Something ate my carnations.

[Johnny Reefer]

Originally Posted by rickjames

[Agreed. I would venture to suggest that a lot of what we have come to know about coral husbandry comes from trial and error in hobbyists tanks....

Agreed also. This is very much along the lines of my comment in the "Tangs in a 90?" thread re: "We are not ALL in this JUST for our amusement".

Cheers.

[DJ88]

Originally Posted by IluvHockey

I am aware of nephias disintegrating. This is not the case. I have carefully chosen Scleronephthya as they are easier to keep and I feed the tank with various photo and zoo plankton. James from OA has one for over a year and it is still alive. And Bev in calgary has one that is thriving.

I still have other frags and the main mother colony alive. Seahorse Fanatic has seen my frags last month. The remaing five frags and the mother colony are not on the main rock work and is surrounded by sand. The ones that were eaten??? were hanging upside in my main rock work. I would figure it has got to be something that would not travel on sand very well. But I would not disagree with you that they are hard to keep and are not for everyone. I guess no one here locally had enough skill and/or luck to keep them, except James at OA and me.

Were these frags that you cut yoruself or "frags" that dropped off from the original colony? If they dropped off then this wasn't reproduction as you may find with other species of corals. That was an attempt by the main colony to keep the species alive by dropping off parts of itself in an effort to have those parts carried away by the ocean current possibly to a location that will provide the necessary nutritional requirements needed for it's survival. Basically the coral was splitting itself to perpetuate the species. I have seen many of these corals (Dendo and Sclero) do this. All the time.

I still highly doubt that something has eaten the frags. If there are remenants left (your stumps you spoke of) it sounds more like that the frags have been unable to sustain themselves due to lack of nourishment and died. By suspending them you will allow them to look fine but when they finally can no longer remain whole, they are gone. Just like that. Where if they are sitting on a flat surface you will have a bit more visual clues that they aren't doing well.

Chitons and other herbivores aren't going to go after a coral. Corals aren't going to provide the necessary foods that an algae eater such as a chiton needs to survive. If you have a predator you WILL see them on it. And they won't kill it overnight. A sand bed isn't going to stop a predator from getting where it wants to be. If it can sense that there is food nearby it will go after it. by whatever means necessary. It is trying to survive as well. Another indicator that you don't have a predator is the fact that it is only recently you have noticed problems. If you had a predator in your tank you would have seen it happening right away. When you get a nudi such as one that is specfic to say Zoanthids or Montiporas they almost always come in attached to the coral in question already eating happily away. And then spread themselves accordingly throughout your tank.

Originally Posted by SeaHorse_Fanatic

Based on what I saw at Iluvhockey's, his corals were thriving. I've never had the guts to try any carnation type corals because of what I've heard & read about keeping them alive in captivity, but he's doing something right. Those blue ricordeas I got from him are also doing very well.

I know that if I ever did give this species a try, it would be a frag from someone like Iluvhockey and not one straight from the ocean.

Anthony

I am sorry but one thing here made me laugh.

How does you being able to keep ricordia's you bought from him testify to the fact that he is or isn't capable to keep nepthias????? Look at what you have said. You got some corals from him that are doing well in your tank.. so that means that he knows what he is doing???

I will say again that the most logical reason that they are gone is that they have starved to death.

Four months is not a long enough time frame by which to guage whether a coral was thriving in a tank or not with a species that is non-photosynthetic or any species for that matter. You may be able to provide enough nourishment for them to hang on and delay the inevitable but time will show you whether or not they are thriving. I have seen many people trying to keep these corals. And some hang on, for a while. Most usually don't get past six months. Actually most don't make it past two months.

Go ahead and keep buying them if you want. I won't tell you not to. It will keep them coming in the stores and going into tanks that won't be even remotely capable of caring for these creatures. It's guaranteed money in the pockets of the LFS owners as people will keep coming back time and time again saying that they know they can keep it, they just need one more kick at the can. As long as the demand is there they will keep coming into the stores. With a near perfect mortality rate. When I see a marine aquarium attempt to keep these corals and use everything at thier disposal and not succeed. That is a species I will stay away from.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Actually, my ricordea comment was just to let him know that his corals are doing fine in my tank, that's all. It WASN'T a comment regarding his ability or inability to keep carnations. Glad you found it funny.

Iluvhockey - good luck with finding out what's actually happening. If it is a predator, it may be a crab that's that culprit because chiton's are reef-safe algae scrapers (according to Wetwebmedia). Hopefully the others will do better because I know how much care you've tried to give to these hard-to-keep species. Like I stated, I've never chanced it because of all the negative reports, but if you can help figure out the right way to keep these corals alive in capitivity, more power to you.

Anthony