Sick Caulastrea?

[acidbaby1]

I got a Caulastrea frag a little over a week ago, it's a trumpet, green in the middle, reddish at the edges, two polyps with a third growing in the middle. One side of one polyp seems to be receding, with some skeletal plates showing through the mantle. I've been dosing my top off water with trace elements, liquid calcium and coral-vite. Any suggestions? One side seems perfectly healthy and is feeding well.

I have read that one should not buy frags, but complete colonies of these corals, but the frag was cheap and I thought if it were hard to care for, I should start with a small piece, thus making minimum impact should it not survive.

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: Albert Jeffers ]</p>

 

[acidbaby1]

^

 

[slojmn1]

These are pretty hardy corals. If there appears to be a good healthy section then I would not worry to much. Keep an eye on the part that is having problems just to make sure it does not spread to your healthy heads. I am not sure about the frag thing and these being hard to frag, never heard that. There are a lot of things I have never heard though

. I started with a caulestrea that had 11 heads some years back. I have fragged and fragged this thing. One frag in a friends tank has upwards of 35 heads on it. I have four different frags in my own tanks at home. One in my nano reef only has 5 or so heads. I think frags of this coral do just fine. What kind of lighting was it under and what kind of lighting do you have it under? Mine was sensitive to the light in my high light tank(1240w MH and VHO) so he went under an overhang for a long time. He naturally grew out into the light and now does well in the light or in some shade. Like I said, very hardy corals. Give yours some time to get settled and try basting it with some fleshy small tidbits of food at night after the lights are out when its feeding tentcles come out. I don't purposefully feed my caulerstea very often but it might help to get your frag some energy to acclimate and grow while it is small.

 

[Matt Lyon]

I also got one about 10 days ago and I put it under too much light. I played around with the current which didn't matter much but when I moved it to a partially shaded area it started to perk up with in 12 or so hours. I have 790W MH/VHO.