Jestersix

Chalice care

tuberider

tuberider

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Soooo hard to make a subjective post, but I'm cornfused about chalice (as well as a few other members that I have talked to). I'd love to be able to have some care guidelines as I've been keeping them for a while and cannot for the life of me figure out a general "rule of thumb AFA strains/color and care".

I'll go first, I have quite a few chalice (chali?)

Darth Maul (mother colony)-> loves low light, it's dark with red streaks, bleaches if you tell it it's going into higher light.

ATL Pink freckled-> Indirect high light, unhappy when pounded with light, happy with very bright shaded light.

Blue with pink eyes Echinophylia-> Bleaches at the first suggestion of high light, likes medium/strong 20k light. Low light it turns brown.

I have quite a few more Chali, they seem to like 20k lights and lots of food, but I would like to have a thread that documents experience with these guys. I'm still trying to figure them out ;), don't worry if your post is contrary, it would be cool just to develop a anecdotal database ;)
 
Yeah, I have(had) a nice blue chalice (don't see that too often!) threw it on the bottom of my tank right under the lights, turned a tannish color (wah wah waaaaaaaa) I for the life of me only think it's alive because whenever I touch it it feels slimy.

My pink one, again not too much light, oh and don't let it fall into acan lords or touch a brain coral.
 
My experience with chalices...anything high light=color loss. Not unhealthy by anymeans, just not colorful. Because of this, I put my 3rd chalice under my SPS rack and has since maintained it's color.
 
i had many chalices...probobly one of the easiest things to keep as long as i maintained Mg and Alk..i have some blue ones that liked low and indirect 10K lighting more than my current 14k's...i had an ocean eye for a bit that did good under 14k's on the sandbed, but gave it out because the dragon goby would always bury it..

These things had a temper IME...killed off part of my acan, lobo, and a blasto when it tilted over, touching all 3..

i have this huge blue one i was thinking of throwing into DBTC colony edition, with one of the conditions being, the recipient frag it into 4 mini colonies...(they stink pretty bad when i cut em up with a dremel)...
 
JME, but I sort of went thru the same thing when I first started picking up chalices, and have started differentiating the watermelon chalices from the rest.

The watermelons seem to do just fine under medium to high light 20K light (18-24" under a 400 watt Radium on HQI). IME, the pink/red watermelons seem to have even better color under higher light conditions. In my tank, I can move them around between lighting conditions fairly easily without worrying too much about anything bad happening

On the other hand, I have a chalice from Clint (Eye of the Storm) that bleaches and recedes anything I try to give it even a little light or move it to a different location. I also have a few other chalices that are fairly intolerant of moving around and anything but low light.

Feeding didn't seem to make too much of a difference in terms of adaptability, neither did other parameters. Alk ~9, Ca~400, Mg ~1500. My system is also low nutrient, Nitrate < 0.5 and Phos =0.01 on a Hanna, and the LPS seem to do just fine

HTHs
 
I've noticed that chalice when placed slanted/almost horizontal seem to do well.

Thanks for the info vapor esp in regards to watermelons, I think they may be one of the few higher light chalice.

Keep them coming, I'm looking for specific info on specific animals care.
 
Most of my chalices don't seem too picky about the lighting. The only one that is really picky is the red/black chalice. It HATES light. Karsons tiger stripe chalice seems to do better at lower light but does ok at very high light as well. All of the pink and red watermelons (rasta and golden eye seemed to adapt pretty slow to higher light) and reverse watermelons (mummy eye, emerald mummy eye, etc) seem to be fine with higher light.
 
I wonder if most chalices can take the light, but they just bleach and take a long time to acclimate to a new light level?
 
[quote author=Gomer link=topic=3938.msg46697#msg46697 date=1214011210]
I wonder if most chalices can take the light, but they just bleach and take a long time to acclimate to a new light level?
[/quote]Sadly no, I've tried for years with some of them. Like you observed they turn tan and bleach, it takes them a LONG time to color back up. That's the main reason I started this thread to get a handle on chalice so people don't go through the nightmares I've been though in my years of collecting chalice.
 
Have you ever seen a chalice go unhealthy if it was in low light? Like these watermelons that are supposedly able to take high light? What I am getting at, is it safe to assume every chalice is low light and then go from there?
 
Well the color on some chalices are not as good in lower light. I'm not sure if lack of color equals unhealthly though. One chalice that comes to mind that really does this is the bazooka joe.
 
I wouldn't think it'd be unhealthy, I would think the chalices get most of their food via actually eating as opposed to photosynthesis.

I do notice quite a few of chalice at Aquatic Central in Chris' little nano by the register which I think has like a couple 7 watt PC bulbs in it or something.
 
All my chalice colonies like low light levels & low flow. Hated MH 10K light even when sheltered, love the new T-5's. Better color w/ more blue light, and are intolerant of any softies in the tank. I have two that were barely hanging on till I scraped out that last little bit of Sarcophyton left in the tank. Now they're growing.
 
[quote author=Phillips link=topic=3938.msg46907#msg46907 date=1214252156]
I have two that were barely hanging on till I scraped out that last little bit of Sarcophyton left in the tank.
[/quote]

..interesting. I got a bunch of leathers and zoas in the tank. The chalices are doing fine. Not growing fast by any means, but seemingly healthy.
 
John, I've noticed that in regards to 10k as well. I normally use more efficient bulbs in regards to PAR, however from what I've been reading lately PAR is not exactly what we need to be looking at in regards to coral Photosynthisis. I have the DM in a cave (literally), and now it is finally getting back to it's old self. Perhaps it's not a quantity of light, and more of a lighting quality, hmmmm...
 
[quote author=tuberider link=topic=3938.msg46909#msg46909 date=1214252417]
Perhaps it's not a quantity of light, and more of a lighting quality, hmmmm...
[/quote]

Couldn't agree more. I have a mummy eye frag that was doing very poorly for a while, undergoing periodic recession and necrosis. I tried moving it all around from high light to low light and back again, and double checked all my parameters, etc. I had sort of given up on the piece when I happened to change out my MH bulbs (from Phoenix 250's to the radium 400's). I immediately saw rapid improvement in both growth and color over the next 2-3 days following the bulb change, and the piece has never looked back. FWIW, visually, I didn't notice much change in the brightness levels, but whether is was a spectrum change (14K to 20K) or a brighness level (1 yr old 250 HQI bulbs to 400 watt HQI bulbs), I was sure glad I changed out the bulb!
 
The comment about softies intrigues me. For the second time, I've tried a watermelon that has immediately bleached. I have it about 28" below 150, 14K phoenix. It looks awful after only one day. I have a ton of ricordea in this tank. Could that be the reason?
 
I have my chalice that Jeremy gave me at the swap, and i had him in the sand, but my sandsifter kept dumping sand on it, then my boyfriend moved it up in the tank, on a flat rock, where it looked like it could have been bleaching a little bit (i cant tell if its new eyes popping up, or if its bleaching...), so i moved it off to the side, and its sitting at a slant, horizontally, and it looks like its taking in more color. id say that its perhaps 12-14 inches from the light. seems like it likes that spot, so ill try it. its in the light directly, but not in a really bright spot. its kind of shaded by a stream of bubbles from this one powerhead i have in the corner.
 
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