I have a 16 gal bowfront and my corals are doing fine but all my fish have been dieing sporadically. Ph-8.3 nitrite-0 ammonia-.15 ppm nitrate-15 ppm salinity-31 and specific gravity is 1.023. The nitrates are a little high bu I thought that would kill corals first. The ammonia is just a little high as well but it was higher and they were fine. Any answers?

I bought a gorgeous torch coral today, and its been in the tank now about 4 hours and still not opened up. while in this state I see what looks like a clam stuck between 2 of the corals ‘heads’ or ‘stalks, or ‘polyps’ whatever you call them. I did not see this at the LFS because the coral was in full bloom and ginormous.

Not sure how to upload photos yet, but it doesn’t look like a coral kind of clam. Maybe I should not call it a clam. It’s a 2 part shell thingee that is closed and turned away from me so i can only see the spine. The little of the mouth I can see appears to have some hair sticking out of it. can someone message me their email addy and I’ll send you a photo?

not sure if its alive or dead or a parasite or what. and its fairly big, its probably 2 inches.

thanks

ps: my clowns seem to have a crush on the torch. so happy!

Hello

I bought a nice sized Xenia frag yesterday.Clowns are looking at it but haven’t decided to investigate it yet, and i know they might not host even though i know plenty of people that have clowns that host Xenia.

My clowns are wild caught, not tank raised. An anemone is bound to kill other corals when it walks the tank I have heard, so I’m thinking of getting a frogspawn and torch one at a time to see if the clown like any of those.

Any ideas on how to encourage hosting? youtube has some videos from hobbyists.

also, thinking of getting an 8 gallon biocube and having a reef tank in it. with one clown. Not sure where i can actually "see" the tank as most stores seem only to carry the 29g.

thanks

Newbie here. Read online that people hand feed their soft corals like polyps with mysis shrimp. I’ve even seen pictures of corals trying to swallow a small hermit crab and trying to eat a fish that died and fell on it.

LFS says only feed the corals the filter foods and they’re good with photosynthesis (sp?) but online many people say feeding them brine shrimp or mysis shrimp, even blood worms makes the coral grow bigger and faster.

What is your take, do you hand feed your soft corals? Pros? Cons?

Thank you

I have a 75gal with sump and refuge. I have 2 clown, 1 hippo, 1 anenome and 8 or 9 LPS.
I am thinking of adding a cleanup crew to help me with the algae. I don’t have a big problem or anything just thought it may make it easier on me.

After researching a little on this I am thinking about cerith and nerite snails. Also some mexican hermit crabs.

Just wondered if anyone had any experience with these. I don’t want anything that will mess with any of my corals for sure.

Anybody have any opinions ?

This post comes eight months after my last post. To make a long story short, I tried a deep sand bed. It would be inaccurate to say that it crashed, because that implies different things to different people. During the time of the dsb, the corals largely flourished, especially xenia, which began to choke of other corals, most notably my monti-caps. As predicted by a number of you, things went wrong after about six months. Like always, the sign of failure was the growth of cyanobacteria. It was not surprising that nitrates went sky high. But here is a surprise, I had set up a diy refugium with chaeto and it eliminated nitrates in about a months time. When nitrates went to zero and all other water parameters were perfect, there was still a cyano problem, that would not go away. the dsb was full of worms and should have been working. I debated getting rid of it, but was given advise at my LFS to leave it alone. I did, for a while. Finally, I decided it had to go. I remember the words of some of you in that regard. It was no shock that when I did brake it down, it was loaded with detritus – smelly, noxious detritus. It took many 5 gallon backets to siphon out the sand. The buckets were full of sand and brown smelly detritus. so much for the theory that worms and detrivores will "take care" of the detritus. Perhaps the problem was that I have a full grown engineer goby and that he was disturbing the sand bed too frequently, but I doubt it. I have now been bare bottom for about two weeks. Things are still adjusting. I suppose my interested observation in all of this is that the presence of the detritus, regardless of the nitrate or phosphate level, will cause cyano, period. What still puzzles me is how there are so many people who report long term success with dsb’s? How is that? I can only think that perhaps they have really low fish loads or they have nothing that disturbs the dsb to allow detritus to get below the surface. what do you think? The good news is that virtually all my corals survived. the xenia presents its own problem….we shall see.

Hi guys! Here are some pictures of the corals I have for sale!

* This is the acan, it has about 6-7 heads and grows very well. This picture shows it with its feeding tentacles out, it is very cool looking. $35 firm for it, I paid that price for one head a few months ago online.

* These are the kryptonite candy canes, they glow BRIGHT green under actinics. This frag has 4 heads on it. I will sell it for $20.

* I also have some blue candy canes that glow like crystal ice under actinics. This piece is aquascaped and has 10 heads on it. Its my favorite piece in the tank so I really dont know how much to price it at, especially since blue candys are rare. PM me offers!

* Here are some mushroom corals, they glow green under actinics. $5 a mushroom.

* Finally, this awesome finger leather! One frag with about 5 fingers on it for $10

http://s970.photobucket.com/albums/a…r.jpg&newest=1

Let me know if you have any questions. These corals will be shipping from 87114

I would like opinion on whether or not buying coral online is a good idea. I know it can be pretty risky with fish but I feel like it wouldn’t be as bad with corals, and it could save a bit of money. Does anyone here buy their corals online? If so, have you run into any issues?

I’m new to reefs but based on some research I believe I have that anemone that stings other corals on my LR. And its supposedly spreads fast right? I think a couple more have already started sprouting up. It seems to be growing quite fast and there are already 2 in the tank, plus I think that red circle in the third image is a baby? I don’t know. Also, I was not able to take a picture but at one point there was a small black worm looking guy, maybe half a centimeter long, on the unidentified thing, would he most likely be friendly?

its been a while since i posted, everythings been going fine until recently my tanks heater got stuck on and i didnt catch it until i noticed my corals were unhappy. now ive got some colts, toadstool, and frogspawns that look like they are bleached. will they come back from this or are they doomed? theve looked this way for about a week now. also what does everyone else run there temps at in there tanks? since this happened i havent been able to get my temp down below 81, i dont have a chiller at the moment.