Rough Candy Cane coral, best course of action?

[Hezam]

Hello everyone,

I got this candy cane coral for almost free, it wasn't looking so good to be honest. I wanna attempt to save it, Its in my 20g long QT for now. Here are the stuff I noticed:

- There is a bunch of hair algae all over it, should I attempt to remove, some of it directly on the head.
- There is a feather duster worm (I think its feather duster?) inside one of the deformed head, read about feather duster worms aren't bad for the reef tank but in this case should I remove, if so how should I even attempt that. Also the head where the feather worms lives looks very deformed, but there is still green alive tissue here. Whats happening here?
- Red spots, is that algae?
- There's some aiptasia looking thing in the picture with the green circle. Can anyone confirm its aiptasia? Kinda looks another feather worm because it doesn't have tentacles like an aiptasia does, more like "feathers" if that makes sense. Also it has a hole in the skeleton I think. I haven't dipped the coral yet.
- Also for the coral it self, what should I do help it? Color is faded and looks quite deflated not puffy, should I just leave it to settle? Its only been 1 day. All these pictures are from day 1 hour 2.

Paramters:
Alkalinity 6.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1
Temperature: 25.5c
Phosphate: 0.55 weird reading, was just 0.13 yesterday might be an error
Nitrate: 20ppm
Calcium: 430-440ppm
Mag: 1260

0

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Your alk is low in your tank; should be around 8 in your tank. I had a candy cane as well that struggled from the moment I got it and I never could do anything to fix it. Maybe yours will do better than mine!

 

[Hezam]

Your alk is low in your tank; should be around 8 in your tank. I had a candy cane as well that struggled from the moment I got it and I never could do anything to fix it. Maybe yours will do better than mine!

Yeah this one confused me. I am using red sea blue bucket and it's supposed to mix around 8dkh but for never did. Always mixed around 7dkh. Would you recommend me to change the salt brand if I don't like the numbers? Or for now I could simply start dosing alkalinity? Right now I am not dosing anything since all my frags are extremely tiny and there's ain't much uptake. Just doing water changes every week

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Yeah this one confused me. I am using red sea blue bucket and it's supposed to mix around 8dkh but for never did. Always mixed around 7dkh. Would you recommend me to change the salt brand if I don't like the numbers? Or for now I could simply start dosing alkalinity? Right now I am not dosing anything since all my frags are extremely tiny and there's ain't much uptake. Just doing water changes every week

I was going to say you could start dosing alk since the rest of your numbers look fine!

 

[Hezam]

I was going to say you could start dosing alk since the rest of your numbers look fine!

Thanks will consider doing that since that's the only parameters I can't raise.

I currently have: a hammer, frogspawn, flowerpot, one Zoe, candy cane and a Duncan. All been for a little over a week, they seem all happy. Will all these be starting to consume alk this fast for me to start dosing?

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Thanks will consider doing that since that's the only parameters I can't raise.

I currently have: a hammer, frogspawn, flowerpot, one Zoe, candy cane and a Duncan. All been for a little over a week, they seem all happy. Will all these be starting to consume alk this fast for me to start dosing?

The best way to measure the consumption rate is to test every day for a week. This will show you how much alk your tank uses and how much you should be dosing.