New corals! SPS, LPS

[JAG107]

I sorta went a little nuts this weekend and bought some goodies, I got that fever that we all get from time to time :mrgreen:
Favia and orange/green trachyphyllia

Green polyp birds nest with german blue montipora digitata (sorry best pic I could get with autofocus digital cam)

Also check out this bummer: This purple encrusting monti I picked up 10 days ago has browned out a lot! Any ideas, guys? It's been mid-tank under 15k 250w halide, nitrates/phos are 0 now, good flow, what's up? I think I should stick with 2" or under frags, because anything bigger than that has bleached on me.
before:

after:

 

[Piggy]

Great additions. That last pic has the shape of a puppy sleeping. Not sure about your monti.

 

[Rcpilot]

Great corals. :Cheers:

I have no idea about the bleaching.

 

[reeffreak]

There is to many factors(lighting,spectrum,diet,nutrient) to know for sure what is going on with the monti.

You say nitrates/phosphate are now at zero,so at one time they were high?I suspect nutrient and to some extent,light spectrum is different than what the coral was use too.BTW,the little trachy is very nice!

 

[JAG107]

The trates were up to a high of 15ppm about 2 weeks ago, but dropped to zero last week, so the monti wasn't exposed to too much change in nitrates. phos has been 0 forever. I guess lightling and flow could be it?

 

[reeffreak]

Just give it lots of chaotic flow,nothing else you can do.I've had corals color up and brown out.

BTW,is the monti an aquacultured,mari-cultured or wild harvest?
Aquacultured tend to keep their colors better than wild/maricultured sps corals.The frags and the mother colony it was fragged from have gone several generations adapting to artificial lighting....just a thought when looking for specimens.

 

[JAG107]

I think this monti is either maricultured or wild caught, I guess I can go ask the store owner. I doubt it was aquacultured due to its size and that it's on live rock, and part of the underside is bleached (which I didn't see til I got it home unfortunately)

 

[yote]

The corals look great.
Did you acclimate the monti to your light?

 

[JAG107]

I placed the monti mid level in the tank to acclimate, didn't put it right up top til yesterday. By "top", it's still about 8" below the surface as this is a deep tank and I don't have rocks all the way to the surface. I've never tried the method of placing several layers of screen and removing them one by one for acclimation, I figured since this one was under 250w halide as is my tank, it shouldn't be too different, other than the age of the bulbs and maybe color temperature.
On a different note, my dying euphyllias which I moved to a 3g picotope are responding well to the dimmer lighting and are on the road to recovery, they were almost all the way gone and now the polyps are out, accepting food, and getting bigger daily. My LPS seem to do better under PC than halide from this experiment.

 

[dustin_P74]

a lot of LPS corals like to be placed on the sand bed so that make sense about them not liking them MH's

 

[yote]

Some montis dont like to be blasted with a lot of light.You might try shading it a bit.
Another thing to look at would be your magnesium,calcium,and alkalinity levels.

 

[JAG107]

I don't have a mag test kit...yet. Alk is 7, calc has been between 360-400, these SPS are sucking up the calc like crazy, I've been dosing with brightwell liquid calc & kalk daily, and I use seachem #28 blocks 2 at a time. I'll give the monti another week where its at and compare pics, if its any worse I'll move it to shade, otherwise I'll leave it. I'm planning on changing out the 15k bulbs to 20k next week also, do you think that will shock everything too much? What would be the best method to acclimate SPS to that change?

 

[yote]

I'd reduce the light by a couple of hours,then gradually add time back to it over a couple of weeks.You'll be changing the spectrium a bit but really the intensity.But I dont think it will shock em much,if at all.
And I know where your coming from on the SPS sucking the calcium and alkalinity.I'm dosing for those 2 every day,and magnesium once a week.
You might try the Brightwell alkalinity.I been using it for a while now and like it.Its 5ml per 30gal.

 

[JAG107]

you're the man Yote! I'll try that out and see how it works. SO far I've been using seachem reef builder (dry and liquid) and kent buffer (liquid).

 

[yote]

I've had better luck with the Brightwell over both the Kent and SeaChem.
Cant wait till I get the cash to get a calcium reactor going though.Dosing every day get to be a pain in the butt.

 

[JAG107]

I heard using some kind of crushed coral substrate releases calcium naturally into the water and also is a great home for breeding pods, its what one LFS around here uses in their SPS frag tank, and its pod city, they said they never have to dose. Worth looking into for my fuge, anyway.

 

[dustin_P74]

crushed coral is also a huge harborer for nitrates

 

[yote]

I'd advise staying away from the crushed coral in a SPS tank.It takes a PH below 7 to start dissolving the crushed coral,so it wouldnt do any good in the tank anyway.If the PH gets that low,its going to kill you fish and corals.

 

[JAG107]

true...very true

 

[Bifferwine]

Yote is right on. Crushed coral is a nitrate and detritus trap. And doesn't dissolve readily.