Why wont my 3gallon flourish?

[HoCkEyGmC]

I have had my little 3 gallon for over 6 months now and whenever i try to put a new coral frag in it immeadiatley closes completely. i just put a small xenia frag in a few days ago and it hasnt opened at all since. a zoo frag that i put in a while ago still has yet to fully open. im pretty unsure why. i acclimated each of them just fine but they dont do good after they are acually in the tank. in the past parameters were bad and iffy. but now im stable with extremely low nitrates like about 1ppm-ish, no ammonia or nitrites, ph is 8.1, alkalinity is 4(units?)((dkh?)). im topping off daily or every other day. the temp is a little on the low side at like 76-ish degrees. my only stock is 2 sexy shrimp (and hopefully a pistol soon =}), a turbo snail, 3 dwarf blue leg hermits, and a tiny bumble bee snail. the only other thing i could think of is an abnormal lighting schedule. + or - 3 hours daily.
Thanks!

 

[austinsdad]

I wonderin about lighting too. Like is it too much on the intensity for the new corals.

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

i thought that they would be fine tho since they were under the halides before the switch. i thought that all the zoos and xenia would have a field dy in there but neither have fully extended yet.

 

[melosu58]

What corals are in there? And how often are you doing PWC`s?

 

[ccCapt]

What kind of lights are over the 3g? If the corals were under MH before and now something weaker, they might not be happy for a while. 3 hrs of light is not enough light.

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

only some fragged zoos and xenia at the moment, laid off on puttin anything else in until the stuff in there now does good. 18w cf lighting. i meant to say that the difference of hours of light can vary by about 3 hours daily. its usualy about 12-9 hours daily light.

 

[melosu58]

And how often are you doing PWC`s?

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

oh,my bad, 4got that one. well lately its been a few times weekly(out of fear to tell you the truth, thought it was the parameters throwing everything off but still no improvement with near perfect parameters) but now im goin back to once evry week.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

I'm going to take a guess and say 18W of cf lighting is probably your problem. Yeah... I know... the watts/gallon say it's OK, but that's where the "rule of thumb" aspect of things kind of break down. Just because the coral is in a little tank doesn't mean it doesn't still need a certain intensity/amount of light. If you had the zoas in a dixie cup, it doesn't mean they'll thrive under a single 1/2W LED.

 

[Ziggy953]

I agree with Kurt to an extent.

The corals you have put in the nano are usually the hardy ones and will adapt to changed environments more quickly then other corals. Give them time, though I would suggest getting the xenia out of there. Not a good choice for such a small tank.

Get a timer on those lights and 8-10 hours is plenty.

 

[pat8you]

I would guess along the same lines at kurt. The difference in intensity between your MH and the light over the 3gal is going to be huge. They are used to so much more light that when you put them in the new tank they are still waiting for those MH to turn on before they open. It will take some time for them to photo-acclimate to the new conditions.

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

ok, thanks. i havnt seen the xenia frag, it was about 3 polyps. they never really attached and make an appearance now and then, ill get it out the next time i see it. and its kinda off topic but where do leds fit in in the lighting scale? like in between mh and vho (example) ? but how does that pistol shrimp idea sound in there? just a tiny baby one. then maybe a little goby.(ill be sure to keep up on almost daily small pwc's).
Thanks!

 

[austinsdad]

Remind me....

Why daily PWCs?

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

to keep nitrates way down =]. and like 2.5 cup pwc's, not much but still will help.