Hi All,
So I have always been interested in Aquariums, I was talking to my GF about getting into the hobby for years now, and out of the blue she buys me a tank. It is nothing special, though she did a little research as I was always was fascinated with marine aquatic life, she bought me a medium size "Nano" setup. Ill post the details of the tank and what I bought to start up, with a little help from my LFS, a little lower. I bought everything that was recommended, immediately set the system up (with a little help from the internet), and then proceeded to wait. Fast Forward a month, after my tanks "cycle"(I'll explain why so fast in a sec), I get a phone call from a friend who has had many freshwater tanks, that a friend of his was getting rid of a saltwater tank that had corals and some clams, and asked if my tank was set up and could take them. I ran to my tank, Pulled out my API saltwater test kit, and coral test kit and proceeded to check all of my levels. Ph-8.1, Ammonia-0, Nitrite-0, Nitrate-~2ppm, Calcium~ 120ppm, and Phospate-0ppm. So i call him back and oblige. I bought some astrea snails, a peppermint shrimp, and 2 Emerald crabs, as algae was running amok, as nothing was their to curb it. My buddy comes over with 2 pieces of live rock, wrapped in wet paper towels, at this point i don't know much about dipping, or acclimation or that it was even necessary for coral. My buddy has had multiple tanks I figure he knows what he is doing, so without thought we arrange the rock that was already in the tank to accommodate the new pieces, and set them in. I see two very green looking corals one on each piece of rock, there were two other corals, that had no color whatsoever, and looked dead(they were). Fast forward a couple days of incessantly checking all the levels of my tank hoping I could get some color back in to the smaller pieces that looked dead. Of course they continued to be dead, but these green corals, just exploded. They were bright, at night you could see their tentacles expanded, dancing in the current. They have been super happy for a majority of their time with me, not a single issue. Now I'm a complete amateur at this and didn't know you could supplement their feeding, they didn't seem to have a problem with that for about 3 months.
So now here is the problem, for the past couple days they seem to have lost their vibrant color, have not extended their tentacles, the green is fading away and turning somewhat gray and white. I've searched but I'm not so sure what the actual coral is. The closest I could find was a brain coral, but I'm not 100 percent.
Setup-
Coralife Biocube29
30 lbs Crushed coral substrate
40 lbs corralife life rock(artificial Live rock)
Coralife biocube protein skimmer(garbage, does not work at all)
Stock filtration and media balls(will be changing soon)
Nutri-seawater(reason my cycle was so fast if i had one)
Parameters-
PH-8.0
Ammonia-0ppm
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrate- 0-5 ppm(colors are hard to tell sometimes on the api test kit)
Calcium-120 ppm(seemed low so i dosed with Kent marine liquid calcium, via the instructions on the back.)
So any help would be appreciated.
Also Sorry for the Novel
Pics:
You can see at the edge, that its turning white
So I have always been interested in Aquariums, I was talking to my GF about getting into the hobby for years now, and out of the blue she buys me a tank. It is nothing special, though she did a little research as I was always was fascinated with marine aquatic life, she bought me a medium size "Nano" setup. Ill post the details of the tank and what I bought to start up, with a little help from my LFS, a little lower. I bought everything that was recommended, immediately set the system up (with a little help from the internet), and then proceeded to wait. Fast Forward a month, after my tanks "cycle"(I'll explain why so fast in a sec), I get a phone call from a friend who has had many freshwater tanks, that a friend of his was getting rid of a saltwater tank that had corals and some clams, and asked if my tank was set up and could take them. I ran to my tank, Pulled out my API saltwater test kit, and coral test kit and proceeded to check all of my levels. Ph-8.1, Ammonia-0, Nitrite-0, Nitrate-~2ppm, Calcium~ 120ppm, and Phospate-0ppm. So i call him back and oblige. I bought some astrea snails, a peppermint shrimp, and 2 Emerald crabs, as algae was running amok, as nothing was their to curb it. My buddy comes over with 2 pieces of live rock, wrapped in wet paper towels, at this point i don't know much about dipping, or acclimation or that it was even necessary for coral. My buddy has had multiple tanks I figure he knows what he is doing, so without thought we arrange the rock that was already in the tank to accommodate the new pieces, and set them in. I see two very green looking corals one on each piece of rock, there were two other corals, that had no color whatsoever, and looked dead(they were). Fast forward a couple days of incessantly checking all the levels of my tank hoping I could get some color back in to the smaller pieces that looked dead. Of course they continued to be dead, but these green corals, just exploded. They were bright, at night you could see their tentacles expanded, dancing in the current. They have been super happy for a majority of their time with me, not a single issue. Now I'm a complete amateur at this and didn't know you could supplement their feeding, they didn't seem to have a problem with that for about 3 months.
So now here is the problem, for the past couple days they seem to have lost their vibrant color, have not extended their tentacles, the green is fading away and turning somewhat gray and white. I've searched but I'm not so sure what the actual coral is. The closest I could find was a brain coral, but I'm not 100 percent.
Setup-
Coralife Biocube29
30 lbs Crushed coral substrate
40 lbs corralife life rock(artificial Live rock)
Coralife biocube protein skimmer(garbage, does not work at all)
Stock filtration and media balls(will be changing soon)
Nutri-seawater(reason my cycle was so fast if i had one)
Parameters-
PH-8.0
Ammonia-0ppm
Nitrite-0ppm
Nitrate- 0-5 ppm(colors are hard to tell sometimes on the api test kit)
Calcium-120 ppm(seemed low so i dosed with Kent marine liquid calcium, via the instructions on the back.)
So any help would be appreciated.
Also Sorry for the Novel
Pics:
You can see at the edge, that its turning white
