deepwater care

terrypercula · Aug 4, 2014

I know a lot of people, myself included, who find deep water varieties quite tricky while at the same time find other Z's and P's rather simple. The question is why? What makes them specifically difficult? Also what can you do to be more successful? Frequent feedings? Cooler temperatures? Any other tips? Just curious at this point and appreciate all responses.

joshporksandwich · Aug 4, 2014

terrypercula said:
I know a lot of people, myself included, who find deep water varieties quite tricky while at the same time find other Z's and P's rather simple. The question is why? What makes them specifically difficult? Also what can you do to be more successful? Frequent feedings? Cooler temperatures? Any other tips? Just curious at this point and appreciate all responses.

My experience with them is they need a lot of flow and low light.

that Reef Guy · Aug 5, 2014

How do you know if they are "Deep Water"?

tyler1503 · Aug 5, 2014

My theory is (and I'm making this up as I go lol) it's a pressure thing. Like when deep water fish are collected they have to adapt to the gradual decrease in pressure as they slowly reach the surface. Bring them up too quick and you can do damage to the swim bladder. Perhaps it's a similar sort of thing and with a lot of corals being more sensitive than a lot of fish it may just be that they're not used to the decrease/change in water pressure. After all, it's not hard to have low blue light and whatever flow might be found at those depths, so I don't believe it to be a flow, lighting or parameter problem.
Just a theory

that Reef Guy · Aug 5, 2014

tyler1503 said:
My theory is (and I'm making this up as I go lol) it's a pressure thing. Like when deep water fish are collected they have to adapt to the gradual decrease in pressure as they slowly reach the surface. Bring them up too quick and you can do damage to the swim bladder. Perhaps it's a similar sort of thing and with a lot of corals being more sensitive than a lot of fish it may just be that they're not used to the decrease/change in water pressure. After all, it's not hard to have low blue light and whatever flow might be found at those depths, so I don't believe it to be a flow, lighting or parameter problem.
Just a theory

That is a very good Point.

I Never thought of that.