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deep6er
01-19-2006, 03:39 PM
Any special care recomended for Digitata??
If it starts to turn white is this normal? did the polyps die?

OCDP
01-19-2006, 03:57 PM
Digitata is an easy to keep SPS coral. Montiporas, such as digitata, or caps are both pretty easy to keep. If your digitata is turning white , that is a sign that it is bleaching (dying) . Once it is bleached there will be no more polyps. White SPS = dead, basically....

deep6er
01-19-2006, 04:01 PM
ok, but why would it dye
im feeding it and I have good light

OCDP
01-19-2006, 04:05 PM
Well it would die for several reasons. But first we need more information from you. Such as, tank paramaters.. ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, calcium, alk. If your levels are off then it could have died from poor water paramaters. What kind of lights are you using, over what size tank?

How are you "feeding" this coral? As it has such tiny polyps it can not really be fed perse, but liquid foods I suppose is an option...

What kind of flow do you have the coral in? SPS , more specifically digitata prefer a stronger type flow, stronger than say LPS corals like frogspawns or hammers, etc...

HTH ..
Scott

Murminator
01-19-2006, 04:05 PM
My green digi turned stone white under pc's I wrote it off and left it for a few months in the bottom. For giggles I threw under my MH and it slowly turned brown then polyps started to appear and now it's a bright green thriving colony. :mrgreen:

OCDP
01-19-2006, 04:23 PM
yup, that's happened with me as well! I got myself a nice sized frag when I had PC's , it browned out and died... left it in the sand, then when I had my MH up I noticed this long brownish green stick in my sand... and now I have a nice piece of green digitata :D

deep6er
01-19-2006, 04:23 PM
ok here are my paramaters

ammomia - nothing
nitrite's - nothing
nitrates - 0.2 - 0.3
calcium - ??? I dont know. Dont have a tester.
ph - 8.1

light - coralife 36" t5 42 watt

Tank size - 33 gal

Feeding
DT's phytoplankton
kent phytoplex
liquid life marine plankton

Water flow

3 power heads all facing diferent directions. Digitata is in a strong flow area but I could move it to a place were it gets more flow

deep6er
01-19-2006, 04:28 PM
here is a pic of it

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/wcdave/Fishpicks181.jpg

OCDP
01-19-2006, 04:32 PM
Well your first problem is you don't know your calcium or alk. You need to know these paramaters in order to successfully keep SPS. Your lighting may not be completely up to par for it either.

My suggestions... get a calcium test kit ASAP and test your calcium, and adjust it by dosing. Same goes for alkalinity, both are equally important.

Move your digitata up to the highest point in the tank (recieving the most light possible) recieving good overall flow.

I also think you feed quite a bit of liquid foods.. I am sure that must in some way build up in your system. How often do you feed all 3?

deep6er
01-19-2006, 04:40 PM
Calcium test I will get today
alk I forgot to post is at 4

Lighting I know I have to upgrade

feeding I mainlt feed with DT's but i may sometime use one of the other 2 insted
I do feed every 2 days

OCDP
01-19-2006, 04:51 PM
Alright well I guess you should work on , A) Getting your calcium test kit and figuring out where your at there, then adjusting if necessary. B) Move the digitata to the highest point in your tank recieving the most light and C) make sure the entire coral is recieving a strong intermittent flow. I think this will ultimately lead to a healthy and happy coral, providing all other tank paramaters are indeed in check. SPS are fairly fussy and not as easy to keep as we'd like. But monti's are of the easier to keep SPS

Good luck!

deep6er
01-19-2006, 04:58 PM
well thank you so much for all your help OCDP and merminator. Off to the pet store.

rickjames
01-19-2006, 05:01 PM
Honestly the digitata looks not that bad. Did you just add it? It just looks like the polyps are deflated. Maybe there is a bit of tissue recession there, but not sure.
Mine looked like that when I first added it, and when a piece breaks off and falls into the shade it looks like that too. So I would say give it some more light, or if you just added it, don't worry about it. Digi's seem almost bulletproof most of the time.

deep6er
01-19-2006, 05:41 PM
It has been in my tank for about 2 months. It has looked better. At first I had it closer to the light but now that I have more things in my tank i had to move it to the bottom. and about 2 weeks after doing that it started to go white. On wednesday I moved it to the middle of the tank. It looks a little beter than it did but I am still worried. But I think it will be fine

Murminator
01-19-2006, 07:30 PM
Yeah that digi doesn't look that bad. Mine was a soild white stick with holes in it. I would do what OCDP said should come around just needs some more light :mrgreen:

deep6er
01-19-2006, 07:56 PM
ok so my Ca is at 480. Its not a bad level. I think im just going to need soon and move it to a high flow area.

Thanks once again all.

OCDP
01-19-2006, 08:18 PM
480 is pretty high, not bad at all... I think all's that digi needs is some strong lighting that's all!