I bought an Acanthastrea Echinata from Live Aquaria. It arrived with maybe 25% of the heads looking pretty sad, a lot of white areas visible. From what I've read, the white means the flesh is gone and the skeleton is showing. I dipped it and then placed it on my sand bed, and reduced my photo period and built it back up gradually. After a week or so, a few heads had completely died off, and the white continued to spread. I contacted Live Aquaria due to the 14 day guarantee, and they suggested that it wasn't getting enough light and I should raise it higher in my aquarium, which I did. They also extended my warranty period by 2 weeks.
From the picture you can see the top section looks pretty bad, this is the part that didn't look that great from the beginning. I have been feeding it every few days at night, and it does respond to that. But it definitely doesn't puff up during the day as nicely as what I see in pictures. For the most part, it seems like it has stayed in pretty much the same condition for the last week or so, not getting better but not getting worse.
So I'm wondering first off, is this coral doomed, or should it be possible to get it back in shape? Any advice on placement, leaving it higher up vs back down on the sand bed? The aquarium is a 90 gallon with a 4x54 watt T5 fixture. My ammonia and nitrite are 0, nitrate around 5-10, salinity 1.025-1.026, ph right around 8.0, alk 8-9 calcium around 420 at last test.
Appreciate any advice. This is actually the second time I've bought one of these, and I went through pretty much the same thing last time, got through about a month before the whole colony died. Not sure if I'm not getting good specimens from Live Aquaria or if I'm not giving them ideal conditions.
From the picture you can see the top section looks pretty bad, this is the part that didn't look that great from the beginning. I have been feeding it every few days at night, and it does respond to that. But it definitely doesn't puff up during the day as nicely as what I see in pictures. For the most part, it seems like it has stayed in pretty much the same condition for the last week or so, not getting better but not getting worse.
So I'm wondering first off, is this coral doomed, or should it be possible to get it back in shape? Any advice on placement, leaving it higher up vs back down on the sand bed? The aquarium is a 90 gallon with a 4x54 watt T5 fixture. My ammonia and nitrite are 0, nitrate around 5-10, salinity 1.025-1.026, ph right around 8.0, alk 8-9 calcium around 420 at last test.
Appreciate any advice. This is actually the second time I've bought one of these, and I went through pretty much the same thing last time, got through about a month before the whole colony died. Not sure if I'm not getting good specimens from Live Aquaria or if I'm not giving them ideal conditions.
