My First Chalice

[Joe]

I acquired an alien mummy eye chalice at last Saturday's swap. I thought I'd give it a shady space to start and low flow area. Already I notice the edge is becoming white in places. My parameters are;

Salinity - 33 ppt

PH - 8.3

N03 - 2

Alk - 4 meq/l

Cal - 350

Mg - 1250

Are the white edges a problem, or are these growth areas? Any tips appreciated.

Joe

 

[trippkid]

Joe, in my experience Chalice corals won't show a white edge say like some Monti's and Acro's do. They normally should be covered in the flesh. Low Ca, Mag should not cause this so soon, IMO. Salinity, I keep my stuff at 35ppt or 1.026 SG, I don't know if this could be an issue or not, I used to run lower SG when I first started reefing, I always had mixed results with things, usually most LPS were fine, but didn't really grow all that much, I never had any Chalices' back then, I did try a couple SPS back then and they never made it more than a couple of months at the most. What is your Temp.? I don't think the small level of Nitrate would do this either so soon. Sorry, I don't have a definitive answer for you, plus I'm not real big on Chalice corals, I know they are all the rage these days. I have two now that Darin fragged, and they are in lower light area, but receive the same flow as all my Acros, they both are doing very well(knock wood), the colored eye one I have could stand to be moved to some more light I think. Hopefully you can find out what is with this piece and what it likes for it to grow for you. Good luck.
Matt

 

[reeftard73]

The growth edge on the few chalices I've seen are typically cream to brownish on color, not white like acros.

 

[NCNBilly]

Salinity and calcium are pretty low, considering it likely came from a tank at 35ppt and likely 450+ Ca. They like medium flow and medium light, but do well on the sand for most people.

A white edge is not a good sign, sounds like loss of tissue. If it were me, I'd slowly bring the tank up to 35ppt over the course of a week by adding salt to my topoff water. This will likely give you a calcium and magnesium boost too.

 

[Joe]

Thanks Guys,

My temp. fluctuates between 78.5 when lights are out and 80 when the 250 watt halides come on from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm. Maybe temp. movement is a problem? I'm using BRS 2-part so I'll bring CA up and also salinity to NSW level. I got this frag from Jim & Kim (or whoever) at GCorals in E-Town. I should have asked them what their parameters were while I was there.

Thanks Again,

Joe

 

[NCNBilly]

That would be Rich and Kelly.

They run 35ppt, as do most reefers, and temps in the mid 80s last I talked to them about it. (My last visit their SPS tank was at 86, and looked beautiful). How fast are the swings when the lights come on? Based on the tank parms you have listed, probably not too fast, and not likely a concern.

 

[trippkid]

It is probably not the temp. if that is what it truly is, I say this only because, I was using one of the cheap coralife digital thermometers, and over the summer, I come to find out it went bad and started reading wrong about 11 degrees, needless to say, I lost some things and couldn't figure out what was wrong until reading about the problems others were having with the temp. sensors. I now use the wireless Pinpoint thermometer and just got a Ranco single stage controller, I still have to wire that up though. Good luck, I hope you can figure it out.
Matt

 

[Joe]

Oops! Sorry Rich & Kelly.
Bill, the temp. swing is very slow, so hopefully that's not the problem.
Matt, my thermometer is a Won digital, but I back it up with one of those floating ones as well. I'm sure the temp. is accurate.

Joe

 

[volcom69]

I would slowly bring your salinity up, and where are the white edges, in the shaded area or in the lighted area. They can usually take a good bit of light but you still want to leave them down around the sand though. I wouldnt worry to much about the flow they can also take a good bit of flow. Hows everything else in the tank LPS, SPS other corals are they ok or have any white edges on them at all.

 

[Joe]

Volcom69,

The only other problem I'm having is that I think something started to eat a digi frag I got from either Bobby or Matt at the meeting at Bobby's house. The small, green polyps were slowly disappearing from the bottom up, leaving a white base. I think I stopped that by giving the frag a long swish in a bucket of fresh, cold RO/DI water. That seems to have stopped the progression. The whole chalice frag is under semi-bright halides now, at the edge of an overhanging rock. It's on egg-crate, near the bottom of my tank. I'm bare-bottom, with all my rock elevated on egg-crate and half inch pvc couplings. Everything else is looking good.

Thanks,

Joe