couple o' questions & in need of tips

hello folks,

so my LFS throws a promo on hard corals "buy one get one free" (usually sketched out of such offers but was unable to resist this time)

so i got myself a purple tipped/green polyp acro and another frag I shall need the help of you people to ID.

now iv had crap luck keeping acros so far and as God is my whiteness if this one dies on me im calling it quits on hard corals.

iv always thought (seeing as water tests show 0 no3 nh4 and no2) that the issue was my lighting as i always placed the acros mid level where there was good currents...BUT NO MORE!!!

iv placed these two little dudes on the very top whats good is that iv placed my pumps in a manner that the streams collide on the surface in the middle of the tank creating random streams as they go down (hope that makes sense)

now for some pictures.... please tell me if you think the location of the corals is to their best interest and please help me ID the green coral next to my acro.

picture one and two:

my lighting system, 4 1200mm t5s, 2 blue and 2 white + 2 800mm t5s, one blue and one white

picture three and four:

the 2 new frags (you can see the green one was not very healthy to begin with but it was also the coolest looking one)

THANK A MILLION IN ADVANCE FOR THE HELP!!!
salutations from Switzerland

P.s

there is a little crab living in my acro this apparently helps the survival chances of the coral.....lets hope so....

 

Nice coral's with some TLC they should do well. As far as corals and acclimation do you remember what kinda of lights they were under in there display tank? If it was a MH of some sort or equally as brite your placement should be fine. That being because your lights are not as intense as there's.. If not should always put sps at bottom of tank in kinda a shadow or low lying point and over time a week or so place coral(s) higher in tank slowly. also for got to mention water flow to will stress a new coral out to if not used to being in it and a acclimation period may help it out also.

Your little Crab of course if poosiable Pic's will help Id the little guy but if not, look up Acro coral crabs. I have had one on my sps with no problems..

Keep inmind these are a few cheap $.02 of info from me.. I am sure others will help you out more than Me..

Always...

Happy reefing...

 

hey, yea they were under halids at the shop, i drip acclimate everything for about 1h 1h-1h1/2

thx for the input any idea on what the green guy is?

 

Good aclimation..now the green Sps .. i have seen them befor and for the life of me i burned about 200 brain cells trying to remember what it is and i believe it to be.. A Hydnophora here's a link to help out..

Link: Horn Coral, Hydnophora rigida

Hope this helps..

 

does seem to be that, thx for the help guess where i placed it is the best place for it now only time shall tell

 

If the crab is hairy get it out. If not, it's not really bad, but not good. I would leave it if it's smooth. If it's hairy it's going to destroy the acro.

 

What kind of light fixture is that? And does it have one reflector for each bulb?
I can't tell from the picture, sorry.

 

the crab is a little harry orangish dude with turquoise eyes, im pretty sure its reef safe, he use to live in my old acro that died (yea ok maybe because of him) but despite this he stuck to it even if the acro was dead.

ill heed your warning but what am i looking for? if he is bad for my acro what would be his actions, pinch at the polyps? iv never seen him do this.

what i have seen him do is eat the algae and food that gets trapped in between the acros branches.

though i agree you can get some nasty unwanted critters with your LR and corals, iv learnt that not all hitch hickers are demons (the ones on the road yes ) so id rather not kill it off and give it a chance.

regarding the lights they are t 5 rails (three of them in total) with no reflectors but there are a total of 6 t5s, 4 1200mm and 2 800mm ones.

and at night i have philips blue led tube to give it the "moonlight" effect otherwise my diamond goby starts jumping if its pitch black in the tank (fool)

 

in fact i believe the crab to be a Cymo andreossyi

hmmm

so im assuming in the wild the crab would fend off parasites and uneaten food but in an aquarium, i dont see it fighting off my BSP (though he has yet to nab at one of my corals). so it boils down to the size of the frag i guess, does the community think the frag is way to small?

the horn coral has me more worried though

 

You will see the inside and the bottom of the corals turning white and dieing like this.





This was the culprit



Been a few months now, but the coral is recovering.