Corals that thrive & those that just survive or die! Plus how old is your oldest?

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Cyphastrea. Killed them all. Bad placement maybe in general?

Add me to the no-cyphastrea club. I've got a JF Fender Bender that just barely has enough tissue left to allow me to still call it a coral. Also a branching cyphastrea that's developing white patches. Bummer because I really like them.

 

[Ferrell]

I’m a fairly new Reefer at 3 1/2 years.
1. What one coral thrives the best in your reef aquarium?
Toadstools

2. What corals seem to struggle to survive or even die in your reef aquarium? Duncan although they thrive in my LPS tank but I’ve had three die in the big tank.
Most tester acros, even birds nest die although I do have an anacropora, a psammacora and several Montipora that are doing well

3. What is your oldest coral and how long have you had it?
3 1/2 year old toadstools

 

[sfin52]

Those look great!

Thanks

 

[HumuhumuFan]

I can't keep zoas alive. I've tried 3 or 4 times and they have never lasted more than a month or two. The only other coral I've killed was a xenia, but that was in my triggerfish tank so I wasn't sure how well it would do anyways.

 

[Marine Reefer]

I have a fairly new tank at four months old, but I have a few corals in it.

1-GSP that has doubled in size it seems like but it on an island so I’m not worried about it.

1-pulse Xenia that has done the same and also on an island.

2- Zoas that are my beginner attempt at a garden that seem to be doing ok.

1-Duncan that has two heads on it but in the last week has shed all of its polyps (no idea why), actually it has 1 single green polyp left (fingers crossed but not getting my hopes up.

1-hammer that’s a week old to me and seems to be doing well.

1-red mushroom that just wonders the tank but always seems to find itself in the same cave everyday. Also the first thing I put in the tank about 1 1/2 months ago.

2- bubble tip anemones, a rainbow that hasn’t moved since I put it in and a green tip that hasn’t stopped moving.

I haven’t lost any coral yet (Duncan probably is far off), so all in all things aren’t to bad.

 

[tigre44]

Happy hump day!

There are those of us (not me) who have the "blue thumb" and can grow every type of coral they touch successfully and long term into massive colonies that need multiple fraggings every year! But then there are those reefers, like me, who are very successful with certain types of corals but then are not able to have success with another. Let's talk about it today!

1. What one coral thrives the best in your reef aquarium?

2. What corals seem to struggle to survive or even die in your reef aquarium?

3. What is your oldest coral and how long have you had it?

PC Superman via @DivingTheWorld

 

[tigre44]

Ok

Happy hump day!

There are those of us (not me) who have the "blue thumb" and can grow every type of coral they touch successfully and long term into massive colonies that need multiple fraggings every year! But then there are those reefers, like me, who are very successful with certain types of corals but then are not able to have success with another. Let's talk about it today!

1. What one coral thrives the best in your reef aquarium?

I have a Duncan and hammer that are both about 1-2 yrs old and couple types of montipora that are about 9 yrs old recently started really growing

2. What corals seem to struggle to survive or even die in your reef aquarium?
Torch I lost my first one after about a week. I have another now that’s about a month old. Extends polyps about half way I have tried low flow and med flow no change
3. What is your oldest coral and how long have you had it

I have red mushrooms and a Xmas Favia that are about 10 yrs old

PC Superman via @DivingTheWorld

 

[MNFish]

For some reason Duncan hate me... I have had great luck with everything but.

 

[Steph72]

I kill chalices!!!! Haha

 

[Steph72]

I can't keep zoas alive. I've tried 3 or 4 times and they have never lasted more than a month or two. The only other coral I've killed was a xenia, but that was in my triggerfish tank so I wasn't sure how well it would do anyways.

Killing xenia is a blessing in disguise lol

 

[Fernthereefer]

1. Zoas, birdnests do very well

2. For some reason that I cannot explain, I cannot keep a toadstool..

3. Oldest: a pink tip torch that survived hell in its first year. Now 2 year old and growing with new friends.

 

[tamanning]

My oldest is a hammer I started with one head it's now 18 if I'm counting correctly. I got it for 10 bucks at my lfs close to 10 years ago. For the longest time I could not get Zoanthids to live let alone grow in my tank. I've been told it was to clean. Ha!!

 

[RuuToo]

Anything birds nest does well, montis did amazingly until the nudibranchs showed up. I am apparently the acan whisperer because for whatever reason they love my “under tank” under the main tank...

I don’t know why but goniopora dies just looking in my tanks direction. Pocillopora does not like me, and my green star polyps all died

Longest running “coral” is my large collection of nems that split from the original 18 year old parent.

 

[Colodano]

For some reason I have been very good at keeping mushrooms and Galaxea in my tanks. Zoas seem to do decent if I keep them from getting covered or eaten.

GSP has failed me, but that was due to Galaxea that I fragged from my other tank.

I just cannot get Hammer or Torches to grow, or even really extend like normal, have not been able to figure that one out, between water parameters or flow or light.

I think my oldest corals are the brown mushrooms or Galaxea that both came into my tank around 2011, survived a couple of big moves and still going strong.

 

[outhouse]

Glad to see Paul B here. Branching hammer, frogspawn and anemones thrive. 25 years normal hammer and sps do not. im to lazy and set up long term water parameters, where I dont have to do water changes for years. Problem is when the DSB loads up after 5 years and im lazy and try to ride it out. Causes crashes every 7 to 10 years, but crashes are mitigated and resolved.

 

[cobast]

Cant keep gonies for some reason. Everything else SPS LPS softies are all growing fine

It seems that Gonies start dieing as soon as you put them in your tank. They tend to retract after about 6 months and seldom recover. My LFS agrees.

 

[trmiv]

LOL. We need to compare notes. Check out my post above. Maybe we can figure out what the issue is?

Can’t keep Stylos or Birdsnest. It’s a shame because I love them both. I have otherwise a Acropora dominated tank and all frags are slowly becoming colonies. The interesting thing is I used to be able to keep both stylos and birdsnest which grew like weed in the same tank. This however changed after my last tank crash a little over a year ago. Anyone with any recommendations what I can do to get stylos or birdsnest to grow? Thinking about doing a detailed analysis of water parameters.

I have the same issue with stylos and Birdsnest. They seem ok for a few weeks then just start peeling or dropping polyps.

 

[Tofer]

1 Duncan it’s the first coral I got a close second is Jason fox enchanted forest birds nest
2 chalice they do okay for about 2 months then decline
3 Duncan 4 years got it as a single head from petco and nowhere not sure how many heads . Full tank shot Duncan closed up from me knocking it off and re glueing during a water change .and one when open . Birds nest day I bought and now 1 1/2 growth

 

[GillMeister]

I have the same issue with stylos and Birdsnest. They seem ok for a few weeks then just start peeling or dropping polyps.

It would be really nice to know what they're sensitive to. Here are my parameters:

Salinity- 35
Temperature- 79
Alkalinity- 8.6
Calcium- 430
Mg- who knows? I can't get an accurate measurement.
NO3 - trace. Even with dosing
Phosphate- trace. Even with dosing.

I dosed fenbendazole late 2020 but I've done 5 water changes of 70 gallons each since then. I switched from TM Pro to Red Sea blue bucket due to the lack of availability but I was experiencing these issues before the change.

 

[trmiv]

It would be really nice to know what they're sensitive to. Here are my parameters:

Salinity- 35
Temperature- 79
Alkalinity- 8.6
Calcium- 430
Mg- who knows? I can't get an accurate measurement.
NO3 - trace. Even with dosing
Phosphate- trace. Even with dosing.

I dosed fenbendazole late 2020 but I've done 5 water changes of 70 gallons each since then. I switched from TM Pro to Red Sea blue bucket due to the lack of availability but I was experiencing these issues before the change.

my parameters are pretty much the exactly the same except my phosphate is around .08 and nitrate around 10. I also use Red Sea blue bucket. I’ve tried them in par from 75 to 250. In flow from moderate to high. Always the same story.