bought coral but already looks dead?

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pairenoid

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Sep 23, 2012
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its still in the bags but i bought 3 different ones
i got a no name they gave me the wrong order i didnt notice
i got a pulsing xenia, looked great in the store but its almost dead looking and its still in the bag, im acclimating it right now. Its all shriveled up, will it be better over time?
also a mushroom that is green, just 1 cap, and it looks shriveled up as well, before i even put it in my tank to float it
 
ill get pics tomorrow i want to leave the lights off the rest of the day. I put it on the opposite end of my tank to avoid the flow, but i cant tell if the flow is too much or too little, i suppose i will leave all my corals as is for a few days then move them if they dont improve
i believe they were at least 4 inches+ at the store, right now its barely half an inch, but i read if xenia are dying they melt
 
they will be fine. don't worry. unless there is something wrong with your water quality. calc, alk, no nitrate, no phosphate, ph between 7.9-8.3 , medium to high light level and medium to high water movement...

however, if your lights are much stronger than the lights in the store you bought it from... i would suggest you place them in a darker area (not in a shade of course) and move them up over time.

good luck!
 
here are the pics, do they look alive? especially my mushroom
img_2248636_0_34663c75a43cd3651475825a5b3cf029.jpg

shriveled up still, i just moved it to less flow and it didnt open up still
img_2248636_1_b3202b9dd3951db9d61c0b87f0bd9fd2.jpg

no idea what this is, he gave me the wrong order :( i had like this bright yellow zooanthid picked up but instead i got home with this guy, i personally would of rather had the zooanthid :((

my favorite coral, but the most dying looking
img_2248636_2_cfbfdd30a347f3af9c23bc0856605be0.jpg


img_2248636_2_cfbfdd30a347f3af9c23bc0856605be0.jpg

here is a pic it opened up, my xenia is a little bigger than it was yesterday forgot to mention

actually this one is a lot bigger than i thought, i guess it was ok for the price, 3 frags for 30(xenia was 35)
 
The xenia looks as though its in extremely low flow. What lighting do you have and how much flow do you have? It's very normal for corals to close up when disturbed and after transfers to New enviroments it can last a couple days maybe even weeks. Your corals are most definitely alive but they seem as though they aren't happy with their placement which may mean you need to find a higher flow area or upgrade pumps.
 
i kept reading xenia like either low or medium flow, i put it at the opposite end where theere should be low flow, i can move it to a higher flow area but then i heard they wont pulse as much, which is the main reason i bought them

my mushroom still looks shriveled even though i moved it, and i think its because the guy pinched him to pick him up, it looks as if he has an invisible pinch hold on him, maybe its damaged

what about my middle piece? i think its a button polyp, i randomly placed that one

where would you have me move my xenia? i can put it higher but not sure how close to the middle since i dont want it next to my buttons

i have a single 750 koralia, 20 long tank, 2x24 watt t5ho nova extreme
 
Those are def zoanthids that you have. They are just closed up. Mushroom doesn't look too bad. And yeah +1 the placement might not be correct. Zoanthids are pretty easy though as are mushrooms.
 
placement of my xenia? i had to consider the fact that if they take over, and i put them in higher flow, that placement would give them possibility to take over the tank

i placed it on a rock far from others so i can easily stop it from spreading, plus it has indirect flow there ! can someone explain what a better placement would be and why

will i cause my coral stress if i move them in a week?
 
You are at low light levels imo so you could keep them directly in the light with that fixture. I have xenia thriving on my spray bar literally at the surface of the water under 6 T5s to give you an idea of what they can actually handle. As for flow that's a pretty big pump imo for a 20 long which will probably cause very high flow in one end and low flow on the other. It's best to have 2 smaller pumps to create a more random flow. Try moving the xenia just outside the pumps current to where it sways slowly but consistently and can also get direct light. The zoas I would place as close to the lighting I can and can handle lower flow then the xenia. The mushrooms I can't speak first hand as I refuse to keep them since they can spread so fast but they are among the lowest ligh and flow requirement corals so that can stay where it is it looks decent right now.
 
placement of my xenia? i had to consider the fact that if they take over, and i put them in higher flow, that placement would give them possibility to take over the tank

i placed it on a rock far from others so i can easily stop it from spreading, plus it has indirect flow there ! can someone explain what a better placement would be and why

will i cause my coral stress if i move them in a week?

Moving them in the tank if placed into the right spots won't effect them for more then a few minutes maybe an hour. As for the xenia spreading the way its spreads makes it easy to control if kept up with. It will branch off much like a strawberry plant so you will see it a day or two before it attaches itself. I keep mine around sand so when they do brach off new stalks they attach them selves to the sand/crushed coral giving me the ability to glue the foot to frag instead of having to use the thread and needle or rubberband technique.
 
Did you drip acclimate these corals to your water prior to adding them? In your initial post, you said you were about to float them in your tank.
 
no i asked the store owner if i should drip acclimate them and he said no they are fine to float, and i believe him
here is a pic of my xenia now, i see its got its tan color back from being grey yesterday, maybe it likes my light lol, not sure if i want to move it because its definitely bigger today. I will move it if it doesnt seem to pulse though
img_2248751_0_71bf7f807f12a7bed7e8b00cb048bfa3.jpg
 
thanks for the advice. I thought my lights would be fine as I heard xenia are good in many conditions. I read zoa's like high flow and its in my center because i want it to take over that rock, but i could move it even higher maybe if it doesnt seem to be getting nice color from lack of light.

i hate the spot i chose for my mushroom but it has lowest flow there. Do fish like random flow? I am pointing it in a way so that it bounces off the middle of the tank and creates a somewhat poor circular flow. If they need it random i would just change my positioning . I did not like the idea of 2 power heads because of the bulk look and extra cable. I also heard 750 would maybe not even be enough for my tank :/

btw when i feed my tank, no matter where i place my food it usually ends up at the opposite end of the power head, which is where my midas lives and the xenia

i can assume that part has more of a random flow than circular so it should be indirect flow there
 
Just figured I'd ask since you had posted about a salinity issue in another thread. Good luck.
 
ok i moved all my corals a bit, i was getting uncertain. I placed the zoa very top at the highest point, my xenia in the middle with decent flow, and my mushroom to the far left so it takes over the leftside of my tank with low flow (couldnt find shade for it)
img_2248849_0_24c87ef4474177e410cd23c91c47b053.jpg

here is a video to get an idea of what my flow and xenia are looking like

does it look happy? i think it looks a bit happier than it was when it was farther from the powerhead, also what should i buy to clean algae? i have a scraper but i think id rather feed it to something

i have 2 snails that are always on the glass but dont seem to clean that much

my tank looks dirty on the glass, safe to just scrape it with a metal scraper i have?

not sure my mushroom is happy, i think i moved it too many times, it kind of looks like its falling off the rock and is getting picked up a bit by the flow
 
img_2250639_0_d6e88f03226b07ab4bd1ab115a5c6da7.jpg

my mushroom has looked like its trying to detach from the rock for a few days, mm by mm it moves. However i dont think it can remove itself, should i move it or let it be?

also i can see so much of the white under part it looks like bubbles
 
Looks like there might be too much flow. I would try it in a lower flow and lower light area and see how it acts.
 
alright i moved it to under the powerhead, about half an inch between rock and just sand

he placed half his body on the rock and half on the sand, maybe he wanted to go on rocks, but i thought i could just place him on sand

any how he looks happier :) more rounded out now, but still looks a bit pinched
 
so i moved him again cuz my tiger pistol shrimp kept burying him. I placed him on the rock under the ph, and throughout the day he was almost 90% attached to the rock, except apart of him that is permanently pinched due to bad handling ><. The next day he looks like hes falling off the rock? i moved him again on the same rock and the same thing happens. He nearly attaches to the rock and the next day he looks like hes barely hanging on, and its definitely not the flow, but i definitely cant get him away from the light either.

edit: i forgot to mention this was in the morning right as my lights turned on. After a few minutes he started attaching again, but i dont think hes really attached yet so i guess ill wait it out

but another question while im here, I just added a green star polyp and i hear they can thrive in any conditions. Hes in my middle rock and hes already showing himself, but hes not really moving his tentacles at all. It is right in the moderate area of flow and my xenia was flowing like crazy here yet it looks like the gsp is trying to stand his ground and not move at all. Does that mean hes not happy? i can move him
 
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