Pipe organ coral gone wrong

[Paulm7373]

I bought this soft coral a couple of days ago and it aint looking too good! I took the coral out of the bag it was transported in with water and waited 30 seconds before placing it inside my tank. I placed it on my live rock up high so it was close to my lights as possible. After a couple of hours inside my tank, around three quarters of the polyps opened up and looked like this:




The following day I accidentally left my blue lights on for the whole day until I came home at 6pm to find my coral all closed up and looking like this:



Today (Tuesday) I came home after my white and blue lights have remained on and it is still all closed up and looking the same. I have no idea why it is looking this way now after seeming to do ok on the night I bought it. There is ample water flow around it from my tunze 6025 power heads (one on either side) and my lighting consists of 2 x white T5 and 2 x blue T5. My tank is the aqua one aquareef 195 which is around 200L (50g). My ammonia and nitrite was zero, PH 8.4, and nitrate a bit high at 30ppm. I'm trying to get my salinity down which is around 1.027 at the moment and temp is also a bit high at 33C (91F). My tank has been running for close to 5 months and I have about 30kg of live rock. My fish are 1 x chromis, an ocellaris clownfish, a yellow tang and a small blue tang plus the hawkfish. Would anyone have any idea why my coral is not doing so well and has been all closed up for two days now? Would it have been affected from being under blue light for a whole day and being starved from ample lighting? I'm extremely disappointed about this, so any help would be appreciated thanks!

[Crystal A]

A key factor in transferring any object is acclimation. You really shouldn't just drop anything in you tank from the bag. Google drip acclimation I'm not very good at linking sites. Lol the next thing could be you have placed it to high up. Most corals need time to acclimate to the light in our tanks as most of the time they are stronger then at the lfs. Try placing it on the bottom of the tank then over the next couple of weeks slowly move it up to we're you would like to place it. And a fair warning don't put that anywhere you want it to over grow. Gsp is notorious for overtaking rock work like pulsing Xenia. Hope that helps.

[TattooedTanker]

+1^ also try to add a little more flow to the colony. My took some time to open but have done much better in a med- high flow spots.

[Wendy8184]

definitely bring temp down also. 91 seems very high

[54seaweed]

wow 91 your cooking it way too high
I try to maintain 78 to 80 tops
just bring it down slowly not to fast thats why its closed no doubt

[Daniel Fishy]

Give it some time also. Some corals look great for days or weeks then go thru a little funk then there fine again.

[Paulm7373]

I've placed it down onto the sand so that it's not exposed to the brightest of light, but it just looks worse now and the pipes are looking a bit brown now. Not sure if that's algae build up or discolouring from dieing. I don't even know if its dead or what. How can I tell?? Unfortunately I don't have a chiller and the T5 lights I have generate a fair amount of heat, but this aquarium I have is meant for a sps reef setup and expected to do well with its standard equipment. My fish seem to do well, even with the higher temps. Should I ditch it if there's no hope with it rejuvenating, or should I leave it there, persist with it and wait and see if it opens up as we approach the cooler months and see the summer off?

[willbratz]

I would leave it for now. I've had star polyps I was sure were dead and after 2 weeks started to finally open. However, you might want to float the bag for an hour. I usually float the bag for an hour and every 15 minutes I remove 1/4 cup of the water and replace it with my tank water. I repeat this for the hour and then place it in the tank.

Also, I'd try getting your tank temp way down. Most don't run their tanks over 81-83. I keep mine at 78 and I run metal halides over it. You might want to get a few fans to blow across the water. It'll prolly lower it a few degrees.

[Bectan01]

I think it's a temp issue too. I am also battling the australian summer heat, my temp has been nearly as high as that and my star polyps were the first to close. Gradually bring that temp down and I bet it will come good...

[Paulm7373]

Originally Posted by Bectan01

I think it's a temp issue too. I am also battling the australian summer heat, my temp has been nearly as high as that and my star polyps were the first to close. Gradually bring that temp down and I bet it will come good...

Unfortunately I don't have a chiller yet and I can't bring the temp down unless the climate does that for me, which I've noticed it's brought it down a couple of degrees but my thermometer is still reading 31C (88F) and my coral is doing worse. I think it's a goner and need to write it off as a loss. I probably won't try another coral until I get a chiller now, although I may try with a few morphs or mushrooms.

[Bectan01]

Do you have air con I the house?

[54seaweed]

you can freeze some bottles of water than just float them this will help cool the tank down some ,
do you have your tank top covered if so open it this will also let heat escape ,
you can also use a small fan blowing the surface of water to help cool
these fans are a good investment also

Fluorescent Aquarium Lighting: Cooling Fans

since you live in such a hot climate I would suggest a cooler if you can afford one I know there not cheap

a ceiling fan in the room the tank is in will also help cool tank some