Green Star Polyps Completely Retracetd 2 days

[Ram_Puppy]

is this something they do, or something I need to worry about?

they were completely retracted yesterday, and I did a 5 gallon water change last night.

Temp: 79.10
PH. 8.2
Alk: 3.5 MEQ/L
AMonia:0
Nitrate:0
Nitrite: 0
SG: 1.023
Calcium: 445ppm

I have seen this guy in a retracted state before, but never this long, and never this completely. The xenia, colt, and rhodactus are happy as can be.

I suspect this might be the problem (if there is one) the tank just had one of those 'new tank' algae outbreaks that has been pretty well controlled by the cleanup crew, but I do think there might be a little actually growing on the coral... should i clean this off with a q-tip or something? it is not hair, that I can tell, It is a brown film. I have read starpolyps can be overgrown by hair algae, but this doesn't even cover 50 % of what it's encrusted so far.

[longhorn_20m]

When my tank was still new, within the first few months, my green star polyps and most of my zoos did that for around a week. After that, they came out and haven't been in since. I think it is just part of the cycle. Hope everything works out.

[dan]

just let it run it's course. everything is trying to stable out.

[StephenA]

They are fine. Mine do that some times, then they get really extended.

[Ram_Puppy]

thanks guys... Appreciate it... I think everytime I see something i haven't seen before it causes the 'chicken with head cut off syndrome"

[drehere]

Not sure if you could kill them if you tried. I'll have large colonies just retract for a week or so, right next to another that's fully extended. Sometimes take even a few days to go from just poking a few polyps out to full form.

[Ram_Puppy]

Ok, the polyps are coming back out, but the center of the colony, which had the oldest polyps and the largest (from the mature colony it was fragged off of) seem to have diminished in size, could it be this thing ejected it's polyps and grew new ones?

Also wondering, about 10 minutes ago I snuck a peak at the tank w/ lights off about half an hour, and the rhodactus mushroom I recently got looks STRANGE. The blue/purple and rust collored mottling is completely not visible, instead the whole thing looks like a silvery umbrella. The only change in the tank today was the running of the new 175 watt 10K metal halide for an hour...

Ok.. I just went in and looked again... and it is normal color again... did I just witness a feeding behavior? If so, that thing can open its mouth to an incredible degree.