Mushroom coral acting funny

[snyderju]

So we got a purple mushroom coral about 3 days ago. We put it in our tank and it opened up immediately. Now, since yesterday it has been kinda shrively and only partially open. Also it is turning from a purple to a darker purple with rusty red mixed in. It is in a lower flow area and has medium light due to being knida in a cave. Water paramaters are good. what could be causing this? Different lighting? It is under a 4 bulb t5 fixture.

 

[snyderju]

Here's a pic.

 

[Smitty]

It doesn't really look that bad to me...it's probably still adjusting to the new tank.

 

[little_fish]

+1 smitty

 

[snyderju]

Oh good to hear :) sorry probably going to be a lot of bombardment of coral questions from me in the upcoming weeks. I've got 2 books I read for reference and have done HOURS of research online and still have tons of questions. I tested my nitrates again today and we have about 5ppm nitrates. It is so hard to distinguish between the colors but I believe it is 5-10 ppm. Is this too high? everything else is still good. I just did a water change with RO/DI water yesterday.

 

[little_fish]

For soft corals that fine, but if you really want to get into SPS corals, nitrates should be zero

 

[snyderju]

We have been feeding twice daily since it is a newish tank I guess do you think cutting back to every other day would make a difference? we have our HOB fuge with chaeto in it now, our skimmer, and about 30 plus pounds of live rock. I just don't see what it would be besides the food. Also, what is a good food to feed? right now we use marine flakes and this Omega one kind.

 

[little_fish]

moving to all frozen foods will help with the phosphates, and i would feed once a day

 

[snyderju]

Our phosphates are reading 0 its nitrates that are around 5.