Flower Pot coral

[charmon09]

so i have had these flower pot corals for about 2 months now. i knew they were hard to keep but i got them for next to nothing. the red one is doing great and has even grown back over the area that was dead. the green one was doing good when i brought it home and for about a month. after that the polyps started to not come out as much and now it seems like some of it is just rotting away. the red one continues to look better and bigger every day. any advice?
it is in a medium flow area. a little wave action but not beating them to bad
phosphate: .08
NO3: less than .25
calcium: 480
ALK: meg/l: 4
: dKH: 11.2

all test kits are red sea.

here are some pictures

1 month ago:

yesterday:

one last thing, can anybody identify this worm?

 

[charmon09]

one more note. the green flowerpot coral does extend its polyps sometimes but not throughout the day

 

[little_fish]

The worm is a bristle worm, a great member of your CUC

Flower pot corals are super hard to keep like you know, and I would say that the green one is on its way out. The red ones are a little bit easier to keep, but these corals are also very susceptible to damage. Once they get damaged, there tends to be no help for them. Im not sure if you can save the green one, but if you want to try I would try an intensive feeding regime.

 

[Bifferwine]

+1 Hannah. Greens are for some reason more difficult than reds, which are considered the easiest kind to keep. Your red one looks great. I'm not sure there's anything you could have done differently for the one that's looking rough.

 

[charmon09]

yea i was aware of how hard they are to keep. any suggestions on what to feed them little fish? and thanks for the ID on the worm i just wanted to be sure. the only thing i feed my corals is a little squirt of phyto plankton once or twice a week.

 

[little_fish]

I would get some oysterfeast and target feed the coral. You will need to cut a soda bottle in half to keep away the fish and shrimp. They are very slow eaters, so it will also protect them from the current. I would also feed the red one to make sure it stays healthy.

Products of AquaMarin

You can get this at most LFS

 

[Bifferwine]

The flower pots will do much better being fed a larger food. Phytoplankton is not going to do anything for them. They like cyclopeeze and sushi roe. They should be target fed, like with a turkey baster. Since they are such slow feeders, they benefit if you cut the bottom of a soda bottle and place it on top of them while they eat, to keep their food from floating away. Just squirt their food through the top of the bottle.

 

[charmon09]

alright i will start doing that tomorrow. maybe some heavy feeding can bring the green ones back. i will start feeding the red ones as well

 

[charmon09]

wish they wouldn't have looked so good before they took a turn for the worse. i think they are one of the best looking corals i have seen at my LFS. hopefully the red ones will stay healthy.