Soft Coral

[phaze]

Hi Folks ,,

I need your advise on soft coral , ive just started to add coral to my salt water tank and i have only got a finger coral and a toadstall , i brought them a week ago and everything was fine until friday when the toadstall went in itself and has not come out and has gone really small the finger coral has srunk in size and turned a blue colour . i have spoken to the aquariam centre and thay told be its because in the shop thay where under halegon light and my lights are the long thin strip lights , im worryed because thay told me thay dont need food as theres no other coral in my tank and thay will be find for 6 months .

comments really welcome

 

[ben1987]

firstly test your water and show us the results

i woudnt worry too much so long as the tests come back fine. leathers can have a sulk for a few days at a time. especially if they have been moved. They dont need feeding either.

 

[phaze]

firstly test your water and show us the results

PH 8.2
Nitrate 2.5
Ammonia 0.25
Nitrite 0.0
gravity .23
phosphate 0.03

 

[ben1987]

ammonia should be zero at all times really

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah the ammonia would cause them to close up and could kill them. I would recommend a fairly large water change asap.

Also do you know what type of lighting tubes you have and their wattage?

Edit: for "gravity .23" do you mean your SG is 1.023? if so I would say this is too low for corals and would raise it (slowly) to around 1.025 (at least, I keep mine around 1.026-1.027)