Red Open Brain Corals.

[clownx]

I am thinking of getting a red open brain to add to my 29 g, but as i have heard and read, this coral is considerd a 'Hard Coral". and i know that calcium levels are supposed to be above 400 for these corals to thrive, and thats the problem with my calcium its always reeding at 320 and even adding calcium buffers dont realy do the job to boost the calcium.
My two questions are:
Can i add a brain coral with my calcium at this level?
And what can i use other than kasswasser, that can help my calcium a little more than with this Seacheam calcium buffer?
Thanks
clownx

 

[fishfreek]

Yes, you really should raise your calcium to 450 or so before adding any hard corals. I use kents liquid calcium, it works well for me. You can try kents super buffer for raising your alk levels. Red open brains are a very beautiful coral and IMO really aren't very difficult to maintain. I feed mine silversides once a week and he look great. What type of lighting do you have? They require medium lighting, like to be placed on the sand bed and like medium flow.HTH

 

[blondenaso1]

The problem with you Ca is probably your Alk. Like fishfreek said use some type of buffer to bring it up. I use Seachem reef builder and I works great. Then after that see if you can bring your Ca up. Your brain will "survive" with lower Ca levels. I am not sure how long, but it will definately not thrive.

 

[q]

I have mine located in a corner getting primarly indirect light. The flow is also low. I find that the red mushrooms like those conditions quite a bit too.
To raise calcium levels I had to use turbo calcium as everything else did very little. It still took a week but slow and steady is the name of the game in this hobbie.

I would have mounted it in the sand but it has a colony of octocorols growing on the base.

 

[mlm]

I have one but for some reason it will not eat anything, but it seems to be doing fine for the 4 months that I have had it. I keep it in the middle upper part of my tank and it is getting direct light.

 

[q]

Does it put out it's tenticals to feed?