Nephthea Health

[johnstires]

I'd like to say first that I have learned a whole lot from all of you in this forum. I haven't posted much, but I've read tons of great info. Here's the deal...

 

I recently purchased a brown nephthea for my tank. On the base of the rock it is on are a bunch of brown star polyps that grow up to the base of the nephtea. It's been about 2 weeks and over the past three days, the coral has been closed up. At night it comes out a bit more, but not fully. I have a 15G tank with 2 power compacts. I change 1-2 G of water ever week. Everything else in the tank is fine. I target feed everything either brine shrimp or target food. The Nepthea gets target food. Other than that I put a little bit of liquid calcium in the tank. Nothing is imposing on the nephthea aside from the star polyps. Are the star polyps causing this? Should I be adding Iodine to my tank? Any other ideas? Thanks. I apreciate any help.

[tinyreef]

mfg. recommended dosings of iodine are beneficial imo. i dose significantly more actually but i wouldn't recommend that right now.

 

i'd stop target feeding the nepth. for a small system like that there's no need to target feed that imo. (other types of corals need targeting tho) i would only feed the system when the polyps are expanded.

 

your description of 'brown' nepth has me curious. can you post a pic? has it changed color since you've had it? check your pH level and ca/alk.

 

are the star polyps touching the nepth (polyp and/or mat)? if so you may want to cut it back. they can encroach and push, starting a little chemical warfare. btw what else is in the tank?

[Physh1]

your description of 'brown' nepth has me curious.  can you post a pic?  has it changed color since you've had it?  check your pH level and ca/alk.

I've seen it a few times....usually it's a light brown or beige. If you have The Reef Aquarium VolII there are a bunch of pics in it. I've seen a lot of green go brown over a few months time but I'm not sure exactly what causes it.

are the star polyps touching the nepth (polyp and/or mat)?  if so you may want to cut it back.  they can encroach and push, starting a little chemical warfare.[/b]

I agree....trimming it back a little would be the first step I'd take.

 

Cameron

[johnstires]

Thanks for the info. THe guy at the LFS said the polyps wouldn't bother the nephthea. I'm keeping a close eye on it though and will trim them back if needed.

 

As for Iodine, I think it wouldn't hurt to dose a little to the tank every once and a while.

 

Right now, I moved the nephthea a half a turn and it seems to be doing great.

 

I wish I had a digital camera. I'd love to take pics. After a year my tank is finally coming together and I'd love to get everyone's opinion. My other inhabitants are as follows, I apologize for hacking any of the names...

 

green button polyps, brown nephthea, yellow cup leather, pulsing xenia, threedifferent types of brown star polyps, sunflower polyps, green mushrooms, some other kind of mushroom which I've never seen before (it's a bumpy dark grey/brown and green mushroom), toadstool leather, clove polyps, feather duster, 2 red hermits, 10 blue hermits, 6-7 turbo snails, 1 clown fish, and a large pink tip frogspawn a a center peice. I also have a purple worm creature (kinda like a feather duster) with a green center that is buried in the sand. I hear it's aggressive, but I haven't had any problems with it. Maybe I'm just clueless. There's probably 20 lbs of rock with about 40 lbs of sand. Most of the sand goes to a natural, in the tank refugium. I've never come across this anywhere and people may disagree, but it works wonderfully for me. I'm working on setting up a reverse lighting cycle right now. There are a few types of red and green macro algae in that.

 

As for the brown nephthea, I thought they were pretty common. Here's a link...

 

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Di...d=22&pCatId=649

 

As for target feeding, maybe I'll hold back on it for the nephthea. Everything else seems to enjoy it greatly. I leave my pumps on when I do it, so everything basically feeds, either indirectly or directly. But I do wait for the polyps to be out.

 

Maybe one of these days I'll get up off my butt and buy some film, take pics, scan them in etc.

 

Thanks again for your comments.

[tinyreef]

i'd say nepth's are uncommon as not every ols livestocker carries them (unlike colts and gsps). i just wanted to see if it really was a nepth or a capnella or a colt, etc. just like the way i recklessly use the name 'colt' the various softie trees corals are often misnamed. even that link you showed looks more like a type of capnella than nepth to me (jmo).

 

there are slight differences which in a larger tank doesn't mean much but in our small systems we can 'target' raise/treat them more effectively imo. glad to hear it's doing better.