New Corals

alywentz · Aug 5, 2022

Hello,

My name is Alyssa and I am an uprising sophomore in college. I started a program at my college called the Aquatic Project where we take care and set up a series of tanks. We only have one saltwater tank and I'm hoping to expand our saltwater systems. I have been running a 13.5 gallon fluval evo tank for around 4-5 months. I have a cleaner shrimp, some blue leg hermit crabs, some astrea snails, and margherita snails and those have been in for around 2 months. I wanted to make this a purely reef tank to educate students about different types of corals and there care. Recently, I went to a nearby coral shop and I told the owner about my program and he gave me a huge selection of corals for a very cheap price. I have daisies, green fuzzy mushrooms, pulsing xenia, zoas, a birdsnest, gsp, kenya coral tree, and many more. I got them all on Tuesday so it has been like three days and I went to check on them last night (lights were off) and most weren't opening up. My pulsing xenia was fine, so was the mushroom, and the acropora, but everyone else was quiet (I have around 10 corals) , especially the gsp. I live an hour from my college so its hard for me to go visit them often and sometimes I can only visit at night, but I was wondering if this is something I should worry about and should start dosing.

Here is what my water parameters are at:

salinity: 1.025

ammonia: 0.25ppm

Nitrites: 0ppm

Nitrates: 5ppm

pH: 8.5

Thank you!

vetteguy53081 · Aug 5, 2022

alywentz said:
Hello,

My name is Alyssa and I am an uprising sophomore in college. I started a program at my college called the Aquatic Project where we take care and set up a series of tanks. We only have one saltwater tank and I'm hoping to expand our saltwater systems. I have been running a 13.5 gallon fluval evo tank for around 4-5 months. I have a cleaner shrimp, some blue leg hermit crabs, some astrea snails, and margherita snails and those have been in for around 2 months. I wanted to make this a purely reef tank to educate students about different types of corals and there care. Recently, I went to a nearby coral shop and I told the owner about my program and he gave me a huge selection of corals for a very cheap price. I have daisies, green fuzzy mushrooms, pulsing xenia, zoas, a birdsnest, gsp, kenya coral tree, and many more. I got them all on Tuesday so it has been like three days and I went to check on them last night (lights were off) and most weren't opening up. My pulsing xenia was fine, so was the mushroom, and the acropora, but everyone else was quiet (I have around 10 corals) , especially the gsp. I live an hour from my college so its hard for me to go visit them often and sometimes I can only visit at night, but I was wondering if this is something I should worry about and should start dosing.

Here is what my water parameters are at:

salinity: 1.025

ammonia: 0.25ppm

Nitrites: 0ppm

Nitrates: 5ppm

pH: 8.5

Thank you!

Many coral are photosynthetic and will close up when lights are off and open about 2 hours after lights on
Assure you have moderate water flow and monitor mainly nitrate- phosphate- ph- salinity- calcium with a reliable test kit

Jekyl · Aug 5, 2022

Looks like a list of API test results. For the future I would invest in some better ones. For soft coral you need nitrate, phosphate and alkalinity. Anything with a skeleton add in calcium, magnesium. Missing the alkalinity test result is worrisome. It's usually the parameter that needs to be watched the closest. Beyond that good advice above and make sure you have the proper lighting for coral.

Bucs20fan · Aug 5, 2022

I will tell you most of those corals are easy and will do fine with the fluval stock light. But the birdsnest and acro will not get enough light from it. You may want to look into the upgraded light fluval makes, that would be much better for them and its only 100 dollars and fits right into the lid. There are many lighting options for the EVO that people do.

Also at .25 ammonia, if that is true, no corals will be happy for long with ammonia present.

Jekyl · Aug 5, 2022

Bucs20fan said:
I will tell you most of those corals are easy and will do fine with the fluval stock light. But the birdsnest and acro will not get enough light from it. You may want to look into the upgraded light fluval makes, that would be much better for them and its only 100 dollars and fits right into the lid. There are many lighting options for the EVO that people do.

Also at .25 ammonia, if that is true, no corals will be happy for long with ammonia present.

The ammonia reading is most likely due to the cheap API tests. Unless a fish died and was left behind ammonia shouldn't be present.