Plate coral under strong light?

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

Plate corals are the ones I have gave up.
Used to have three at different times all ended up died slowly.
Today I heard someone said they distributed at shallow waters, lower then 30m depth, so actually need strong lighting. As a result, they do better on rock surface in reef tank.
I went back to read some literatures and that is correct, there is plate coral distributed at 9 meters.
So, anyone tried to place a plate coral under sps lighting conditions and had success?

Shaddow_wolf169 · Jul 17, 2017

I habe had mine under cheap leds on the sand bed for 3 months how quick did yours die?

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

Shaddow_wolf169 said:
I habe had mine under cheap leds on the sand bed for 3 months how quick did yours die?

Can't remember the exact time, but I don't think it was as long as 3 months. Plus I had the short tentacles ones

A Toadstool Leather · Jul 17, 2017

Dont put plates or brain corals on the rocks. Was it a short or long tentacle one? The long tentacle plate corals tend to do poorly for some reason while the short tentacles plate corals are rather hardy.

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

A Toadstool Leather said:
Dont put plates or brain corals on the rocks. Was it a short or long tentacle one? The long tentacle plate corals tend to do poorly for some reason while the short tentacles plate corals are rather hardy.

All short ones... I still won't try more, it is sad to look them die.

A Toadstool Leather · Jul 17, 2017

xjiang7 said:
All short ones... I still won't try more, it is sad to look them die.

That is rather odd. How long did it take for that to happen, sometimes they can get damaged from shipping.

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

A Toadstool Leather said:
That is rather odd. How long did it take for that to happen, sometimes they can get damaged from shipping.

I got them from LFS. They were doing very well for the first week or two, but then the tissue starts to peel off. It has been a while so I can't remember the exact time, but it seems to me a matter of weeks

A Toadstool Leather · Jul 17, 2017

xjiang7 said:
I got them from LFS. They were doing very well for the first week or two, but then the tissue starts to peel off. It has been a while so I can't remember the exact time, but it seems to me a matter of weeks

How did you acclimate and handle the coral? What lighting was it under? These corals do well under various lighting conditions it seems. They can occur as shallow as 1 meter deep to 30 meters deep.

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

A Toadstool Leather said:
How did you acclimate and handle the coral? What lighting was it under? These corals do well under various lighting conditions it seems. They can occur as shallow as 1 meter deep to 30 meters deep.

Thanks for the information! I did not drip acclimate as the LFS is only 10 min drive away. I use a bowl to swap tank water into a buck multiple times during 5 min. The light is Radion G3 xr 30

A Toadstool Leather · Jul 17, 2017

xjiang7 said:
Thanks for the information! I did not drip acclimate as the LFS is only 10 min drive away. I use a bowl to swap tank water into a buck multiple times during 5 min. The light is Radion G3 xr 30

The lack of acclimation may have caused issues, but I seriously doubt it. Where did you put the plate coral?

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

A Toadstool Leather said:
The lack of acclimation may have caused issues, but I seriously doubt it. Where did you put the plate coral?

On the sand bed and not in shadowed area

A Toadstool Leather · Jul 17, 2017

xjiang7 said:
On the sand bed and not in shadowed area

How powerful are you running the light?

xjiang7 · Jul 17, 2017

A Toadstool Leather said:
How powerful are you running the light?

Not strong, in a 28 cube about 35% intensity.

Shaddow_wolf169 · Jul 18, 2017

Hope you didn't throw the skeleton away they regenerate daughters off of them even after a year.

Salty1962 · Jul 18, 2017

Plates do like higher lighting. Where most folks get into trouble is how they handle them. It doesn't take much to damage the mantle and they should never be placed on a rocky surface. Sand is also a major killer of plates. I only handled mine with surgical gloves and placed them, gently, on pieces of smoothed off pvc pipe so sand wouldn't damage them. I had one for 4 yrs and it was 4"across in my previous tank. The person I sold it to still has it.

Kenfishy · Jul 18, 2017

Weird, my plate coral moved itself to a better location by inflating and deflating.

Shaddow_wolf169 · Jul 18, 2017

Salty1962 said:
Plates do like higher lighting. Where most folks get into trouble is how they handle them. It doesn't take much to damage the mantle and they should never be placed on a rocky surface. Sand is also a major killer of plates. I only handled mine with surgical gloves and placed them, gently, on pieces of smoothed off pvc pipe so sand wouldn't damage them. I had one for 4 yrs and it was 4"across in my previous tank. The person I sold it to still has it.

4" skeleton or flesh