Sick glaxea?

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Hi. I have a metallic green glaxea frag that I got a month ago. It has been doing really good till now. I just had a death of a cats eye turbo snail but took it out before it could do any harm. I just did a good water change and nitrate is 2ppm. I also just doused some Ca since it was off a little bit. My glaxea has it's polyps closed completely which is a first since it's introduction to my tank from shipping. All Parameters are in good range. Much appreciated.

 

[kdpuffer]

What are you using for salt? A quality reef salt should keep your calcium up around 440ppm. What was your calcium at? Also how did you dose it into the tank?

 

[Sniperhank]

Are you testing what you are dosing for? This is a common reason for corals to become unhappy as these levels end up way out of wack. Unless there is a borderline overstocked tank, there is little reason to dose any elements as they are recharged via weekly water changes.

The second point is your nitrates. Though they are low, they should be non-existant in a reef system for proper health/growth imo.

What is the size of this tank anyway? It would have to be very small for the death of one snail to cause an issue?

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

It's a 30 gal but I have 3 fish, 2 clowns And a yellowtail damsel. I use red sea salt and I always test before I douse anything. The salt mix is a little low where I want the ca to be so I douse it a little to maximize growth along with mag. Mag is always good but ca seems to get used up more. I used to use use red sea pro but it made my alk too high so I switched to regular redsea since it had a lower alk count then the other salts. I add the new water slowly into the tank over a period of an hour or 2.

 

[kdpuffer]

And what is your calcium and alk at? What did the pro salt mix up to?

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

I like my ca levels at 450. Should I just stop dousing at water changes and see what happens?

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

The glaxea is back to normal after a couple hours but it would be nice to know why it happened

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Calcium tests about 400 in the reg salt with 8alk. My tank is now 450Ca and 12dkh. It's a little high but that was the results from the pro version.

 

[Sniperhank]

Do you feed your galaxia? It might be that it had too big of a piece of food and had trouble pooping it out.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

Yeah every couple of days I feed marine snow. Haven't found anything else yet. Anything better to feed corals that's like that? I directly feed him so it's not going everywhere throughout the whole tank.

 

[MacDracor]

I rescued a galaxea that was near death some months ago. It was almost just a cool looking rock, but now it's quite beautiful. But, on occasion, it just scrunches up for a few hours, and not always all of it. Just sections. In fact, all my LPS corals occasionally close up. I think it's normal, as long as it's not for a prolonged period of time.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

So it's probably nothing to worry about? And i got it as a frag with 3 polyps but now I have 4 with 7 small baby ones around the skeleton. How long does it take for a polyp to reach a large size? I haven't Noticed any growth until now. I guess the glaxea is fully acclimated then?

 

[kdpuffer]

It's hard to give a growth rate on anything. There are so many factors involved such as trace element levels, feeding, lighting and overall water quality. Just keep up on water changes and keep your levels in check and things will grow.

 

[Madcrazyroyboy]

I got all thoes polyps just in a few days and they are slowly growing but the skeleton is like a pinkish clear? Is that normal? Some of the green faded so I moved him down to the center of the tank now.