got roughly 60-70 lbs of live rock in the tank. Also, is it normal to have to add about 2 gallons every 2-3 days? Our home a/c is set to 74 degrees which seems to keep the tank at 80 degrees.

I have a calcium test kit but don't have the color chart. Does anyone know where this can be downloaded from. I searched the aquarium pharmaceuticals site but it doesn't seem like they offer it there as a download. Will I have to purchase another kit for the color chart? Anyone have a chart they can spare?

I'm running PCs... 2 65w Actinic and 2 12k bulbs. I know I need to replace the bulbs soon as I purchased the fixture used and was told that they were due for new bulbs about 6 months ago. I've been debating/waiting to upgrade to a T-5 or MH setup. Leaning towards T-5 for energy/tank temperature. I don't really want to have to purchase a chiller at this time and have read that if I ran MH temperature can get high. Anyone have a setup that they can part with at a reasonable price? Someone was telling me that I should probably use 10k or 7500 bulbs because you get more output. Any advice on this? Will probably replace bulbs sometime this week unless I upgrade.
 
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If you just contact them, they will mail you another card, I have done it with my nitrate card, which keeps disappering. Gotta get another one again....

calcium001.jpg
 
what should i have my salinity level at? best way to increase it? i have a 75 gallon, how many cups of salt should i add?

thanks pico

thanks for the scan nu2sw... i'll test for it as soon as i get this salinity right.

i'm gonna start with a water change and add a little more salt that normal. i'll check back here before i do it, right after my lawn chores....

thanks again
 
you only wanna increase the salt over a period of time.... too much at one time could shock the inhabitants of the tank.
 
you might want to get a refractometer when you can. I had one of the deep six and it read about .005 off. You could also calibrate it against a refractometer if someone near you has one.
 
:D You also don't want to add "dry" salt to your reef. Next time you do a water change, add some more salt into it, or put some salt in your make up water. Remember to add you salt after you put the water into the container. Adding water to salt causes some precipitation to occur.
 
I'll try and adress some of the coral question you asked about. I don't know about the devils hand, I've never had any softies so I don't know how they do their thing.
From what you discribed about the hammer I think that it is splitting off a second head. That is if this is a branching type. There are two different growth forms of corals like hammers and Frog Spawn. They come in a branching form, where the heads will develop a skeletal shaft that they grow at the end of and it splits when two heads diverge. The second type is called a wall, where the skeletal struture resembels a wall with the coral growing out of the length of the top. I've had exerinces with the branching only, and they develop new heads in two differnt ways. The first and most common is for the head to simply split in half. The head will get larger and then start to pinch in the middel developing seperate mouths and eventually two seperate heads. The second form of new growth is budding, this is where it starts to grow small new buds at the tissue edge. Often these small buds do not get enough light to fully develop and eventually fade away, but given the right conditions they can grow into full adult heads.

As far as the blaso goes, its nice to see that it recovered as this can be a pretty hard coral to get to come back. If its looking good in the sand and fully opening you could probably just leave it as it is. If you want to attach it to something, you can use superglue gel and glue the skeleton underneath the head to a rock or something (this should be done outside of the water)...
Hope that helps, and let us know how things work out.
 
thanks duec22. it does look like its splitting by the most common one you mentioned. The head is alot larger than the other head and has that pinched look in the middle. looks like it's actually 2 seperate mouths already but haven't been able to actually see the opening in the middle of them.

the blasto is inserted into a hole on a baseball-sized rock at the bottom of the tank. it's pretty snug in there. will it attach on it's own or should i glue it?

i did a water change and added a little extra salt. reads at 1.0225 on the deep six. i'll try rinsing it with the rodi and see what it reads. should it read 1.000 with the 99% water from the water store?
 
thanks Gresham, I've actually been doing the opposite at times... just kinda added whichever part that I grabbed for first. What problems can be had when adding the water to the salt? did so today also...
 
IF the blaso is nice and snug, I would leave it. It will start to produce buds from the base, and eventually they will attach to the rockwork.

I think the problem with adding the water to the salt instead of the salt to the water is that you can get things that percipiate out and will not redissolve.
 
i'll be sure to add salt to water in the future. thanks for the heads up.

tested for the calcium... not sure exactly on the color blue i was trying to get to... it turned a lighter blue at like 24 drops and a richer darker blue at 29 drops.
 
i retested for calcium. still not sure if turns to blue at 24 or 29 drops... should i worry if my calcium level is at or above 500. could be close to 600. i've been dosing the tank with 2 tablespoons of DT's Live Marine Phytoplankton every other day. could this be the cause. if so, i'm glad i haven't doubled the dose as it says in the directions.
 
DT's shouldnt be an issue .

For that test you wanna go off of when it first goes a light blue, then add 2 more drops, shake and it should turn a nice purple/blue color. Go based of that.

What I do with mine, Is i use the test tube to measure the water and I then put it in anoter container that I can shake easier, Rather having to hassle with the top to shake after every 4 drops. thats a PIA

But 480 is alright, 29 is a little high. What do you use for calcium and how often?

Do you test your ALK?
 
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