xautomaticflowersx
Fishaholic
Hey there! I have a few questions to ask on behalf on my friends who have a new marine tank and you guys ought to know that I'm a freshwater aquarist and know very little about marines. I cruise about these forums and I have seen that you are all very knowledgable and willing to help out so when they told me that they were having problems my first reaction was to ask on fishforums.net.
My friends have recently bought a marine tank with live rock, corals and fish as a complete setup from ebay which was supposedly mature. Nitrate is 0, phosphate is 2ppm mg/l, calcium was above 520mg/l and their master test kit does not have an ammonia or nitrite test, which they are probably getting tomorrow. They've only had the tank set up at their place for a week and whilst they've done a fair bit of research online and in books this is their first marine tank and so they naturally have a few concerns.
The finger coral appears to have begun calcifying at the tips and the leather toadstool opens fully and extends all its polyps, but it appears to have greyish-black 'veins' which run down the fleshy part towards the stem. However sometimes the veins are more pronounced and in the course of a few minutes can disappear/lessen/darken/move and I have seen this first hand while staying over at their place. Also, the edge/lip of the coral head is darkened (almost black) and does not extend any polyps. Could it be that in transit the coral was knocked (since they are sensitive to touch) and is healing or stressed? There also is a brownish/red diatom type algal growth on the stem of the toadstool, which is like a patch that has grown in size since first setup.
Sorry to bombard you with so much vague information... any hints or suggestions would be really appreciated. If there is any additional information that you need to try and diagnose the problem, feel free to put that forward and I'll do what I can to get the relevant info from my friends.
Many thanks in advance!
EDIT: The finger coral almost looks cut on an edge... possible fragging? Could this cause the tips to die back? Apparently the previous owner was a little heavy handed when he packed everything up. He sort of shoved all the liverock and inverts in a polystyrene box together without much care. Could all of this be stress reactions or bruising or something? I'm sorry I don't know much more! Many thanks.
My friends have recently bought a marine tank with live rock, corals and fish as a complete setup from ebay which was supposedly mature. Nitrate is 0, phosphate is 2ppm mg/l, calcium was above 520mg/l and their master test kit does not have an ammonia or nitrite test, which they are probably getting tomorrow. They've only had the tank set up at their place for a week and whilst they've done a fair bit of research online and in books this is their first marine tank and so they naturally have a few concerns.
The finger coral appears to have begun calcifying at the tips and the leather toadstool opens fully and extends all its polyps, but it appears to have greyish-black 'veins' which run down the fleshy part towards the stem. However sometimes the veins are more pronounced and in the course of a few minutes can disappear/lessen/darken/move and I have seen this first hand while staying over at their place. Also, the edge/lip of the coral head is darkened (almost black) and does not extend any polyps. Could it be that in transit the coral was knocked (since they are sensitive to touch) and is healing or stressed? There also is a brownish/red diatom type algal growth on the stem of the toadstool, which is like a patch that has grown in size since first setup.
Sorry to bombard you with so much vague information... any hints or suggestions would be really appreciated. If there is any additional information that you need to try and diagnose the problem, feel free to put that forward and I'll do what I can to get the relevant info from my friends.
Many thanks in advance!
EDIT: The finger coral almost looks cut on an edge... possible fragging? Could this cause the tips to die back? Apparently the previous owner was a little heavy handed when he packed everything up. He sort of shoved all the liverock and inverts in a polystyrene box together without much care. Could all of this be stress reactions or bruising or something? I'm sorry I don't know much more! Many thanks.
are you sure those are correct? If so, those values are way out of normal. Phosphates should be 0 and calcium should be 450ppm or less. It is quite possible that these aspects of your friend's chemistry is stressing the corals and leading to what they're seeing. Your friends should consider some Rowaphos to drop the phosphates and really look into their salinity or specific gravity.
