unhappy coral...

[dpotts]

Last week I bought a beautiful green star polyp. From within 1 hour of placing it in my tank it opened up and usually stayed that way while the lights were on. Well yesterday evening it closed up and has not reopened. Nothing has changed in my tank and all parameters are great( 0,0,0). Temp between 78.5 and 80.5, SG 1.025. I haven't seen any of my CUC or fish (2 clowns and a watchman) bothering it. My frogspawn,Kenya tree, and mushrooms are all open as beautiful. I have a 29g BC with stock lights and flow. It's about half way up my tank and not near anyother corals. Any ideas about what's up and what I do?

Deanna

[ErikH]

I had some that took a week to open up. Other corals I would worry about, but if it dies, I am pretty sure someone will just give you some :)

[Joe31]

Mine do the same every now and then. I've noticed that they grow and spread faster when I have direct current on them, but not strong.

[DrMark]

Mine do the same every now and then. I've noticed that they grow and spread faster when I have direct current on them, but not strong.

ditto

[tate1]

I have one that did the same thing. Ours would always come out...then one day it stopped. My husband moved it into one of our other tanks to see if that would help. It came out a little in the other tank, but then stopped. I looked at it and it had a shiny thin skin like layer on the top. I then took a new soft bristle toothbrush and brushed the thin shiny layer of skin off. My husband then put it back into our main tank...within a couple of days it started to come out. It continued to come out a little more each day and is finally all the way out.

[dpotts]

Thanks guys. I think it might be starting to come out. This morning there are 10-15 little polyps starting to open....I'll cross my fingers!

Deanna

[caferacermike]

A lot of soft corals need much more current than most people seem to think. Most all leathers need flow on them to remove a layer of mucous that they shed almost daily. If the mucous is not removed by current it will envelope the coral and prevent it from exposing itself. After a few months the coral may starve to death if not allowed to open up.

[dpotts]

When it was open it would sway in the current. Would that be enough flow?

Deanna

[falcondob]

I have to agree with the comments above. They really do like strong flow. No so much that you blow tissue off, but strong. Just keep adjusting the flow every couple of days until you find the point where they "get happy". My experience with mine is that they will close up somewhat with too much flow also.

[dpotts]

I've just been using the stock flow in my 29g BC. I've seen those little magnetic power heads. Would that be okay to add to my tank or would that create too much flow?

[BriGuy]

I have the same tank set as you stock lights and pump. I would suggest not getting an additional powerhead in there, all of my coral suffered from the additional flow. Take a look at my gallery and you can get an idea of placement and flow; min is spreading 1/4" a week.

Thanks,
BriGuy

[Kristy]

GSPs like a lot of flow. It's hard to have TOO much flow in your tank in my opinion... Flow is so important in moving the excess nutrients so they don't build up and turn to cyano or other nuisance algae, helps your skimmer work better, etc.

When we were newer at this hobby, I struggled with the issue of flow and thought we had too much going on. It took a while of playing with the powerheads to determine that it might be a matter of the flow being too DIRECT, you have to angle things around so the currents bounce around and keep moving. Our newbie mistake was angling the powerheads very directly at the corals and rocks then thinking that was too much flow when the corals became annoyed.

I'd say try the little magnetic powerhead and play with it to see if your tank likes it(just my opinion).

[caferacermike]

I'm willing to state that almost every 29g biocube I've seen up and running had additional powerheads added, I've even seen several 14g units with additional flow. If folks did not think they were a little weak there would not be a need for sites such as nanotuners.com

[dpotts]

I visited my trusted LFS and they suggested a nano-powerhead. They were out today but will have some next week. I plan on getting one and trying it out. They also suggested using some activated charcoal for a few weeks...which I did. I also redirected my outflow a little more down. I had it pointed up to the surface. Keeping my fingers crossed that the little guy makes it....by far my most favorite coral right now!

[caferacermike]

It is very very difficult to kill GSP. I had a huge patch of it but when I began gearing more towards SPS only, the changes I made to the tank were almost to clean to support the GSP and it slowly went away. The bright lights and no food where what finally rid me of it.

The next tank will be full of GSP.

[dpotts]

I've heard that the GSP were nearly impossible to kill....hopefully that's not my "special talent"!! :) All my others (Kenya tree,Frogspawn, and mushrooms) are doing great!!!

[jrsatx20]

I'm willing to state that almost every 29g biocube I've seen up and running had additional powerheads added, I've even seen several 14g units with additional flow. If folks did not think they were a little weak there would not be a need for sites such as nanotuners.com

ive got a maxi jet 600 i think in my biocube 8 with 2 diff kind of gsp and 2 diff kind of leathers with no problems.

[dpotts]

Okay so this morning a few more polyps are open. So I guess I didn't kill it after all....just ****ed it off really bad. Wonder what I did to **** it off? :whew:

[dpotts]

I'm happy to report that this morning my GSP is fully open. It's not as pretty as it was before it closed but at least it's alive. I hope it returns to it's more pretty state quickly now that it's happy again!!

[justahobby]

I was unimpressed with stock PH in my 14g BC and had mucus coating the coral as well as debri covered rocks. Upgraded to a maxijet 295 gph w/ a deflector and presto! Happiness.

[Kyle46N]

For future reference....when my green star polyp closes up like that...which it will do for no apparent reason, I put it in direct flow for a day, and it always came back out after a day. Then I would put it back where I originally had it.