Diaseris care?

duberii · Jan 23, 2020

I have a diaseris that was doing great for a while, but is now fading away. I'd say it's in moderate lighting with low flow, and I feed it about twice a week. Now that I'm doing a bit more research into anecdotal care requirements, and some are saying they like higher light. Anybody have any experience with putting them in higher light? I'd hate to make it any more unhappy by giving it more light that it likes, but now I'm not too sure.

Big G · Jan 23, 2020

duberii · Jan 26, 2020

Bump- I hate to see this guy fading away

started target feeding aminos

ScottR · Jan 26, 2020

Pics?

duberii · Jan 26, 2020

ScottR said:
Pics?

All the white is skeleton

IKD · Apr 28, 2020

Sorry, just saw this post. Is something attacking it? Did yours move around at all? I read they can move themselves

duberii · Apr 29, 2020

IKD said:
Sorry, just saw this post. Is something attacking it? Did yours move around at all? I read they can move themselves

Not sure what happened, it just seemed to fade away. It came attached to a frag plug, and I thought popping it off would do more harm than good. I was also nervous since it was so small that it could've easily gotten lost in the sandbed. As far as I know, nothing was attacking it. It seemed to go as if it was starving off, even though I fed it about once a week with reef roids.

IKD · Apr 29, 2020

duberii said:
Not sure what happened, it just seemed to fade away. It came attached to a frag plug, and I thought popping it off would do more harm than good. I was also nervous since it was so small that it could've easily gotten lost in the sandbed. As far as I know, nothing was attacking it. It seemed to go as if it was starving off, even though I fed it about once a week with reef roids.

Ok thanks. I have a Diaseris for the first time so looking out for similar symptoms. Thanks!

duberii · Apr 29, 2020

IKD said:
Ok thanks. I have a Diaseris for the first time so looking out for similar symptoms. Thanks!

I had mine at medium light, low flow, and it did great for a while. It definitely loved the feedings, but needed some type of particulate like reef roids. It could’ve been something I wasn’t testing for that killed it so be sure to test your water for everything

duberii · Aug 24, 2020

I think I cracked the case, which possibly could be why plate corals in general don't do great while glued down to frag plugs. The answer is algae- that diaseris plate had a tuft of GHA right next to the coral. I realized this because I had an issue with my orange diaseris that i was keeping- it was doing great for a while, then suddenly one day it's all deflated and sad. This time, however, I noticed the hair algae that was brushed up against the plate, so I took a toothbrush to the area around the plate on the frag plug and got off everything I could, and the next day, as if it was magic, it was open and happy as ever.

Something about plate corals in particular I think makes them extremely sensitive to algae growth around them- they usually have no exposed skeleton, so there wouldn't be any place for algae to grow even if it wanted to. However, once there is skeleton exposed (or a frag plug- pretty much any surface where algae can grow), the coral fades away as algae blooms on it. People usually say that when a plate coral on a frag plug randomly does poorly, it's because they suddenly want to move. I conject that it has to do with algae growth, not the sudden desire for a coral to move around, since both of my corals were happy as could be in the place they were before they started fading away.