Fungia Plate Problem

rasguedo

rasguedo

Member
Hello you all have a Fungia Plate (Short tentacled). Have had him about a month.. he was doing great! Eating, and fully inflating during the day. Well I woke up this morning and my Goby has him almost covered in sand. He doesnt want to inflate fully and has little abbrasions on him, where I can see through the green like little open sores.... Well I read from another thread "Small bits of live rock to elevate them may be beneficial in aquariums with high sedimentation from sand-sifting fishes or those with strong water movement and fine substrates.. Sedimentation is a metabolic stress and physically irritating and may eventually result in tissue loss." I imagine it was this.. I have a Fire Shrimp and Emeralds and Hermits (perhaps one of them?) Can i raise him on rock even though he is supposed to be on the sand? Anything I can do?
 
rasguedo

rasguedo

Member
Originally Posted by ci11337
id just get a small rock to hold him up a bit and hope he dosen't get hurt again
to hold a side of him up? Or directly underneath? I thought they needed to be on the sand.
 
isistius

isistius

Active Member
take it off the sand bed and place it among your rockwork. contrary to what people believe and say, they ARE NOT found in the sand in the wild. keeping them in the sand will only end up suffocating the outer edge of the coral, as the flesh and polyps tend to wrap around to the underside.
 
perfectdark

perfectdark

Active Member
Originally Posted by Isistius
take it off the sand bed and place it among your rockwork. contrary to what people believe and say, they ARE NOT found in the sand in the wild. keeping them in the sand will only end up suffocating the outer edge of the coral, as the flesh and polyps tend to wrap around to the underside.

Unfortunatly doing this will only hurt it further. Being in our enclosed systems they are much more suseptable to being damaged and brusied by being placed on your LR.
This information was written by bob fenner regarding plate corals.
Most Fungiids are found in shallow water (under ten meters in depth) on various types of substrates; rocky, sandy, to silty. Ones with a high relief (dome-shaped), and spines/septa of low relief utilize these aspects of their morphology, expansion of their polyp-bodies, and/or muco-ciliary action. The more flat-profile, un-toothed septa species that are more often offered to the hobby don't have as much latitude at throwing off sediment and should be placed accordingly on softer, low-detritus bottoms out of the way of direct current.
LT plate corals rarely fare well for any length of time... especially if not placed on soft/fine sand substrates.
 
isistius

isistius

Active Member
i got my information from tony vargas, so maybe they have differeing results in doing their research. idk. but in seeing his photos, and reading his stuff, nowhere does it show a fungia in any soft substrate.
p.s. i-m not trying to start a battle - just passing along information
 
perfectdark

perfectdark

Active Member
Originally Posted by Isistius
i got my information from tony vargas, so maybe they have differeing results in doing their research. idk. but in seeing his photos, and reading his stuff, nowhere does it show a fungia in any soft substrate.
p.s. i-m not trying to start a battle - just passing along information

Nope I hear ya, and I agree. Its good to get all the information no matter how conflicting it is. IMO a lot of what we read is also based on specific species of the coral. And we dont take that into consideration thinking that just because its a plate they can all be cared for the same way.
But based on a personal experience in my aquarium this has happened to me.
I had my orange plate coral on a flat rock for 2 months. Prior to that it was on my sand bed for 4 months. In the 2 months I had it on my LR it developed 2 areas where the calcium skeleton turned white. From what I have read it was either from being covered by a type of algea, or bruised by a passing hermit or snail that had made it slide into a rough portion of the rock. In either case I left it alone for 2 weeks and it got worse. I placed it on my sand bed again 2 weeks ago and its almost fully recovered. Again just passing along the information.
 
petjunkie

petjunkie

Active Member
I have all mine on the sandbed propped up with bits of live rock rubble underneath, they can be placed on flat rocks up higher but I wouldn't recommend it as they can and will move, if it decides to jump off one day it could cause a lot of damage. Your best bet is remove the goby because he will continue to spit sand on it and stress it out, one or the other should go. They are found in rubble beds in the ocean.
 
isistius

isistius

Active Member
Originally Posted by petjunkie
They are found in rubble beds in the ocean.
i guess that's where i was trying to go with it. just because of the suffocation along the outer rim. on the rubble beds, the water can circulate underneath them.
 
ci11337

ci11337

Active Member
Originally Posted by rasguedo
to hold a side of him up? Or directly underneath? I thought they needed to be on the sand.
just to get the whole coral an inch off the sand
 
rasguedo

rasguedo

Member
Originally Posted by ci11337
just to get the whole coral an inch off the sand
So basically just put him on top of a rock that is about an inch off the sand
Ok ill see if that helps! Thanks all of you.
 
K

kat74

Guest
My plate is about 2 inches off the sandbed and it loves it there. When I had it on the sandbed, it never inflated and I considered taking it back to the LFS. When I moved it up on that rock, "majic" happened.

 
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