Coral and anemone problems

I am wondering if anyone can help me with a few questions. I have a few corals and an anemone. And they all seem like they are smaller for some reason. They don't seem like they are ever fully extended. Does it have anything to do with calcium supplements. I don't use anything like that but I am wondering if I am supposed to be using anything. To help them grow or fully extend.

What are your test results for Nitrate, pH, Ca and Phosphates? Also, what lighting are you running, and powerheads?

Hi Matt, the lighting in tank is 48" 2 actinic 2white 54 w each. The powerheads are just cheap and old and don't put out much at all barely a stream. Fixing to upgrade those though. Nitrates seem below 10 the other day when I checked but I don't have reef testing kit yet and have ordered and waiting for it to come in. Ordered API reef testing kit, does that kit test for phosphates or do I need to order a different kit for that? And another question should I be putting calcium and alkalinity supplements on a regular basis?

Likely not at all. And never if you're not testing for them.

It seems to me that corals extending or not usually has to do with either water quality (nitrates and phosphates), water chemistry (ph, alk, cal & mag), water flow (my torch coral seems larger in lower flow) or feeding requirements (my dendro always looked smaller and kept his tentacles in more when he hadn't eaten).

Once you get your tests in, start trying to knock possibilities off of the list. If nitrates are low (you would really rather them be below 5 or unreadable) and you replace the powerheads then you may start to consider your alk or cal being off. Usually with salt mixes, you're very safe unless your tank is PACKED.

matt_longview wrote: And never if you're not testing for them.

Agreed don't add anything without testing. I would get test kits for, Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, alkalinity, phosphate, calcium to start out with and in that order. You'll be fine with all those parameters in line for now.

Puff,

What type of corals and anemone is it. Some anemones, like carpets, need HIGH lighting. Same thing goes for alotta corals. If you dont have test kits I would recommend doing extra water changes to ensure parameters are not to high.

I have a 55 gallon tank and I usually do a 5% water change weekly. I had a lot of brown algae growing in the tank the past few months. It has started to look better lately now there is a lots of green algae starting to grow on the sides of the tank . But it is not too bad. I have a bubble anemone. Pulsing Xenia, Kenya trees, hammer coral, I think I have torch or Frogspawn, not sure which one it is, a few polyps of some kind and a piece that has a purple carpet look with little lime green hands. I had the Lg Kenya next to anemone and the Kenya has shriveled down and doesn't look like it's trying to do anything. What could that be?

That's likely a kenya tree dying because it's getting stung by an anemone. lol.

Might want to try relocating that guy. I'm about to cut out my devil's hand coral... it's not too pumped about being neighbors with my mini maxi carpet anemone. :-)

matt_longview wrote:That's likely a kenya tree dying because it's getting stung by an anemone. lol.

Might want to try relocating that guy.

This^^^^ With the stocking list you posted you shouldn't have to dose anything if you are using a good salt mix. Keep your corals and anemones as far apart as you can for now and keep up with your water changes. Do get some good test kits and keep up with your parameters often. What kind of water are you using, tap? Reverse Osmosis? Reverse Osmosis/Deionized? What salt mix are you using?

Reverse osmosis for a month now and instant ocean salt

How old is the tank. Sounds like a fairly new tank still cycling some. 3 months or so? If that is the case you should be much better soon.

I have had tank for about 3 months now. I bought tank off someone and he had tank set up for a while but when we moved tank to my house in totes he took out water, rocks, etc in totes to transport and left a little water in bottom of tank to cover crushed coral substrate. And then put same water from totes back into tank and added a little reg well water ( which is all i had at the time) So do u think it could still be cycling?

May be going through a small cycle. If so you should be fine in a month or so.

Thanks everyone for all your feedback. I really appreciate it

I will be posting pics of my aquarium later on this afternoon. I have a question I have alot of live rock in my aquarium and I can't really get to some areas that need to be siphoned is there anything out there that I can use to get to those areas better? Also the back glass in my aquarium is covered in algae. Should I leave it or go ahead and scrape off back of aquarium ?

You can use a powerhead to blow the stuff outta the areas you cant reach. As far as the algea it really is up to you. Myself I would remove it.

cant figure out how to download photos to this forum???

I use Photobucket. Here's the link

http://photobucket.com/

Then when I have it uploaded to photobucket, what do I do on here ?

https://2img.net/h/i182.photobucket.com/albums/x276/codyleslie/photo-3.jpg

My Tank

Does anyone think I have too much live rock in this 55 gal.?

The only problems that could really cause (I think...) is lack of flow. However.... I also have no idea how much rock you have in there. Some pics would do best. Some rocks are extremely dense and can weight a large amount even though they're quite small. Others are HUGE but weight much less because they have tons and tons of holes throughout them. So even if you tell how many pounds... a pic would be much better.

If you copy the very last link (Image Code) and paste it into the body of the message it will post a picture.

When you make a post you'll see all those icons at top. Click on the "image" icon (7th from the right on the upper row ) and paste your picture's addy in the box.

Grimreefer wrote:If you copy the very last link (Image Code) and paste it into the body of the message it will post a picture.

That too.