Keeping live Corals Healthy?

Mirage

Mirage

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Hi Guys I've got a few polyps and what looks like a frog spawn type coral, its a brownish colour with lumo green tips and during the day the tips stretch out 1-2inches and float in the current... This coral has started becoming more brown and less green. I have all the additives, of which I put in small quantities every day. I have a Nano, and have left the lighting standard. But I am finding anything bright and colourful tends to become dull and brown in our tank?
The other problem that I had was our anenome, he was my first tank mate and has great sentimental value, but he got eaten up 3 days ago by my seio pump during the night and did not survive. Is there a simple way to get the darn anenomes to stay put or is that one of those never ending quests that all reef keepers battle with?
 
151349aee92d660b2.jpg
, IT IS THE GREEN CORAL, TOP RIGHT.
 
there is a coral in the top right? top left you mean? i think those are star polyps. 1-2 inches? you sure? they dont really open that much. i think you need to do a waterchange cause your water quality must be terrible after a nennie has died in there. the nennie was unhappy because of the conditions in the tank and would keep wandering around. so its maybe not a good idea for you to have one, possibly until your tank is mature and you need to have serious lighting for them and perfect water conditions.
 
Zooxanthellae is brown as that is the colur that will most absorb the blue spectrum of light. If your nutrients are too high then the corals will produce more zooxanthellae and brown. Just like SPS's will brown in a nutrient rich environment and why we strive to have zero nutrients in SPS tanks. Like Scubaninja said try and lower your nutrients and you should see a marked difference. I know guys say that softies like "dirty" tanks but they do look better in a nutrient poor environment
 
Your tank is not designed for nennies. Remember that a standard nono tank has very low light output, and the corals added should be able to handle this.

Anemones can't, and will always die. Until you have at least a 150w halide over your tank, they will be doomed.
 
The corals turning brown may also a result of low light conditions and water quality, with the lower light the corals need to have more Zooxanthellae to produce the amount of food for the coral to survive.
 
hey mirage:)

there are a few points of intrest in your post that raise a few red flags, the guys above have said them but let me spell them out so you are asolutley clear:)

nano's have a very small water vollume and a very limited space inside and outside the tank. that leads to difficulties and restrictions in what you can keep in there. Generally the lighting is deficient for the magority of the coralls, and very very low for a nennie. Also nennies need very stable water parameters and with you having such a small vollume thats very very difficult tio achieve. When a nennie is unhappy it walks. in your case your nennie was most likley moving due to poor water parameters (especially as the tank is too younge for a nennie) and to try find better lighting and flow. All things the tabk could NOT give him. while walking he his a land mine and was turned into "nennie soup". Now thats a problem! one its not good for the nennie...he dies....but two it adds a HUGE bioload of things to the water which with a limited filtration system it cant be dealt with. That leads to spikes and inturn puts ALL your tank mates at risk of dying.

Please do NOT get another annenome, you dont have a tank that can keep them.

Also you say you dose regularly. that i think you shou;ldnt really need to do, you would be better off (especially in a nano) of a strict water change routine which re-introduces the additives you are trying to dose.

One last thing....you really need to start researching what you put into your tank and what can live in there for the conditions you are providing. that nennie was doomed the moment you put him in, simply because you brought a great dane to live in a one bedroom 11 story appartment in ponte towers. Then there is that pretty blue fish you have swimming round, and round and round and round and......Regal tangs are NOT a fish for a nano, you really need to get him out too:(

Nano's are great tanks and yours looks good in the pick, we just need to help you a little with how to look after it and what you can actually put in there.

Oh and please give us a closer pic of the star pollops top left so we can get a 100% ID (unless its a galexy?) and the pepples at the bottom should be taken out too:)
 
Tank looks very nice Mirage...so a word of encouragement there. One last concern that nobody else has picked up...is it just me or is there a manderin on the rock infront of the anemone.
 
Hi guys. What is the minimum amount of water you should keep a nemmie in and what are IDEAL water conditions for it?
 
brentnorm said:
Hi guys. What is the minimum amount of water you should keep a nemmie in and what are IDEAL water conditions for it?
Click to expand...

The amount of water is not the issue, unless the creature dies or gets minced up. Really more about lights. If the nemmie is happy he won't walk about.
 
brentnorm said:
Hi guys. What is the minimum amount of water you should keep a nemmie in and what are IDEAL water conditions for it?
Click to expand...

Nem's do get quite large, so 4ft tank is a good size to keep one, i wouldn't go smaller than that, others may post up with success stories of nems in smaller though.
 
Thanks for the info

Thanks Crispin, I have noted everything and will discuss it with my man, the tank is primarily his, I'm in charge of maintenance and cleaning.

We do have a mandarin, to answer one of the questions posed, he is doing well and has plenty of food in all the live rocks, our tank has been with us since End Dec, it was 5 months old when we bought it and moved it as is with water, and 2 rocks etc. We then within two weeks added more live rocks, some polyps, as well as the BIO rock that forms the base holding all the live rocks.
We change the water every weekend without fail with water from the Two oceans aqurium, normally about 10 percent, but after the nennie died, we took out almost double that.
I add about 0.2ml of the many various nutrients every day so as to ensure the correct weekly dosage is split up and supplied constanly. We also get our water tested at an fish shop and test ourselves to ensure suitable levels.
We were told NOT to alter the lighting by our local fish shop as they said it would bleach the nennie and kill it? They said that it is suitable? I'm not sure if the nennie moved because he was being harrassed by the cleaner crabs? We started feeding nennie a different type of live food and the cleaner shrimps started climbing onto it and stealing its food, a week later nennie moved and got eaten by the pump?

We have another tank which we have set up, using sea sand from the beach, with all the natural critters and bugs that go with it, and we used aquarium and R/O water with salt mix in that tank. We have also had it running since Dec with no fish, just a hermit crab which we found in Gordons bay on the beach. ).
I was hoping to move the nennie and as the other fish get larger ( the Tang as suggested ), move them across to the other tank, it is 1.2m x 50 x 45cm, once we set up a better filtration system in that tank... ( Our budget is tight at the moment which is why we have not finished setting up that tank yet.... )

I am hoping to start adding more live rocks as there is only one currently, and two "dead rocks" which are now flourishing with bugs and critters ( which would make them live rocks now?

PS Spar sells R/O water for R1 per litre if you bring your own container? I have been buying at the local spar...
 
Will try to get closer pics tonight. Apologies, it was the TOP LEFT.... There are star polyps on one of the rocks. As well as I think they are called frag polyps.
I would like to know what the name or the green one is? Its a lot like the frogspawn, but it has the little tenticle type things and during the day they become long and stringy and float in the current. Yesterday there was a batch that stretched to almost 3 inches long. I will take close up picks tonight and post them. I'm really really eaten up by the nennies death. She was doing so well and had settled in so nicely, she was close to the light, she had good current.

Thanks guys... I really appreciate the advice, feel free to give me a hard time, I wont get upset, its the only way to learn.
 
Get someone to test that RO for you. RO for human consumption ain't always up to scratch for marine use.
 
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