soft coral questions?????

[jake ballard]

what is the trick about having leathers in a tank. i have lost 3 now. two were from friends tanks and the other was from the fish store. all were outstanding looking before. when they went in my tank they flopped over about a day or two later, then withered away. what is the trick to these corals. i love the way they look in a tank.

second i just bought my first clam. are there any trick or tips in keeping them? thanks for the help

jake

 

[Fat Surgeon]

Hi Jake,

Sorry, not much of a leather expert, but with Clams you want lots of light and feed Kent Micro-Vert or something similar. They require a very fine filter feeding food and Kents is pretty good. Good luck on the leathers!

 

[furforfour]

I'd be willing to bet that your water parameters are poor if you are losing leathers. What are your water parameters? Also clams are not all that easy to keep if you dont know anything about them. They need very strong light and like to be fed phytoplankton.

 

[jake ballard]

this is what i put in my tank:
Tech CB Part A
Tech CB Part B
Micro-Vert
Tech-M
Lugols
Essentials Elements
Strounium

Lights are 2x400W MH 14W

do they take lots of water flow?

and i feed my fish pellet food and plankton and do water changes monthly of about 50 gallons. i have a protein skimmer running that is cleaned weekly with RO water used as top off

 

[Sk8r]

You are pretty loaded with additives: do you have tests for Strontium levels, Iodine, Magnesium etc? I run corals and use Kent Essential elements, but have only added Mg twice in the last 6 months. Also I was unaware Lugols could be added to a tank. I thought it was only a dip---but there are a lot of things I don't know, in that department.
The best rule is to use only buffer and calcium [and test for them before adding] and add only those additives for which you have a test...I say this not because I know it is a cause of your problem, but because it's a "What's Unusual?" about your tank. Most people don't add that much stuff, so I thought it well to mention it as a suspicious area. Your feeding shouldn't be a problem.
Try, for one thing, keeping a written log: I use one of those little 'test' notebooks and write down both my results and what I added, by date. That way you can spot trends in your tests, compare your corals' reactions, and find out if there are notable fluctuations in ph, alkalinity, calcium, and the other elements you're adding.

 

[Paul B]

That sounds wierd. Leathers are the easiest corals to keep with no care at all. I myself also use Lugols but very little, about a drop a week in a 100 gal. I do not use anything else except Home Made calcium (Dowflake Randy's recipe)
Is the temp OK? I know thats a stupid question. Is anything else in this tank living?
As for clams, they are another very easy no maintenance animal. I don't feed mine and It is years old and has trippled in size the last three years. They need light but I kept one for many years under regular aquarium flourescent lamps. I did see many of them in Tahiti in very shallow water like inches deep so I know more light is better. I would not put one in your tank until you can figure out your leather problem. They are more sensitive than leathers.
Have a great day.
Paul

 

[GreyHawk1968]

From what I have read and seem through the years there are a lot of reasons leathers will not susvive. Varying water parameters. Temp being a biggy. Don't overdo the additives. More is not neccessarily better.I have had several leathers perish before reading about some of the chemical warfare that can happen. Taodstool in my tank did nothing for almost a year. Gave it to my brother and now the darn thing is almost to the surface of his 125 gal reef and it spans 16 inches across.
He in turn gave me a purple leather and it perished in a month. Found out that my colt was part of the problem. My brother on the other hand recieved a colt from me i had propagated and it was gone in about 6 months. Turns out the toadstool didn't like it.Just like fish corals can release chemicals to inhibit others from growing nearby and when you add in the fact they are in a closed system well it's not hard to understand why many die off. Hope this helps a little. Oh and the clam, don't know a thing about em. Heard they are tricky little suckers tho.

 

[jake ballard]

what chemicals should i use.should i stop all or what. aany reccomenditions will be a big help. what chemicals do do use for reef tanks. in my 270 i have about 300lbs of well eatablished live rock. do water changes of about 50 gallons monthly. water is skimed with skimmer cleaned and water topped off weekly.

someone mentioned WATER TEMP!!!! in the day time it is around 81-83 deg. and at night around 76-78 deg. is this to much of a change? if so how to fix?

in my tank right now for corals i have a few different mushshrooms, a clam, torch coral, 3 anenames, i think some polops, a sponge. i think that is about it. i am wanting get into somemore.

thanks for the input!! JAKE

 

[jake ballard]

anybody want to add anything?????

jake

 

[hangles]

your temp seems a little high anything above 80 is getting a little warm. how far from the water are your MH's and do you use any fans to get rid of the heat.

 

[jake ballard]

i am getting a fan today to help with the heat.

any more info on the Chemicals?????

 

[chrisromes]

I have a couple of leathers and they've grown from 2" to about 20" across in the past 12-18 months. They're both right under a 175 MH and have grown to the surface of my tank. For me, they've been one of the hardiest and easiest corals to keep.

I'm no expert, but from what I've read, it sound like you have either an overdose of one of your additives or temp swings (or both) that is causing problems for your leathers. If you're at 77 or so at night, and up to 82 or so at night, that is a big swing. Either extreme is probably ok as a base temp, but you shouldn't very more than a couple degrees in a 24 hour period. Some corals are more sensitive to others, but they all do better with stable temp. (stable everything for that matter... PH, Salinity, Calcium, etc.).

As for additives, I think your best bet is to just do a consistent amount of water changes and forget about additives. This way you are always bringing things back to NSW levels, and replenishing trace elements on a regular basis. If your tests are showing that you're using up a lot of a particular mineral (e.g. calcium), then dose that in small amounts to bring it back.

The only thing I ever add is a small amount of Iodine because my tank is loaded with softies. And I can usually tell when they are running low on iodine, so I add a little and they fluff up some...

The other possiblity is that you have some kind of chemical warfare going on. You might try some carbon filtration, it seems to help my corals and makes the water really clean looking.

Good luck.

 

[jake ballard]

i test for nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, and ph. what are some of the other things i should be testing for. so i can get those kits.

thanks for the info and keep the imputs coming!!!

jake

 

[IslandCrow]

Most people just does calcium, alkalinity and magnesium, and with only soft corals, there shouldn't be much demand there, so maybe some limewater would be all you really need. Most soft corals also need iodine, but that seems to be very difficult to test for accurately, so if you do that, be very sparing. I, personally, would stop everything except perhaps the 2-part and maybe the Lugols for now. The other things your adding just supplement too large an array for you to really be sure what you're putting in your aquarium.

By the way, do you really only top off your water weekly? I don't know if your tank's covered (mine's open), but if I were to only add top-off water every week, I would have pretty bad salinity swings. I have an auto topoff system now, but even before that, I added topoff at least every couple of days. In a 55g, I lose about 1/2 gallon per day to evaporation.

 

[hangles]

I would test for alk and cal . top off every day to keep your salinity stable and put your ph buffers in the tank late evening its more stable then . leathers are touchy with water peramiters. hope this helps!

 

[jake ballard]

i top off about 2-3 gallons every other day. i make sure that i am on top of it because of my skimmer. also when i add the chemicals i add anywhere from 1-3 hours after i turn off the lights.

i see what i sound be testing for but should i be adding any chemicals on a regular basis from my list above or stop all?