Flower Pot Coral

luvmytang2

luvmytang2

Member
:notsure:
I have had this flower pot coral for a little over a month now. He has been doing great until today. When I came in from work today half of it was closed and it looked like cotton was spread over it. What in the world is this? What do you suggest for treatment.
75 gallong tank
400 watts of half actinic and half compact flourescent
calcium 440
nitrite 0
nitrate trace
ammonia 0
salinity 1.025
temp 78-79
ph 8.2
 
wax32

wax32

Active Member
It is likely dieing. They tend to be a 50/50 chance that they live in a tank. Chances are it is nothing you did.
 
bergamer

bergamer

Active Member
I have no idea what the cotton looking stuff is, but flower pots needs iron to survive, which is why I dose my tank with iron suppl every once in a while.
but when my flower pot began to die amd I saved it with iron supp, I never saw anything tht looked like cotton, the tenticles just stopped coming out
 
bergamer

bergamer

Active Member
Originally Posted by Speg
The LFS guys refer to this coral as a 'rental'

but you can make it have a permanent home, by adding iron. I spot treat it with iron
 
luvmytang2

luvmytang2

Member
What type (brand) of iron supplement do you suggest? Will this interfere with my two part b-ionic?
Also, I don't have an Iron test kit. Does this matter?
:cool:
 
speg

speg

Active Member
How long have you had it so far? and what kinda lighting do you have? I'd love to get one of these corals as they are amazingly beautiful... but as far as I know people dont know enough about them to keep them long enough.
 
luvmytang2

luvmytang2

Member
I have had this coral a little over a month. I has done so well up until today.

I have the Coralife light with approx 400 (give or take)watts. They are half blue actinic and half compact florescent.
 
bergamer

bergamer

Active Member
if you do a flower pot search there is a post from a while ago about a study on gino's i think it was either aquaruim of the pacific or in hawaii
their flower pots kept dying and the biologist wanted to know why and he figured out, and his results were that they need iron and make sure their magnesuim levels are fine. since I use catelina ocean water, my mag levels are fine.
I have had my flower pot, which is about the size of a small bowling ball for over a year, it was my second coral that I bought.
It was doing great, up until the 1 year mark, then it began to decline. Stopped coming out fully and the stems of the polyps had thinned out.
Then I came across the article and so I tried it.
I do not have an iron test kit, but I add very little and I directly dose it on the flower pot with a needle
I do not does iron weekly, I do it about every 3 weeks.
although my flower pot never got as big as it once was, after using the iron, the VERY NEXT DAY it was fully out, which it had not been out in over a week.
this was about a couple months ago and my flower pot today has never retracted again, and when it starts to look sickly, which is usually about 3 weeks, i just dose it with iron again and it does fone.
Strangly enough one time I was careless in my iron dosing and only directly dosed 1/2 of the flowerpot. and the strange part was the the other half became darker in color and did not look as healthy as the side that had the direct iron dose.
and you have to be very careful adding iron bc you can get huge algea blooms
I have a 90 gallon with a seaclone 150 skimmer
85lbs live rock
90 lbs live sand
and I have coralife 4 65W x 10k bulbs
2 aceitic and 2 day
 
bergamer

bergamer

Active Member
Originally Posted by Speg
I may try to do that then.... if it dies will you pay me back?
1 cooking syring .....$3.00
1 small bottle of kents iron supp....... $8.79
1 flower pot coral......... $35.00
a beautiful reef tank with a healthy flower pot.......priceless
I make no guarentee's or promises, but this was the conclusion of the research and it worked for me
 
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