i just picked up a torch coral yesterday at petco thinking it was an anemone but when i got home i realized it was not. so now I'm just looking for some general guidelines on care. the specimen is in a 140 gallon tank under 2 175 watt metal halides and three 110 watt VHO's two of which are actinic. running a closed loop with plenty of gentle current. salinity is at .021 no ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. calcium at around 400 and alk at 5. ph at 8.5
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torch coral
- Thread starter zoidberg
- Start date
SG is a bit low for inverts. How are you measuring it? Swing arm hydrometer is notoriously inaccurate so your SG might be higher than you think. SG for inverts, especially corals should be about 1.024-1.026 (I would stay lower to allow for evaporation, inaccuracies, etc). If you are using a refract, please make sure it's calibrated correctly. I'm suspecting this is not your first invert and if others are surviving, then your SG is not what you think it is.
Your alk is way low. I'm wondering how you maintain 400 Ca with such low alkalinity. Baking soda (not powder) can bring up the alk. Try to bring it up to at least 7 with 8-10 ideal range. You can dry out the baking soda (1 hr at 300 degrees) to convert it to washing soda which is much stronger (caustic to the touch with pH about 11).
I would check your magnesium level to as it doesn't seem the chemistry is balanced in your setup or you are not testing correctly. List out what you are testing for and what kits, etc. Maybe we can isolate why you have such odd results.
There's not much else to the care of a torch. They are the least hardy of the euph....(forgot spelling) genus but if you got a healthy specimen they do fine. Start lower in tank to light acclimate. Your halides are more than enough light for it. It prefers low to medium flow (just enough so the polyps sway). No supplemental feeding is needed but you can try target feeding small items once a week and see if it will take. Maintain the current calcium level and you are pretty much set.
Your alk is way low. I'm wondering how you maintain 400 Ca with such low alkalinity. Baking soda (not powder) can bring up the alk. Try to bring it up to at least 7 with 8-10 ideal range. You can dry out the baking soda (1 hr at 300 degrees) to convert it to washing soda which is much stronger (caustic to the touch with pH about 11).
I would check your magnesium level to as it doesn't seem the chemistry is balanced in your setup or you are not testing correctly. List out what you are testing for and what kits, etc. Maybe we can isolate why you have such odd results.
There's not much else to the care of a torch. They are the least hardy of the euph....(forgot spelling) genus but if you got a healthy specimen they do fine. Start lower in tank to light acclimate. Your halides are more than enough light for it. It prefers low to medium flow (just enough so the polyps sway). No supplemental feeding is needed but you can try target feeding small items once a week and see if it will take. Maintain the current calcium level and you are pretty much set.
I'm not familiar with the Seachem alk kit. On the API, you don't divide by 2. dKH of 5 is insanely low. If it's 10, then that's reasonable for your levels. No commercial salt mix has anything that low so I think the kit is bad or your testing method is bad. Do you shake up the reagent before hand? I would double check everything again. I try to double up on all instruments and kits to make sure I am getting what I should be getting. Since the torch is still alive, I think your params are probably better than what you originally quoted.