plate coral??

Whats the trick to keeping a plate coral alive? I have had two and they dont last long they start getting white on them after about 5 days. I got good calcium, do reg. water changes and have a high power howl light. oh and pretty good current i have tried putting them every where in my tank just can't keep them alive....

Edited by Glutimist - December 19 2007 at 6:17pm

Are you keeping them in the sand on rocks?

Edited by frednwilma1999 - December 19 2007 at 6:49pm

What do you feed plate corals?

70 watt high powerful light! sorry don't know the name. the Akalinity is also good i had my water tested about two weeks ago and is was all good and have done water changes so still should be good. the tanks a 48 gal bow front two power jets and return flow has good current. The tank has been up for a year. temp is 79 degrees.

Edited by Glutimist - December 20 2007 at 5:19pm

lps. i think it looks like a flat rock and is hard.

Ok if its the LPS then you definitely need to feed it.  Also I have questions about the light as others do.

ya i am willing to bet its the light like i think everyone is leaning towards. plated need high output lighting pref halide lighting.

If you could post a picture that would really help.  If it is monti, I agree that it is the lights  if its lps I bet its the rock.  Fungia plates need to be in the sand or they die, usually very quickly.  Even when they are in the sand if they arent happy where they are they will move to try to get to better conditions.

Deb

 Are you talking about fungia or heliofungia, like these? I have seen specimens at the LFS that are on the verge of death. If you can see the skeleton underneath the viable tissue, it is on it's last leg and will be difficult to bring back to health. That being said, you could be a strawberry basket over it to prevent the fish from stealing it's food, and put some cyclopeeze on it for a few days. It might recover. Once it has good tissue back, you can feed it mysis. It will eat much quicker when it is strong.
 I feed these mysis, cyclopeeze, whatever happens to be in my turkey baster. I keep them on the rock down low, under an overhang so light is not the issue for these spp. IME anyway.

i will take a pic, but i don't know what to say but thanks for the post, but they have not helped at all. so hope they help someone else i belive my light is ok for what i put in the tank and all three bulbs are new with in the last month. This coral really looks like a plate rock. so i don't know how feeding helps i thought it was just light and good water. but i will try it but no luck so far, thanks again.

Edited by Glutimist - December 23 2007 at 9:45pm