Before I tell about my problem I would like to say thank you in advance. I have learned so much from this site and from the podcasts and I really enjoy all the help and advice from people who have been doing this much longer than I have.
Well here it goes.......
My pokerstar monti seems to be loosing its color. he is now a light light blue with brown polyps. The LFS I got him from told me to put him high in my tank because he needed a lot of light and so I did and I also bought two little fishies bioplankton coral food from the LFS because he said that is what he feeds them.
Now my tank is a biocube 29 with a 70w ushio MH 10k and two 36w actinics. All water params are at 0 alk is at 9dkh and calc at 480mg/L. I have two hydor koralia #1 powerheads for flow and my temp stay steady at 78 - 81F.
What can I do to help my poor pokerstar? Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you again.
How long has the tank been set up? How long have you had the pokerstar? What else is in your tank? Are you dosing anything? How often do you do water changes? Don't you love it when your question gets answered with questions?
Well I do water changes every saturday and test the water quality daily. The tank has been set up for almost 8 weeks now. I am not dosing with anything yet but if I should be it will start tommorow . I have had the pokerstar for about 2 weeks now.
the lighting change from the LFS to your tank could have caused the change. putting the coral directly under high light may have stressed it espically if the LFS had dimmer lighting.
The LFS had it high in a frag tank with two 250w MH at 14k. So maybe it is the opposite and got stressed due to me not having as strong a light as the LFS?
What you are supposing about the lighting difference is probably true. Can you post a picture?
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It could just be adjusting to the change in lighting. As Dick said a picture will help. I just wanted to make sure you were not dosing. I don't see anything the matter with your water so there is not a reason to start. But a lot of times folks are sold stuff they really don't need and don't or can't test for. I do feed my corals Cyclopeeze and oyster eggs but a lot of people don't feed corals.
If that is true is there anyway to save my pokerstar? here is a picture, my camera is really not the best so i got a decent close up of the monti, and added a FTS just for fun. Thank you in advance.
my guess is that it is just adjusting to the new light. It may become a brownie, that would be sad. Hopefully with time the color will come back. If the lfs had it high in the tank and you placed it low in your tank I am pretty sure it is getting alot less light. You can always leave it there and c what happens, if it doesnt color up move it up after 2 or so weeks. Dont move it all the way to the top though. If you move it half way closer to the MH it will double the amount of light hitting it, not just giving it about half more. So move it up slow if needed.
I placed it lower about two days ago, from some advice that i had recieved from another LFS that said it may be because my MH light is so close to the water and that having it so high may be burning it. Although if that is bad advice i can move it back although that is where it had been the majority of the time it has been in my tank. So I can start moving it up slowly today. Is there anything else that I can do for it? any thing that might help it from becoming a "brownie"?
No not really. Although it is kinda hard to tell.... the polyps seem to have more definition but still definately brown and the base seems to still be a real pale blue color. Which doesnt seem to be much different than the last few days when i moved him.
Sorry for sounding like I have my hair on fire but I am just a little worried as I dont want to kill him. I also would very much like his color to return. Thanks for all your help so far I do really appreciate it.
I would probably let it where you have it for a few days and see how it goes. IMO it is hard on corals if you keep moving them from place to place. Lighting does make a difference. I have a fungia and under my PC's it was brown. When I got my Solaris it turned lime green with teal highlights.
Ok so I will see how it goes with his current location. Could it be that I dont have enough light? I might be able to do something about that if I need to since the tank is still in its early stages. Let me know what everyone thinks. Thanks in advance.
even if it does brown out that is better than bleaching. Your lighting should be fine. the coral probably just panicked a bit. How did you acclimate the coral to your tank? drip method?
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. I have had the pokerstar for about 2 weeks now.
Have you seen any change for either the better or worse since you moved it?
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