Lighting

[cruzin94066]

I have a 12g JBJ nano tank. Lighting in it is one 50/50 24 watt bulb and one 24 watt daylight bulb. How can I tell if I am burning a coral or not. The reason why I am asking is because my toadstool coral which the next day after I put it in the tank opened up fine. After an couple of days it did not seem to open as big and I noticed there was some black spots on it and some of the handlike things on it seemed to disappear. I placed the coral on one side of the tank and in the middle of the tank meaning height wise at first. When I noticed this I placed it at the buttom of the tank. I don't know how its doing yet at the buttom of the tank.

 

[Pandora]

Hi cruzin: I don't know about actual "burning" in the literal sense... when corals get too much light, they typically bleach (lose their zooxanthellae and turn lighter in areas of stress). 4watts/gal in a deep shaped tank is not a huge amount of light, either, so that in itself shouldn't be the reason. Have you checked some of the water parameters lately? It does sound like that part of the coral is diseased and stressed, a small degree of necrosis will have that black on the edges appearance. How long have you had the coral? The tank? Any new additions lately?

 

[cruzin94066]

I have had that coral since last Friday and the two newest additions is a frogspawn and a gionopora and their both 3 in or more away from each other. My water parameters are great now.
PH 8.4
alk 12dkh
salinity 1.021
ca 450
Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia all close to zero.

 

[AllenFord_SC]

Take the goniopora back to the LFS and slap the person who sold it to you. They probably even said, "Oh this is one of the easier corals to keep!" In fact, you now own probably the single hardest coral to keep alive. They should really stop harvesting these corals. Other than that the frogspawn was a great purchase.