ACBlinky
10/24/2012, 06:32 PM
Just getting back into reefing, brought home 25lbs of (fully cured x 2+ months) LR and rubble and added it to our base rock which has been in the tank cycling (no noticeable spikes despite feeding the tank) for a short while (a week or so). The new rock has been in the tank for about 10 hours now, and I just took a quick look and saw...
The SPS (acropora, I believe) skeleton I bought out of the rubble bin has polyps on it. They're few, they're bleached white, but they're definitely alive. I happened to epoxy the skeleton in a high, very bright spot in the tank, with decent flow (not direct).
I've made a hobby of saving the hopeless in the past - I saved ailing, bleached open brains with tissue loss, bleached-white ricordia, and lots of 'questionable' frags that the LFS thought were goners BUT... the tank is newly set up (was an established cichlid tank, doesn't seem to be experiencing anything in the way of a cycle since cleaning and converting to SW even though I've been 'feeding' the tank to start things off, but it's VERY early days) and I know NOTHING, absolutely nothing about keeping SPS. Zip.
There are about 6 tiny little polyps out, waving in the current, is there anything I can do for them? Do acropora grow back over their own skeleton like LPS if they're given the right conditions? Saving LPS always involved feeding them -- how on earth can I feed these tiny things? What do SPS eat? (I'm going to go do some heavy reading after posting this!)
Shall I just say goodbye to the little guys, or is there anything at all I can do to save the coral?
The SPS (acropora, I believe) skeleton I bought out of the rubble bin has polyps on it. They're few, they're bleached white, but they're definitely alive. I happened to epoxy the skeleton in a high, very bright spot in the tank, with decent flow (not direct).
I've made a hobby of saving the hopeless in the past - I saved ailing, bleached open brains with tissue loss, bleached-white ricordia, and lots of 'questionable' frags that the LFS thought were goners BUT... the tank is newly set up (was an established cichlid tank, doesn't seem to be experiencing anything in the way of a cycle since cleaning and converting to SW even though I've been 'feeding' the tank to start things off, but it's VERY early days) and I know NOTHING, absolutely nothing about keeping SPS. Zip.
There are about 6 tiny little polyps out, waving in the current, is there anything I can do for them? Do acropora grow back over their own skeleton like LPS if they're given the right conditions? Saving LPS always involved feeding them -- how on earth can I feed these tiny things? What do SPS eat? (I'm going to go do some heavy reading after posting this!)
Shall I just say goodbye to the little guys, or is there anything at all I can do to save the coral?