Whats on my LR

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ilostnemo

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jan 31, 2010
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Under ziggys bed..
i know its a crappy cell phone picture but what is this green on my LR? at one time it looked like it was some sort of polyp but that has went away.. also is the algae thats on it cheto?

oho5e8.jpg
 
It is the skeleton of a Trachyphyllia or Lobophyllia Open Brain Coral. The green is the last bit of the living coral.

I can't see any algae.
 
hmmm well can it be saved? and the picture didnt show it well. its kinda like seaweed lol thats the best way to describe it
 
I can barely see what I think is the algae....look up caulerpa. I think that is what I see, but my eyes could be playing tricks on me! :)
 
Do you mean, save the coral? If so, you might have a chance with pristine water and good light. I saw my LFS trying to nurse a similar looking coral back to health. They said a customer brought it in to donate since he hadnt treated it so well. They have pretty good water. (VERY little algae) and STRONG metal halide lighting.

Thats not to suggest putting that poor thing under intense light all of a sudden, but PC lighting wont likely do it either. Ive never seen such a lucky hitchhiker before. :-D
Matt
 
Do you mean, save the coral? If so, you might have a chance with pristine water and good light. I saw my LFS trying to nurse a similar looking coral back to health. They said a customer brought it in to donate since he hadnt treated it so well. They have pretty good water. (VERY little algae) and STRONG metal halide lighting.

Thats not to suggest putting that poor thing under intense light all of a sudden, but PC lighting wont likely do it either. Ive never seen such a lucky hitchhiker before. :-D
Matt
well my water parameters when i checked yesterday were perfect.. ill post what they are today when i get home from school. and my lighting is 13w 50/50 14000k and 7400k daylight. keep in mind this is a 2 gallon reef.

is that not enough?
 
water parameters are

p/h 8.2
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate is a little bit darker than 0 on my api chart but not even close to 5 so id say under 1

temp is 78

the tank has been cycled and has a hob refuge with macro algae
 
Watts per gallon is a very outdated reasoning since 1W per gallon from a PC is much weaker than from a T5 or MH. Since your tank is shallow and the coral in question is a brain coral, you should be okay with PC.

Make sure to keep nice clean water parameters and just see how it does. It may wind up making a come back.

Matt
 
Watts per gallon is a very outdated reasoning since 1W per gallon from a PC is much weaker than from a T5 or MH. Since your tank is shallow and the coral in question is a brain coral, you should be okay with PC.

Make sure to keep nice clean water parameters and just see how it does. It may wind up making a come back.

Matt
well they dont make 11 inch t5s and im not gonna buy 300 dollar light then a fan..
 
I agree with trying to get a better light or just move to your bigger tank if it has better lights. Also it isn't just about watts per gallon it is about how much of the light is photosynthetic. I have seen people coral farm with 40 watt bulb because it was almost all photosynthetic light unlike mh where not all of the light is photosynthetic and much is wasted.
 
stop praising the MH gods.. pretty sure i can grow coral in here.. and hmmm why buy a mini reef tank just to buy a bigger tank? are you all serious? i mean come on..
 
dont ask for advice then get mad cause you dont like it.

with the pc lighting you can grow some very low light coral but your very limited on what you will be able to grow. 100 watts of pc lighting doesnt = 100 watts of mh lighting. its apples and oranges. the watt per gallon is a very very loose guideline. not a rule of thumb.

that being said your tank is way to small for a mh. i think the smallest mh you could buy would be 70 watts but i think that would fry your tank. so mh are out of the question. they dont make a t5 unit small enough for your tank that im aware of so t5 are also out of the question. that leaves your pc which will serverly limit the type of coral you can grow. nothing wrong wiht that as long as you understand it.

the other option you have is to look into led's. you have to do some research to make sure you got the right kind. but on a tank this small i dont think it would be very expensive. under 100 bux.

your coral hitch hicker is likely dying cause you dont have enough light for that type of coral. you may think its enough but it doesnt think so. if you want to stay with the lighting you have id look into getting mushrooms. you can get alot of color still and they are easy to maintaine.
 
dont ask for advice then get mad cause you dont like it.

with the pc lighting you can grow some very low light coral but your very limited on what you will be able to grow. 100 watts of pc lighting doesnt = 100 watts of mh lighting. its apples and oranges. the watt per gallon is a very very loose guideline. not a rule of thumb.

that being said your tank is way to small for a mh. i think the smallest mh you could buy would be 70 watts but i think that would fry your tank. so mh are out of the question. they dont make a t5 unit small enough for your tank that im aware of so t5 are also out of the question. that leaves your pc which will serverly limit the type of coral you can grow. nothing wrong wiht that as long as you understand it.

the other option you have is to look into led's. you have to do some research to make sure you got the right kind. but on a tank this small i dont think it would be very expensive. under 100 bux.

your coral hitch hicker is likely dying cause you dont have enough light for that type of coral. you may think its enough but it doesnt think so. if you want to stay with the lighting you have id look into getting mushrooms. you can get alot of color still and they are easy to maintaine.
yes i know i cant get sps's this tank theyd die within days i know that. and yeah i wish they made t5s this small id have bought one the day i bought the tank.. at least you understand about the MH and t5s not being able to be used. and actually i moved the LR closer to the light and its starting to look better so i think itll pull through.
 
ilostnemo... I'm not really seeing anyone totally biased towards MH in this thread, so I'm not sure why you're getting upset about people giving their opinions about your lighting. I agree with you though - in general (and not in this thread), there are many folks that often sing the praises of MH without really having experience with anything else.

You can have quite a nice reef tank with PC lighting if you choose the right corals and put them in the right place. Here's a nice tank with LPS and SPS, under 196W of PC lighting...

dsc_2350-1.jpg


You don't need T5 to have a nice reef. You are not doomed to "low light" corals with PC lighting. But I think you know that.

Regarding that Brain Coral - sounds like it was damaged long before it hit your tank, but from my experience once those things start going downhill it's tough for them to recover. Hope it works out good for you though.
 
ilostnemo... I'm not really seeing anyone totally biased towards MH in this thread, so I'm not sure why you're getting upset about people giving their opinions about your lighting. I agree with you though - in general (and not in this thread), there are many folks that often sing the praises of MH without really having experience with anything else.

You can have quite a nice reef tank with PC lighting if you choose the right corals and put them in the right place. Here's a nice tank with LPS and SPS, under 196W of PC lighting...

dsc_2350-1.jpg


You don't need T5 to have a nice reef. You are not doomed to "low light" corals with PC lighting. But I think you know that.

Regarding that Brain Coral - sounds like it was damaged long before it hit your tank, but from my experience once those things start going downhill it's tough for them to recover. Hope it works out good for you though.
well there was one person just kept saying t5s or MH. but anyways lol. how big is that tank? i really like it and i might be doing that cause i do like pcs for some reason and i dunno why. and yeah they had it in the lr rubble and i asked last time i was in there if it was a mistake and they said no that they will place ones in there that they think are goners so. and i mean at one point after i got it, it was doing well then it went probably two weeks with low lighting because i had to break down the tank it was in :( but i placed it in this tank and it started to look better then went back to looking almost dead. but now i guess having moved it closer to the light it looks alot better. but my recent nitrate raise probably hurt it alot. but i am hoping for the best :)
 
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