New Coral, noob question - Open Favites

[Boochika]

I recently received, acclimated and placed a new favites coral into my tank. Seems like it's appearance from the website, to when I took it out of the package and acclimated it, to where it is now in the tank all looks the same.

How do I know what it's supposed to look like and when it's open and happy?

 

[Brandon103095]

what kind of coral is it?

 

[Brandon103095]

also post pics when u can

 

[Boochika]

what kind of coral is it?

also post pics when u can

I believe it's a war coral favites. See pics below

 

[Boochika]

So I'm still concerned about my favites. I moved it up after some acclimation after 2 days. See attached pic. Seems like polyps are still pretty deep and.i didn't see any change at all during the night either. They're about 4 inches off the sand. Nearly center in the tank.

Kessil ap700 running 30 percent for 4 hours at peak times.

All parameters are good but still fighting this ****** algae on my sand. The rocks look good.

Sg 1.0252
Alk 10
Ca 415
Ph 8
No - 0
Phos - .04
Mg 1300

I have about 22 times turnover in my tank and I strongly feel like I'm not figuring out this flow thing too well because none of my LPS have been very happy lately.

#reefsquad for any assistance.

 

[SPR1968]

Your water is very sterile at 0 nitrate, phosphate is spot on, so maybe try a daily addition of Reef Energy or Reef Roids to add some food to the system ?

A good nitrate target is around 5-10

When you say 22 x turnover, through the sump, or in the display ? You don’t want to be blasting corals with flow, but many like a descent amount but if it’s to fast they may struggle.

Just another point, with alkalinity at 10, your potentially encouraging faster growth, but the other elements (calcium/magnesium/nitrate) are at the lower end of the scale and all are required in abundance for faster growth. It’s like the Red Sea Accelerated Growth Program

So it might be worth either dropping the alkalinity to a more normal level say 8-8.5 ish, or alternatively leave it at around 10-12 and raise the calcium to 460 and magnesium to 1380-1400 and feed the corals to get faster growth.

Personally I would initially lower the alkalinity a bit, check the flow and feed the corals and raise nitrates and see how you get on to start off

 

[Boochika]

Your water is very sterile at 0 nitrate, phosphate is spot on, so maybe try a daily addition of Reef Energy or Reef Roids to add some food to the system ?

A good nitrate target is around 5-10

When you say 22 x turnover, through the sump, or in the display ? You don’t want to be blasting corals with flow, but many like a descent amount but if it’s to fast they may struggle.

Just another point, with alkalinity at 10, your potentially encouraging faster growth, but the other elements (calcium/magnesium/nitrate) are at the lower end of the scale and all are required in abundance for faster growth. It’s like the Red Sea Accelerated Growth Program

So it might be worth either dropping the alkalinity to a more normal level say 8-8.5 ish, or alternatively leave it at around 10-12 and raise the calcium to 460 and magnesium to 1380-1400 and feed the corals to get faster growth.

Personally I would initially lower the alkalinity a bit, check the flow and feed the corals and raise nitrates and see how you get on to start off

Thanks a lot for the feedback. The 22 times is an estimate but from powerheads in the display.

I can't seem to get that soft back and FORTH LPS love. Seems soft then when the other koralia (850gph) powerhead kicks on they seem to whip back and forth. The other power head is a tunze powerhead dialed in around 1200 gph.

Tunze is aimed at front glass from one corner and koralia aimed right at the tunze pump to create a circular but alternating flow.

 

[SPR1968]

Thanks a lot for the feedback. The 22 times is an estimate but from powerheads in the display.

I can't seem to get that soft back and FORTH LPS love. Seems soft then when the other koralia (850gph) powerhead kicks on they seem to whip back and forth. The other power head is a tunze powerhead dialed in around 1200 gph.

Tunze is aimed at front glass from one corner and koralia aimed right at the tunze pump to create a circular but alternating flow.

It’s just a matter of getting the balance right and of course also depends on the controllability of what your using (I’m not familiar with those).

I think your main issue here is the sterile water, there’s no food in it. Also check the light schedule and make sure it’s long enough because if you combine inadequate light with sterile water the corals will struggle.

Ive just set up a new tank, and the main priority was to get nitrates to around 5 quickly so there is plenty of coral food and also to avoid other unwanted issues

 

[Keithb22]

I feed unbelievably heavy, keep alk in the 8-9 region, run lights 9-5 and most importantly set my coral and let them be for a while. Phosphates to low can hamper things as well, obviously not sky high but mine stay .12-.16.

 

[Boochika]

I feed unbelievably heavy, keep alk in the 8-9 region, run lights 9-5 and most importantly set my coral and let them be for a while. Phosphates to low can hamper things as well, obviously not sky high but mine stay .12-.16.

Thanks a lot.

You don't worry about algae with reef roids and aminos?

 

[Keithb22]

I run aminos everyother day, hikari and/or reef frenzy daily/ everyother day. I haven’t had any issues yet but I do wc every 3-4 days and have a lifereef running.