Help, please!

[SLPMonkey]

Hi all,

Brand new to reef aquariums here. I brought this coral home on Wednesday (would love if someone could ID it too) and it was looking great, however I moved it to a different place in the tank today because I thought it would look better over there, and it curled up and got dark and is looking horrible. I moved it back to where it was before and turned down my lights, and it's looking a little bit better, but still doesn't look great and has some black on the stalk. I included a picture from yesterday, a picture of it at it's worst, and a picture of now, looking a bit better better, but not great and it has some brown/black stuff on the stalk.

Is this coral dying? Did my lights burn it? I'd greatly appreciate any advice on what happened and if there is any way to fix it. Also, at what point do I give up and say it died and take it out of the tank? I don't want it to pollute the water if it is sick/dead.

It's in a 40b with 2 HOB AquaClear 500 filters, 3 JVP-110 528-GPH Wavemaker Pumps, and 2 AI Prime lights set at about 60% power for all colors.

I've posted this a couple places, trying to figure out which sub-forum will be able to answer me best.
Thank you!

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I already answered you in the soft coral forum and asked for more information from you, but you didn't give that information that I requested.

 

[SLPMonkey]

Sorry about that! My ammonia, nitrate, and nitrate are all <0.1 ppm, specific gravity is 1.025, temperature is 78, PH is 7.8. I don't have tests for calcium or phosphate yet.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I'm pretty sure it's a Fox coral.

First off I would move it to the sandbed in a med light and flow area.

Then reduce all of your lighting I believe it's too high to start with. I would go max of 5 on whites and maybe 40 on the blue spectrum. You can up the lights every week or so by 10% until you get the lights where you want them for best color or best growth. But for now keep it low and see if there is something in the instructions about acclimation to your tank. Also you can do a search here for your lights and see what others have started them off at. I personally burned up many of my acans and a few other corals by starting my new lights off too high.

 

[SLPMonkey]

Thanks so much! I'll give that a try. It's looking better today, so hopefully it was just a little singed and is not a complete goner. Lights are way down now and I'm going to bring them up much more slowly.


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[SLPMonkey]

It's already looking so much better in 24hrs of lower lights. When I originally moved it, I put it up on this rock, and it's starting to recover. Should I still move it to the sand, or just let it be since it's starting to recover where it is?

Thanks for the help!


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[Dkuhlmann]

Since it's doing well there I'd leave it. Fox corals are IMO very beautiful and from what I have heard pretty hardy. I'm saving space in my tank for one

Glad to hear that you lowered your lights and it responded quickly. At this point it's best to not move it and let it acclimate to your tank. What other corals do you have planned for your tank?

 

[SLPMonkey]

So I've just really started to figure out exactly what I want. I have the fox coral, a purple tipped torch, and a couple small mushrooms at the moment. The fox coral was a complete impulse buy, and I'm really happy with it because it is really beautiful.

I want to stay on the easier side with corals since this is my first time attempting a reef tank. I'm planning to stick with LPS and softies. Right now, these are on my wishlist: toadstool mushroom, cauliflower colt, trumpet, glove polyp, hammer, bubble. My cousin has a pulsing xenia that I'm planning to take a frag from, So i have a nice isolated rock for that one so it doesn't take over my tank.

Any recommendations for a newbie? I just added the torch and torch on Wednesday, so I'm planning to leave everything as is for at least a few weeks before adding more. I don't want to overwhelm the new tank with too much too soon.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Make sure that you run carbon since you have leathers and LPS together. They usually have a chemical warfare but the carbon gets rid of it or makes it not as much of a problem.