Coral Shrinkage

[StickyTuba]

Hello All,
I purchased some Soft corals about 2.5 weeks ago. I believe that they are called Kenya Tree Corals, but I am not 100% sure. They looked really good when I put them in there, and they were doing fine, I was adding my Ca as necessary. I just returned home from a week long business trip and noticed that the corals looked to be smaller than they were when I left.
I did testing and found the following:
temp. = 80
NO3 = less than 12.5
NO2 = 0
Kh = 8
pH = 8.2
Salinity = 1.28

Is it possible that my corals are going through a period where they will get smaller before they grow again or is it due to something else entirely?


I do not have any fish in the tank yet. It has been set up since Dec. 22 and things have been going good.
I have:
3 scarlet reef hermits
3 turbo snails
1 trocus snail (my crabs ate the other one)
1 brittle sea star
and the occasional aptasia that gets the juice.

Thanks for your ideas.

 

[electrikat]

Dec 22 of 2004? If so that's"IMO"really fast for putting corals in a new tank. However they do sometimes have a problem with full extension when they are first getting used to your tank conditions. Also I never let my tanks get above 1.026 on the sg but I guess consistency is really the only important thing on that. Was someone topping off your evap water during the week you were gone?

 

[ellisz]

Mine does like a lot of flow. I hope you meant SG was 1.028 and not 1.28. This would be a problem. You need to be at 1.023-1.025.

I don't really see the need to be dosing Ca with just Kenya Tree. Soft corals don't need high Ca levels and most salt mixes will give you what you need with good water changes.

HTH

 

[Phyl]

I've heard that anything over 1.025 is not good for corals (I shoot for between 1.023 and 1.024). Try dropping your salinity a bit. How is your ca level? Is it possible that they aren't fully extending because they're not happy (they shrink every night, right)? Maybe they don't like the light they're in or the flow?

 

[captivereefs]

I have a kenya tree doing the exact same thing right now. I cannot figure it out for the life of me! It has tripled in size in 1 year and withing the last week it will not open. Sometimes corals just go funky. One thing that will irritate soft corals is phosphate removers.

 

[ellisz]

I have mushrooms that won't open. I blamed it on the MH's even though they have looked better than they do now.

 

[electrikat]

Mushrooms and polyps don't really like high lighting like mh. I had to move my shrooms an polyps really low in the tank because they had visible signs of not liking the bright mh's.

 

[ellisz]

My zoos love the MH's. I moved the shrooms to the back corners and they were doing ok but then they just stopped.

I had 1 blue shroom that was high in the tank and got to about 3" across. It seemed to like the big lights but now it is shriveled up too.

Not sure what happened.

 

[StickyTuba]

The corals are closing every night and opening during the day.
My SP was 1.028 but everytime I get this reading my LFS gets 1.026.

I may need to get a PH with more ooomph.
I will look into that.

 

[RocketSeason]

Coral Shrinkage?

Could just be the cold water....get it!....*cough*...nevermind... :|

 

[StickyTuba]

Pretty good one...