growing corals

also i'm thinking of getting a candy cane coral. Are those pretty and easy to take care of.

 

I have 3 candy cane corals{grow like crazy}an open red brain and a bubble. the candy canes and open brain are doing great. {see pics}The bubble...well for some reason it dosen't seem happy. I placed it lower in the tank, I was told they don't like allot of light. I'll keep you posted.

 

ok do u need to feed brain or candy cane corals or do they just use the light. Do those all need to be placed low. Do u have a lot of brown algae growing in your tank. Do u have a refuge.

 

I don't feed the trumpet/candy cane, the open red I feed once a week{krill}just 1/2 of a krill. The Bubble gets fed once a week also, same amount as the open brain. Use the frozen food not the dried. One thing  I learned the hard way. Don't feed liquid foods, phytoplankton etc. I was told it's pure phosphate and caused allot of algae problems in my tank.

I have no brown algae just some green hair and some bubble. I had allot but I'm getting it under control. How old is your tank? sometimes a new tank will develop brown algae as it acclimates. Lighting that has gone past their expiration date will cause brown algae to grow as the light spectrum changes. Do you use an ro/di? The membrane on mine needed to be replaced which started to cause some algae problems with my tank.

I just started a refugium so I can't really tell you just yet if it's making a difference. I'm sure it is but just how much I'm not sure.

As far as your pumps are concerned..I was told you want to turn your tank water over{cycle}about 6 times per hour. So for a 55 gal that would be 55X6=330GPH.

 

IF you do decide to get a hammer coral, be very careful on how you handle it. I wasn't made aware that they grow over their skeleton and while moving it around it ripped the coral. about 2/3's of has died off and it really sucks because it was a great piece. Hoping that it will recover and eventually grow back. Look for the purplish skin, and then handle it from where there is none at the base. Also check to see if if the one you are purchasing is starting to die off. It will look kind of stringy and the skin will look torn or in bad shape. Great coral but depending on the piece it could be hard to position.

 

Thanks for the advice. I was looking into a hammer or a frogspawn. I need to do a little more research.

 

my tank is 5 1/2 months old

 

The brown algae could be from your tank being relatively new. That being said I pulled up a list of "preventive measures" on keeping nuisance algae in check: Use a good ro/di system, dose kalkwasser{lime water}daily in your make-up water, do a 25% water change monthly{ I do 5% weekly, it's easier}keep a proportionate amount of hermit crabs and turbo snails. You probably know this already but I just want to make sure all the bases are covered.

 

sorry to hijack this post. was wondering how often to target feed or feed in general polyps?

 

I don't target feed polyps. They get everything they need from the water column and will gobble up algea and bacteria when you scrape your tank glass.