The Woes of LPS

[NaH2Ofreak]

I have a 125g reef thats been up about 2 years. It has lots of live rock, several leathers, polyps, 1 grn opn brain, 1 slipper, 1 meat, several hermits and snails, a sally light foot, a purple urchin, etc... Equipment is an amircle typhoon in the sump, a iwaki return pump, dual overflows and a Ca reactor. I skim full time and I feed prime reef, tetra flake, silversides, Oregon Cavaier (fish eggs) and tahaitian blend. I feed the fish every day and tahiation blend i feed 8 drops every 3 days. My params are Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate =0. Ca is 500 (seachem test), dKH 11.6, phosphate is 0. Here is my question
I have had a problem all along with some lps corals. After they have been in my tank awhile (1-2 months) they seem to decline. Such as the gob and the meat coral. The meat coral use to always have feeders out at night and i would feed it silver sides every now and then. Now I never see feeders out. Same for the gob. I have never seen its feeders out and I have checked several times at all hours. The gob and the meat coral do in no way expand to their fullest. I have tried to move these corals to several different spots and wait a week to no avail.

Everything else in tank appears to be ok. I do have a slipper coral that puffs way up (and moves sometimes) and appears very healthy. I would think that the meat coral and the gob would do a lot better if i could feed something to them but they never accept the food. When i try to feed them say, prime reef, it just rolls off them. Does anyone have some suggestions? I have even tried "enticing" the feeder tenticals out with some of the food "juice" and that never worked. I know the is a product out which is an invert appitite stimulant. Should I give it a try? The two corals look "ok" but they could definitly look better. I know for a fact because I use to watch them at the LFS that I bought them from and they looked awsome.

thanks a lot!!!
Dennis

[bill-e]

I have found that certain LPS, especially scolymia and wellsophyllia, are particulary sensitive to the chemicals excreted from soft corals. The biggest offenders in my tank are xenia and colt.

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Bill Esposito
bespo@cereal.mv.com
JAqua for the AquaController 2
http//cereal.mv.com/jaqua.html
My Reef Page
http//cereal.mv.com/reef
The box said "Use Win 95 or better", I chose better so I run OS/2!

[horge]

Indeed, and moving the LPS so that it's not downstream of any leather corals may help.

[YZ]

run carbon every other week for a day

[Chris N]

You might check placement, too. I have an open brain which has a green center surrounded by red outline (Trachyphyllia Geoffroyi sp?) which gradually declined after a month or so in my tank. It bleached out and stopped inflating. I had it out in the open light. After its decline, I moved it into a shaded spot and it immediately came back. It has since recolored and grown.

[LOS]

Whats your water change rate? Your mightbe low in Iodide.

[MiNdErAsR]

I agree with all the above suggestions but one. Please do NOT add iodine/iodide/iodate. With no means of accurately testing for these chemicals, you can easily rise above NSW levels. This can be lethal, especially to your crustaceans (causes premature molting). If you feed your tank a proper diet, the creatures will get all the iodine/dide/date they need.

FWIW, this is a subject of great debate, which has been hashed out many times on all the UBB's. I do not wish to start a flame-fest. Just stating my opinion on this matter.

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Jim Fox
http://www.nycas.com/jfox

In the sea of life, you're just a minnow...you live your life, insecure...

[This message has been edited by MiNdErAsR (edited 01-06-2001).]

[MarieK]

I have 2 open brains right beside a colt coral and seems to do just fine, but maybe its my current. Both are growing, about doubled size over 1 yr. Both are on the substrate bottom with metal halide lighting. Is that dKH a high value?(I've been having problems with too low a dKH at 5)

I gotta agree with Mind on the Iodine issue.
Test kits are sketchy at best and there are the three different forms that arent measured equally, besides which they come into play in different ways.I dont recall any of the marine biologist that frequent the hobby advocating the use of Iodine supplement.
IME water changes in timely fashion and proper feeding will work well, the only other supplements needed are calcium and buffer, whether through Kalk drip, 2 part Calc/Alk or a calcium reactor
Marie 5 is low dkh typical would be more in the 10-14 range or there abouts(dont quote me)

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com

[NaH2Ofreak]

My wife seems to think that I mess with the tank too much and this is the reason for the LPS problems. What do you think? I clean the front glass every night with an acrylic safe pad. I also usually move the sand around a bit to get rid of the brown diatoms from the day. I dont have a deep sand bet (maybe 3/4"). It does however put sand into suspension in the tank.

I think Im just gonna let it go for a week and see if things do better. Ill just let the diatoms do their thing.

Update: My slipper coral which has been doing awsome for about 6 months has not been opening and showing some recession. I gave it a 5 minute Iodine dip tonite. Should I repeat the dip in a couple days???

Thanks for listening and helping!!!!

Dennis

Dennis, I would avoid sticking hands in the tank as much as possible. If you have to, scrub like your gonna do surgery. Even small amounts of left over soap, nicotine from smoking, hand lotion, or stuff you may have picked up during the day with out realizing it can upset a reef. Algae magnets are a better option than repeated hands in the tank, not to mention the fact that there maybe normal reef pathogens present that dont hurt the reef inhabitants that can cause nasty infections in humans(be careful starting siphons)
Even though you have a shallow sand bed, I try not to disrupt mine any more than neccessary, I have nassarius snails and such to do that. If you are getting silt or detritous in the tank from stirring you may be releasing harmful byproducts from the bioproccesses taking place.
Diatoms are a normal part of the evolution of a reef tank and will diminish on their own as the excess silicates are bound up and utilized. PAtience is the watch word

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I thought I was me, but we were wrong
email: geeflipr@internetcds.com