Cup Corals.

[scowiii]

Well the last couple days pockets of my cup corals have been bleaching and then becoming buffet food for the hermits

My stats are pretty good on my tank

Nitate 10ppm
Nitrite .25
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.0-8.2

Ive been feeding the tank every 3rd day with Phytoplankton and Just began feeding the Anemone frozen brine which it devoured and the Serpent star came out and ate some too.

The only thing that I can think is my heat hovers around 81 even with the hoods open on my bio-cube. So I will definately get a fan to keep the tank from hitting past 80.

Any other suggestions. Other than that the only thing that has died is a clam which instantly became hermit food and a big yellow sponge that I knew probably wouldn't make it other than that everything seems to be doing good. The purple gorgonian Richard sent was damaged on a branch and I snipped it off and now that part has fully healed itself over and the Anemone has found a place to call home now after going into weird places in the tank everyday.

So any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[scowiii]

Will blue legged hermits just eat corals for the heck of it? Because they are eating the coral. So I don't know if they are the cause of the corals demise because I woke up this morning and one whole area is dead white and there are about 10 hermits on it eating it....

 

[DiazE]

One of my Cup coral bunches was also bleaching, but it seems to be coming back. I have been dosing Kalkwasser with an Aqua Dose drip into tank. I believe these corals need a nice amount of calcium to keep creating thier hard outer skeleton. This mornings reading was (PH 8.3 form 8.0 - Sg. 1.023 - before bed last night).

I strongly believe hermits will eat your finger if it sits motionless and dead in the tank. These guys are serious scavengers, roaches of the bottom sand.

If you don't believe it, throw a little piece of frozen seafood at the bottom and just watch how long it takes them to swarm on it.
I did this last night and they were jumping off rocks onto the sand, straight to the bait.

This might be a good way to collect them in the wild using a 20oz. plastic bottle.

 

[scowiii]

Well they decimated a large clump of the cup corals last night. Im going to watch them to make sure they don't start hitting some of the other ones. They may be taking a trip to the LFS since I have way too many of these buggers in my 29 gallon i think.

 

[liverock]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9955901#post9955901 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by scowiii
Well they decimated a large clump of the cup corals last night. Im going to watch them to make sure they don't start hitting some of the other ones. They may be taking a trip to the LFS since I have way too many of these buggers in my 29 gallon i think.

They are only eating what was dead/on the way out.....they are cleaning up......is not normal behavior to see them do that, until they smell it. Healthy corals are not bothered by them, or there would be no corals in the tank!

Richard TBS

 

[scowiii]

ok sounds good

 

[Amyandlars]

Phytoplankton is good for corals that use photosynthesis. Cup Corals do not grow or get nutrients by photosynthesis. In order for your cups to flourish you need to place them in a high flow area, and feed them a more meaty food, such as brine or mysis shrimp. Feed them 2x a week and they should come around.

 

[scowiii]

The rest of the corals are doing good. I do feed not only the phyto but also I feed a 1/2 cube of mysis to the tank for the rest of the inhabitants. I did catch the big bad stone crab tat took up residence in a pocket of corals. The little bugger was the size of a quarter.