Building my 56 gallon Column reef tank

monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
As i went to take pics of the orchid today, the batteries in the camera died. This orchid is larger than the previous one and is not as combativ as the other one. The wrasse is picking on him/her and its taking it. It was around feeding time so I am chalking it up to "i'm hungry and this is my food." I should see more tomorrow as I wont have to assist in the dog grooming.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
So the orchid decided to finally cooperate, sorta, and let me take its photograph. Here they are:


BTW, is it somewhat normal for a skunk to pick on a pepp? It seemed like a teritorial issue. The pepp is smaller than the skunk and it was only a "GTFO" kind of manuver.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Here is a pic of the tank with the moonlights on. They look brighter in the pic for some reason than they do in person.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
Thanks, I struggled with it for soo long it should look 'out-friggen-standing'!
Are orchids nocturnal? Mine came out for breakfast and then spent most of the day in the rocks. it also came out for dinner, and ate better than it ever has (i made sure there were 2 'pools' of shrimp for everyone to pick from) so I dont think its sick or whatnot. Could it be that its being picked on? The wrasse has been seen taking swipes at it from time to time. Did I get a whimp orchid? I thought these things were supposed to be tuff.
 
mtalica

mtalica

New Member
Love the look of your tank man.
Don't wanna try to point this in another direction, but I have a quick question for anyone that can help. As I said before, I started my tank a few months ago as a FOWLR because I couldn't afford the lighting at the time. I originally bought three pieces of good LR at the LFS and then got some base rock to let it seed. When I bought the LR it had decent coralline algae on it, and I was told it would go dormant without sufficient lighting, which it did. However now I have my lighting but it doesn't seem to be coming back. I guess I'm not sure if I have to wait a while for it to come back, or if im better off buying a coralline starter pack or something to get it up and going. I have been adding purple up and my Ca is around 430ppm.
Thanks again.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
I would imagine that getting rocks with coraline on it already would help it to grow on the rocks that dont have it. Give it a shot.
Here is a pic of that hitcher snail now. It sure has grown big.

I think this is the snail that laid the eggs for the new snails in the tank. I havent seen the little ones since I first spotted them.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
is it possible that the limpets are eating the gorgioanan (spel?) coral? The skinny stick piece is all black at the bottom and much skinnier and it looks like the white/pink fleshy part has been eaten off. the polyps are all retracted and it sure doesnt look happy. I ask about the limpet as this is the snail that was on it at the base just a short while ago. I thought limpets were ok to have.
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
I highly doubt it.....sounds like your gorg is dieing....I had one like that and when the tissues recedes it will leave a black dead looking stalk
Do you have a picture of it?
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member

It's dying..I have lost plenty of them. My red sea fan is doing the same thing. They need allot of coral food, and a good strong water current, I think they starve in our clean tanks.
Oh and my orchid dottyback behaved just like yours from the time I got it a year ago UNTIL I got rid of my sandsifting goby a few months ago, now it's out all the time. There is someting in th tank he doesn't consider a friend. My Goby never bothered anything...but now that it's gone the orchid is out all day long.
 
S

smartorl

Guest
Can you post a picture? Do you spot feed it or feed the corals in your tank in general? That receeding is the tissue dying. You can frag it by snipping off the dead section but tell me more about how you feed and maybe I can help because that most likely is the problem.
I have kept them for years and have one that I have had for over 15 years. I gave it away with a dwarf setup and got it back when I moved back. Feeding is really important. I keep them in my dwarf tanks because they feed on all the excess bbs. The bigger ones in my reef tanks get a daily feed of either marine snow or bbs with a baster.
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
The bubble coral gets mysis about twice a week. the bubble coral also eats the red macro that somehow comes lose and gets stuck in its mouth. All of the other corals dont get spot fed as they all look healthy and are growing. This is the only gorg (spel) that is acting this way. the 3 others are all growing to be atleast twice the size they were when I got the rock back in september. Heck, two of the 3 look like they are splitting off to make new pieces. I dont feed my xenia but it has more than doubled in size and its only been in the tank for about a month and a half. I have seen some of these gorg's catch a stray piece of mysis but I never fed them directly.
edit: the lights just went off for the evening, but I will take pics tomorrow and then you can go back to the begining of this post/book for the "before" shots.
 
S

smartorl

Guest
From my experience, alot of gorgs just starve unless they are specifically fed and fed frequently. While other things will survive and even thrive without being spot fed, gorgs struggle in clean tanks and often decline and die.
 
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