New to Coral Question

[gojohnnygogo]

I just started a nano-tank about three weeks ago, I have slowly been adding various corals to my tank, I added a small torch coral, a green mushroom and a star polyp which all three seem to be doing really well, I also added a small xenia last night and it seems to be doing alright, I wanted to know if its normal for coral when u first get them to take awhile to adjust and fully extend themselves? I also was wondering if it is normal that when the lights are off that some of the coral contract? or should they remain fully extended even in the night, as far as lighting goes, how long should I have the lights on my tank a day? The xenia seems a little contracted after about 12 hours but doesnt look like its dieing or anything, do xenia generally take a day or so to get adjusted?

 

[leaffish75]

XENIA is know for melting in some tanks. there are some people who can keep any coral but xenia. for some reason it wont survive. All corals can take a few days to even week before they fully extend. My light cycle is from 630 to 830. any where from 10 to 12 hours.IMO

 

[incysor]

Most corals take a few days to adjust fully. Doing a proper drip-line acclimation/introduction to your tank will help cut down the amount of time they need to fully extend.

Most of the corals are also diurnal and will contract during the night. However there are some that are nocturntal that will expand during the night instead.

B

 

[incysor]

Your xenia may just be slow to acclimate to the tank. How are you acclimating your corals when you introduce them? Some folks have no problems with xenia, and it grows like a weed, others can't seem to keep it alive even though everything tests out good, and they've got lots of other types of healthy corals.

B

 

[djconn]

Most of my xenia contract a little bit when the lights are off. I bet its fine.

 

[gojohnnygogo]

its not melting at all, its still pulsating a little bit but it looks like its suffered some shrinkage, looks like it did when I put it in the tank from the pet store, but in the pet store it was fully extended, I think it will probably just take a little time, its only been less then a day still. I hope it does well

 

[incysor]

its not melting at all, its still pulsating a little bit but it looks like its suffered some shrinkage, looks like it did when I put it in the tank from the pet store, but in the pet store it was fully extended, I think it will probably just take a little time, its only been less then a day still. I hope it does well

What is your acclimation procedure for new purchases?

B

 

[gojohnnygogo]

i know this is probably pretty crude but i just throw them in the tank place them where I want them to go? what is the best way to introduce a new coral to a tank?

 

[dragon79]

i know this is probably pretty crude but i just throw them in the tank place them where I want them to go? what is the best way to introduce a new coral to a tank?

I believe most corals are pretty hardy, but it doesn't mean you can just toss them in. The temperature that they come from (LFS) and the temperature from your tank are two entirely different temperatures, and that alone can be very bad for your corals, especially ones that are harder to keep alive.

For the most part, float the bag, so the coral can adjust to the temp. I dont' know about the dripline of a coral. But I think (incysor) incourages that of everything. I know my girlfriend recently got a long tentacle plate coral and she poured it in a big bowl, and then let it drip acclimate it, to both the water and the temperature. Seeing those results I noticed there wasn't much "shock" as it was introduced to the tank.

On the level of pulsating xenias, I have the redsea xenias, and they are doing very well, already I seeing bits of them around my tiny 1.5 tank. For me they are thriving and slowly multiplying.

 

[incysor]

i know this is probably pretty crude but i just throw them in the tank place them where I want them to go? what is the best way to introduce a new coral to a tank?

From another post I wrote about it.

B

How would you acclimate any corals for a tank that small? Sorry for the noobish question but I am thinking about setting up a 5g reef only tank and have been trying to figure this out.

This is taken from another post of mine from earlier. This will work for your 5g tank fairly well. For a .75 gal tank all your corals will be very small frags anyway so I'd try to do the same just on a smaller scale.

Now let's talk about acclimation procedures....Lots of folks make the switch from fresh water to salt water, and so they have the idea that floating a bag for 20mins-hour and then releasing the new critter is the correct way to acclimate them. This may work 90% of the time for freshwater, but you've got more chemical balances to worry about with saltwater, and it's simply not an acceptable way to acclimate your new purchases. When you do a float and release, all you're acclimating your new critter to is temp. What about salinity, and ph for critters? Big swings in these can kill them very quickly. If it doesn't kill them immediately it can add to their stress levels, which are already high from being caught out of the tank in the LFS and put in a bag, etc... When you're talking about corals, you have salinty, ph, calcium, lighting, etc.. to consider as well. This is why some corals don't open for a day or so when they're added to a new tank. I will tell you that I HAVE floated and released corals and even fish/inverts when I was in a hurry, but at least I knew I was running a risk.

So here's what you do. Get a length of airline tubing that's long enough to go from the top of your nano to a bowl big enough for your new purchase sitting next to it, but lower than the surface. You put the airline in the tank, the other end should have a small plastic valve on it like these.
http://www.petdiscounters.com/customer/ ... 315&page=1
You can ususually find these anywhere that carries fish or airline tubing.

You dump your new critter, and as little water as will cover it in the bowl.
Start a siphon from your tank dripping through the airline tubing into the bowl. Use the valve to adjust the flow so that you're getting at most a couple drops per second.

That's it. You may want to nearly fill the bowl, empty most of it back into the nano and repeat the process again before dumping the new guy into the tank. I usually do the first batch of water pretty slowly, then do the 2nd run at a much faster drip rate. This will give the new addition time to acclimate to ALL of your tanks parameters.

 

[incysor]

i know this is probably pretty crude but i just throw them in the tank place them where I want them to go? what is the best way to introduce a new coral to a tank?

I believe most corals are pretty hardy, but it doesn't mean you can just toss them in. The temperature that they come from (LFS) and the temperature from your tank are two entirely different temperatures, and that alone can be very bad for your corals, especially ones that are harder to keep alive.

For the most part, float the bag, so the coral can adjust to the temp. I dont' know about the dripline of a coral. But I think (incysor) incourages that of everything. I know my girlfriend recently got a long tentacle plate coral and she poured it in a big bowl, and then let it drip acclimate it, to both the water and the temperature. Seeing those results I noticed there wasn't much "shock" as it was introduced to the tank.

On the level of pulsating xenias, I have the redsea xenias, and they are doing very well, already I seeing bits of them around my tiny 1.5 tank. For me they are thriving and slowly multiplying.

When I first started buying corals, I didn't drip acclimate anything, just floated the bag to let the temp adjust then put them in. I assumed that the corals were tougher than the fish/inverts. After losing a couple corals I did some more research, and found that for some corals this may work, assuming that your salinity level and the store's salinity level are the same, but that overall it's a pretty bad idea. Many of the corals are actually MORE delicate than the fish/inverts.

What you're seeing is probably just shock, and hopefully it'll recover in a couple days.

B

 

[blastprimo]

If you started the tank 3 weeks ago, you may be seeing some nitrite/nitrate levels on the rise and this may be causing an issue with the coral as well. Just a thought.

 

[Phischy]

Do you know what kind of xenia you have? Could you post a pic of the redsea variety? I just picked up some silver strand pulsating xenia and I'd like to see how they look in comparision.

 

[gojohnnygogo]

Well the xenia is looking nearly fully extending and pulsating happily now, my nitrate and nitrite levels have never spiked too bad at all to be honest, I have been changing my water pretty religiously, an 1/8th of the tank probably every other day so I havent noticed too many spikes in algae or nitrite/nitrate levels, all my corals seem to be doing good, I will post pics tonight of my tank so far, I bought a thing of kent marine's calcium and was told I should add a drop or two every couple days, and someone said I should pick up some iodine as well? what are your thoughts on this? My next step is to replace my foam filter pad with a lil carbon bag, I saw some riccordia at the store last night, that stuff is so cool lookin

 

[djconn]

The key to adding supplements is to only add what you have the capibility to test for. Ca, I would imagine, is something you will be adding to your tank more often than anything. But, if you're doing a lot of water changes, you might never even need to do that. Alk is another you will be adding a lot of.

Iodine is something that people tend to over-dose. Once again, do it only if you have a test kit for it. With Iodine, you only need to dose very very small amounts.

What is the size of your tank again?

 

[mikeguerrero]

DJ,

Additives have puzzeld me a lot. I own a marine kent starter kit, Iodine, Calicium and Strontium. Okay, my question is I don't know how much Iodine I should be placing in my tank.

I have 12 gallons and maybe only 10 gallons of water because of displacement. I don't have a Iodine test kit. And I think I was overdosing because I started growing hair algae everywhere.

I have since done 3 major water changes in three day applications and my water is crystal clear and no the hair algae disappeared. During this time I stopped dosing.

Help DJ, tell me how much Iodine I'm suppose to place into my cube. The instructions say 8 drops per day per 50 gallons of water or one capful once a week 50 gallons.

I hear everything positive about Iodine so I want to dose, only problem is should I invest into the tester of Iodine, it's like 45 dollars by Salifert?

I really think my overdosing of addivtives placed too many nutrients into the water, I also was dosing with kent marine phytoplex, man that stuff is strong.

Mike

 

[incysor]

DJ,

Additives have puzzeld me a lot. I own a marine kent starter kit, Iodine, Calicium and Strontium. Okay, my question is I don't know how much Iodine I should be placing in my tank.

I have 12 gallons and maybe only 10 gallons of water because of displacement. I don't have a Iodine test kit. And I think I was overdosing because I started growing hair algae everywhere.

I have since done 3 major water changes in three day applications and my water is crystal clear and no the hair algae disappeared. During this time I stopped dosing.

Help DJ, tell me how much Iodine I'm suppose to place into my cube. The instructions say 8 drops per day per 50 gallons of water or one capful once a week 50 gallons.

I hear everything positive about Iodine so I want to dose, only problem is should I invest into the tester of Iodine, it's like 45 dollars by Salifert?

I really think my overdosing of addivtives placed too many nutrients into the water, I also was dosing with kent marine phytoplex, man that stuff is strong.

Mike

50g / 5 = 10g
8drops / 5 = 1.6drops. I'd go with 1. If something is healing up it to 2.

B

 

[djconn]

I would probably put 1 drop in per day as incysor stated. Probably even less.

To be completely honest, I don't always test my iodine concentration before (or even after) I dose b/c the test takes a really long time to complete. I guess I'm lazy but I tend to only dose iodine 2-4 times per month and its less than a drop in my 5.5 and 2.5. Hope that helps.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Incysor, DJ

Thanks a lot. I'll try 2 drops per day, since I have SPS corals and one looks a little sick.

Mike

 

[dragon79]

I would probably put 1 drop in per day as incysor stated. Probably even less.

To be completely honest, I don't always test my iodine concentration before (or even after) I dose b/c the test takes a really long time to complete. I guess I'm lazy but I tend to only dose iodine 2-4 times per month and its less than a drop in my 5.5 and 2.5. Hope that helps.

How do you cut a drip in half? LOL I was reading that and was like whaaat? that thing that comes with the starter kit, has a thin plastic tube to suck up the liquid, I'd imagine 1 drip/drop is as much as you can do it, unless you are putting it on a spoon and letting it go in a quarter of the way in.....

Sorry if I am kinda lost on that, but hope to understand.....I dont want to be doing anything crucial either to my tank or sandras.