Acan Help Please

[wright4941]

Everything else in my tank is doing good- sps, favia, hammers, zoas doing ok, but every acan I stick in the tank shrinks up. The colors of the heads look good but totally sucked in and recessed.

Any chance they will recover and inflate? Its frustrating! Acans are some of my favorite coral and in my old tank they did great, but I cant get any to thrive in my new set up.

Tank parameters below-any advice would be helpful.

90 Gallon 48X18X24 29 G sump, Euroreef skimmer, 3 Koralia 1400
Odyssey 2X 150 W MH Pheonix 14k bulbs/pc actinics
KH 9-10
CA 460
MG 1500
PH 8.3
AM 0
PO4 .16
NO3 20

 

[CRW Reefer]

Do you happen to have a coral beauty or any other nipping potential fish? I had.the same problem frag after frag after frag, until one day I noticed the coral beauty just pounding on the acans. So into the toilet he went and now the.acans are thriving.

 

[cjk76]

Where are you putting the acans in the tank? Are they always on the bottom or very top? Sounds like a lighting issue to me.

 

[wright4941]

They are on the bottom. Do you think they are not getting enough light?

I do have a coral beauty but had this problem even before he was
Put in there.

 

[velrui]

I just lost 2 acans one was dragon skin i paid 95 dollars a head.. Had a freind hold them for about 4-6 month he got them nice and fat and about 10 heads, just got it back from him and in about a week or 2 its almost gone... i can just see skelton with color, and the other one bleached out... Now the red common one is doing great with about 15-20 heads, i dont understand it they were all next to eachother and one out of 3 is doing great?? im about done with acans lost so much money on them dont know what else to do?? everything else is doing fine chalice's,zoa's,sps,monties,i just dont get it?? i do weekly water changes and dip in coral rx but still no help ...good luck i think some people are just meant to have them and others meaning me are not...

 

[willietang021]

I found that my 4 acan colonies love pretty high flow. they get puff up alot when they are almost directly in front of my mp10. Also do you target feed them? I had a flame angel that likes to search my acans for left over food before, so fish could also be one of the problem?

 

[chrispc66]

Acans require light, food and flow...a good judge of health is:

Huge feeder polyp extension during lights out. This is the time to feed, either enriched brine, mysis, cyclopleze, marine snow or spectrum pellets.

Bright fluffy polyps during the day, slight feeder polyp extension. Flow that ruffles the polyps and plenty of light. They don't actively feed during the day IME.

I find they do well on the sand bed and LR placement if kept under these conditions and fed a few times a week.

Good luck with with these beautiful corals, hope they recover OK.

 

[theman772]

feed and flow

 

[wright4941]

Thank you guys so much for your advice. I will try to adjust placement and flow, feed and see if that helps.

 

[tritonman]

Good advice here. I keep mine partly shaded and feed a piece of mysis every sunday.