trace elements

[fishbucket]

please be kind. the more i read and try to find out about this new hobby, the more i know that i don't know. we have some green polyps that were doing great in our 12 gallon nano. all the parameters are great and recently they are not looking so good. they seem smaller and pale. i am wondering if there are some maybe trace elements that need to be added. any suggestions for a site on the care of soft corals? thanks
:?

 

[Len]

Hey there!

There could be multiple reasons for the polyps not doing so hot, ranging from lighting to toxins in the water to lack of essential elements. I suggest doing a 50% water change and make sure the water you use is of high quality (good salt mix with RO/DI water). If you're replacing your evaporated water with tapwater, you may want to consider a RO/DI unit or buy RO and/or DI water from the supermarket in bottled form. Your tapwater may be rich is nutrients that is upsetting the polyps.

A good two part additive I recommend is B-ionic or C-balance. Both are "complete" additives and is all you'll need for a softy tank. Some people add iodine, but I personally have found no benefits from its use.

Hope that helps, and welcome to our community

 

[g.mcclean]

The best thing you can do is to buy or borrow Eric Borneman's book on corals. He covers all care requirements. Your problem sounds like low calcium. You should have calcium levels of 400-450ppm and alk at 3.5. Lighting could also be an issue. Pick up the book. It's marvelous!

 

[Len]

Alk could be a factor, but since he's talking about soft corals (more specifically, zooanthid polyps), calcium is unlikely the factor.

 

[Anonymous]

>the more i read and try to find out about this new hobby, the more i know that i don't know.

I can tell you a recommandation that will definitely going to fix your problem, but as you already know, a confident person is usually the ignorant one.

So tell us about your tank setup, and see if anybody can spot anything obvious that might has cause your polyps to look not as good. What is the lighting setup? Any wide temperature swing (tight to maintain temp. in a small tank like 12 gal.)? Do you dose excessively? How do you do topoffs? Etc.

 

[danmhippo]

When is the last time you did water changes? Has the condition improves after the WC? How much did you change last time? Did you add any additives to the water when you do the WC?

 

[Anonymous]

More questions: What do you test for and what are your levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate? I assume you mean zero for the first two and very low nitrate because you said perameters are great. What else is in the tank? other corals? any fish or inverts?