New Tank 4 Weeks Old, Coral Going Dark Brown,any Ideas Why?

[Santon]

Hi all, can anyone help me with this problem? I have recently bought a 260 litre fish tank and stocked it with South african cichlids and two cat fishbreeds. I have put a large amount of wet white coral as part of the display. However 4 weeks down line my nice white coral is changing into a dark brown colour, is something wrong Also I haven't see my cat fish since I put it in and i'm concerned it may have died??? I havn't seen any remains and the cat fish was slightly larger than the new cichlids. Is there any one who could advise me on these two problems.

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Santon and welcome to TFF!-

Personally, I've never seen anything white, especially things with rough surfaces like corel(!), go into a freshwater tank and -not- get covered with some combination of brown algae, green algae and/or bacterial biofilm! Another thing about corel is that it will increase the KH and pH of the water, hopefully a desired outcome. Definately a decoration that needs to be thought about!

Did you fishless cycle your filter prior to fish introduction? If so, how many weeks did it take (just curious)?

Having a dead fish that is not found presents the threat of a mini-cycle from the excess ammonia that will be created. What type of test kit do you have and how often are you doing your water chem tests?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Santon]

Hi Santon and welcome to TFF!-

Personally, I've never seen anything white, especially things with rough surfaces like corel(!), go into a freshwater tank and -not- get covered with some combination of brown algae, green algae and/or bacterial biofilm! Another thing about corel is that it will increase the KH and pH of the water, hopefully a desired outcome. Definately a decoration that needs to be thought about!

Did you fishless cycle your filter prior to fish introduction? If so, how many weeks did it take (just curious)?

Having a dead fish that is not found presents the threat of a mini-cycle from the excess ammonia that will be created. What type of test kit do you have and how often are you doing your water chem tests?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Santon]

Hi Santon and welcome to TFF!-

Personally, I've never seen anything white, especially things with rough surfaces like corel(!), go into a freshwater tank and -not- get covered with some combination of brown algae, green algae and/or bacterial biofilm! Another thing about corel is that it will increase the KH and pH of the water, hopefully a desired outcome. Definately a decoration that needs to be thought about!

Did you fishless cycle your filter prior to fish introduction? If so, how many weeks did it take (just curious)?

Having a dead fish that is not found presents the threat of a mini-cycle from the excess ammonia that will be created. What type of test kit do you have and how often are you doing your water chem tests?

~~waterdrop~~

Hi Thank you for your reply....This is a new hobby so I've followed the shop owners advice. I ve purchased lots of coral and built it up into a large display. I set up tank about 4 days earlier before putting cichlids in. ph is a chemical check { fresh labs}and reads 7.2/7.4 temp 28.2 Amonia 0 /0.25 and Nitrate ppm 0.05.....I notice that the rear of the coral is still white and wonder if my lighting could be a problem?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Well the brown is deifnatley algae and nothing to worry about, however your water tests are, you've got levels of ammonia and nitrite which are very dangerous for your fish cos the tanks not cycled, have a read of the link in my sig 'whats cycling' which will explain it all.