First coral, poor thing looks like he has seen some stuff..

[Drakon]

I stopped by the LFS today to return something and decided to look around the tanks. I shouldn't have done that.. so meet my new coral, he's a little sickly looking atm, but I've got him in a small tank atm till I get my 10 gal quarantine tank cleaned out tomorrow. He's got some new water using red sea salt so it has a lot of what he needs but I'm ordering their coral salt tonight that has a bit more. The pic is just room light but he's got a light now and when he is in the 10 gal he will have a reef light.

Any suggestions on cleaning this guy up? when I picked him out he was on a rock, or so I thought. They had him propped up behind it and the bottom is what was hidden from view, its pretty bad looking.

Any advice is great, oh and if its hard to tell from the pick he's a branching hammerhead. Got him for my clowns.


Thanks!

 

[Drakon]

He seems to be perking up a bit. cant wait to get him under the reef lights. he seems to have 3 large heads a medium one a little down then about 2-3 small ones.

 

[coral_addict]

Looks good to me! They like to be fed bits of mysis a couple times a week. Good luck!

 

[Drakon]

erm, lfs seen me coming this time, I really need to stop this impulse buying thing. So when I got the coral I asked "what should I feed him" the response phytoplankton. Now from what you said and what I've read this may not be the case and I've already put a few drops in(small tank). Good thing I have some frozen brine which others seem to use.

 

[mayjong]

They don't need to be fed at all. Light will be fine. They can eat if fed, I never fed mine they grow fast enough as it is!

 

[Drakon]

Anyone have any tips on how to clean up the lower section without harming the coral itself? Its covered in what looks like hair alge on the bottom section that I'll probobly end up haveing burried in sand anyway. but I'd like to eliminate the alge before it moves from its holding tank into qt. Also how long should I qt a coral I was planning a month atleast incase it has any of the icks lifecycle.

 

[athompson]

I suggest dipping all ur corals in a safe coral dip like coral rx before putting them in any tank. That algae looks a little like bryopsis. Tangs will devour it if u happen to have any. If not u can just pull it off and brush the rock really good with a toothbrush. If u are really careful u can kill it with peroxide. Just dont get it on the coral. Hydrogen peroxide destroys bryopsis. In the tank it just turns to oxygen. U can real up on it. It was very effective for me.

 

[Reef Frog]

AThompson is correct. Remember CoralRX & other dips like Revive kill animal parasites but not algae. DO NOT put it in the display until you are certain that the Bryopsis is gone. It is a nightmare if it spreads in the DT. HP is very effective & you may want to apply it several times as some holdfasts may survive a single treatment.

 

[Drakon]

Thanks! yea its going to go from its holding tank into a dip and then qt. I'll grab some peroxide and dip that a few times before the transfer to qt, luckily it seems to be located mainly on the bottom.

 

[Reef Frog]

If you do dip peroxide consider diluting it. I've only dipped zoas in diluted peroxide, not LPS. For them I prefer direct application with a small pipette, brush or swab directly to calcium skeleton; never the polyp itself. Hold the colony in such a way as the peroxide drips away from polyp tissue.

 

[Drakon]

Ok, everything is in QT, had a bit of a scare becuase after the revive dip the coral decided to slime me, but from what I can gather its a normal reaction. I also broke out a toothbrush and poroxide and was able to clean it up a bit. Would you say a week of being left alone would be best before another peroxide treatment? The pics are from this morning about 18 hours after the dip and cleaning. I'm fairly sure I lost one head. would it be worth it to frag off that larger head in the center then cut off everything below that and mount this to a plug, or maybe just above the section I have sitting on the eggcrate?

Also as you can see when I went to get the dip I glanced in the frag tank.. :uhoh2: and spotted this other frag. I realy need to stop going there I cant seem to help myself.

Thanks