Plate corals are interesting specimens to have in a marine reef aquarium. They are considered solitary polyps which are closely related to the fungia family. They are sometimes misidentified as anemones and at first glance you can see why.
Taking care of a plate coral is rather simple as they are considered photosynthetic but they do appreciate a feeding once or twice a month of meaty foods such as chunks of shrimp. It is a slow eater so take care that your other reef tank inhabitants don’t steal its food, I sometimes use a plastic carton that strawberries come in to cage the plate coral while feeding to prevent my shrimp from grabbing a quick meal.
Plate corals should be placed on a bed of sand or fine pebbles and you may want to block them in position by moving small rocks near the coral, this will prevent your plate coral from inflating and trying to drift away. Maintaining proper calcium levels at around 420ppm will help the plate coral build and maintain its calcium skeleton. Good lighting is required as it is a photosynthetic creature. Flow must be adequate enough to gentily move its tentacles.
You should take great care when moving a plate coral, its flesh is very delicate and its calcium skeleton can easily tear through it if moved. The easiest way for me to move my plate coral is to cup my hand underneath it and pick it up that way so to avoid flesh damage.
The above picture is of my plate coral which is just a plain brown, however they can be many colors including purple and neon green. The picture above also contains a yellow watchman goby.
Ive been spending a lot of time thinking about my current aquascaping recently and the more I look at the tank the more I dislike it. My green sinularia is filling in nicely and I can’t keep up with fragging it. The date stamp on the picture is wrong, I took this pic back in march and I used it for my first blog but the tank still has the same aquascaping.
The first thing I am going to do is increase my flow with two maxi-jet 1200s that I just ordered on Ebay from a trusted seller for a nice low price of $30 for two of them brand new in box. I am going to remove the current powerheads which are an Aquaclear 20, a Powersweep and a modified Jebo pump that are currently on the back of the aquarium. I am going to place the new powerheads on the left and right sides of the aquarium and I am going to aquascape so that all the rocks create on island in the middle of the tank. The reef will look long and short.
I am doing this to increase the grow out room for the corals and anemone while providing more room for the fish to roam. This will also benefit the tank buy making the flow more stream line so that detritus will be suspended longer as well as providing flow to all my corals, something that I’m lacking with my current setup. Hopefully I will receive my new Powerheads in the mail before Tuesday, which is when I plan on making the change to the aquarium. As of right now I’m creating extra Ro/Di water just in-case something bad happens.
I was going to write this as a page and place it on the right hand side with my other articles, but I figured that I will make a quick and painless blog about it. So why are my corals fading or bleaching? Well mine are not but you may ask yourself that question from time to time, especially if your new to marine reef aquariums. Here are a couple of reasons why your corals might be fading.
1. Your lighting might be to new and powerful or they might be old and need to be replaced. If you just bought new lighting then raise the lighting system a few inches above from where it normally was before you bought the new lights. If this is not a possible solution move the corals in your aquarium to a lower level. If you haven’t changed your lighting unit’s bulbs in some time then I would suggest you do so. Old light bulbs can loose there spectrum and intensity there by affecting your corals.
2. Your reef’s water parameters are off, Test your alkalinity and ph. Alkalinity and ph are usually the the problem water parameters in a saltwater aquarium, however you should discount nitrates and phosphate as well. Nitrates and phosphate will more than likely cause an algae bloom before bleaching corals, see keep a keen eye for sudden algae blooms.
3. Parasitic organisms. These could include zoa eating spiders (yes coral spiders, a video to come at a further time on this), snails, fish and a whole host of other creatures that like to eat coral. My suggestion is to observe the coral at night with a red light to see if you cant observe anything bothering your corals.
4. Not enough flow, most corals and especially stony corals need a high rate of flow. The reason a lot of flow is needed is so that the corals can feed and breath. Most people would suggest soft corals need a flow 15-20 times the tanks size, lps corals in the same range, sps corals up to 40 times the tanks size. So my soft coral 46gallon bowfront reef needs at the very minimum 690gph to a 920gph flow rate. I keep it at around 1k to keep my crocea clams happy.
