All of a sudden, no polyp extension?

[Potatohead]

About a week ago, most of my acros started having almost no polyp extension, and I really don't know why. They still seem to be growing and overall fine, but they're not as fun to look at. I really don't know what has happened. I can think of three things that changed;

- I turned my lights up a very small amount, about 2 or 3%. I have since turned them back down and waiting on results.

- I dose aminos/trace elements in small amounts, once a week. I did this a day or two before the extension went away

- New batch of salt seems to have higher mag than the old one, and my mag is about 80 - 100 ppm higher than I had it before (it's now at 1440).

All my other parameters are stable and in normal range.

Does any of this sound like it would cause it? I don't have any nippy fish either.

 

[vinhle00]

Have you gotten new corals in the past few months? I would check for bugs, aefw.

 

[Potatohead]

I forgot to mention I have done that too :headwallblue:. I will keep checking but I don't see anything in there. One of the corals that actually hasn't changed much is a mille and I hear those are bad for bugs.

 

[SPS911]

So odd, because I was about to post the same thread. My initial thought always goes to pests but I QT and have inspected them with a ogles mesoscope and they are clean. Looking forward to others ideas

 

[vinhle00]

What kind of lighting do you have? What about recent change out or addition of GFO?

 

[Potatohead]

What kind of lighting do you have? What about recent change out or addition of GFO?

LED/T5 setup. I have been running the LED's (AI's) at about 75 - 80% for a while, I felt the tank was too dim and shimmery and some acros were brownish so I added the T5's maybe six weeks ago and have been turning them up about ten minutes every 3-4 days. Right now I am at 2 3/4 hours with them. I have no signs of bleaching, and color is better. I have been running GFO on the tank since day one, phosphate is typically in the .01 - .04 range depending on how much I feed.

Temp - 78
Ph 8.0 - 8.2 depending on time of day
Salinity - 1.0255
Calcium 420 - 430
Alk - 8.0 - 8.1 (I test this 5-6 times a week and it's always this amount, to the point I thought my Hanna was fubarred but I double checked it last night against a know sample at 6.8, and it was correct. In the last two months I may have had two or three tests at 7.8 - 7.9). I'm using kalk in my top off at 1/2 saturation.
Mag - 1440
Nitrate - 6-8
Phosphate - last night was .042 one hour after I fed pretty heavily.


¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[vinhle00]

At this point i would assume its the light. i would go much slower on the changes.

 

[dieselkeeper]

Any angel fish? I have an acan colony that had polyp extension 24/7. Until I added a swallowtail angel. Which is supposed to be reef safe. A day or two after adding her, the acan colony had no more polyp extension. Only coral in the tank that lost it. I watched for a week until I caught the angel in the act.

 

[Potatohead]

At this point i would assume its the light. i would go much slower on the changes.

OK, I'll scale it back a bit more and go slower. I thought I was going pretty slow already

 

[Potatohead]

Any angel fish? I have an acan colony that had polyp extension 24/7. Until I added a swallowtail angel. Which is supposed to be reef safe. A day or two after adding her, the acan colony had no more polyp extension. Only coral in the tank that lost it. I watched for a week until I caught the angel in the act.

Nope. Two clowns, six line, azure damsel and that's it. All my LPS are still opening like normal.

 

[markalot]

Spy on the tank at night, or very early in the morning and see if you have polyp extension. If so then someone or something is nipping, otherwise keep looking for a source. If everything lost extension at once I might suspect either a contaminant or possibly electrical. Any cheap pumps you can afford to unplug for a few days to see if anything changes?

 

[Potatohead]

I have a good multimeter, if I check the water for voltage, is there normally any at all? What number would be considered maximum?

 

[Potatohead]

Doing some reading it looks like if there was stray voltage, the GFCI would trip (which I do have my tanks on). I also put my hands in the tank a lot to get test water and never had a problem. I'll try lowering the light levels and bringing them up more slowly.

 

[bobssecrtsn]

Have you recently replaced carbon? That may be something to consider

 

[Potatohead]

Have you recently replaced carbon? That may be something to consider

No it's about three weeks old

 

[Potatohead]

I don't know what is going on. I have a purple efflo and a green birdsnest side by side, and some brown algae has started growing on the tips I know is a bad sign. I just tried to blow it off with a turkey baster and tissue/polyps came off of them. Just a week ago they were doing (what seemed) great. :sad2:

 

[Potatohead]

Talking to myself (lol) but I decided to turn everything down for a couple weeks and see what happens. Turned my LED's down 7-8%, cut the T5 photoperiod by 30 mins, and raised them a couple inches. I guess now we wait and see.

 

[bps619]

This might now be it but recently I had no PE and rtn/stn on my acros. Come to find out it was because of my rodi. My membrane was toasted. I did some Water changes with the LFS rodi and it seemed to bounce back. Got my color and PE back. Something to think about it and good luck.

 

[Grant W]

Mag over normal range can give a bit of a burn. Maybe drop back to 1350 range.

 

[Potatohead]

This might now be it but recently I had no PE and rtn/stn on my acros. Come to find out it was because of my rodi. My membrane was toasted. I did some Water changes with the LFS rodi and it seemed to bounce back. Got my color and PE back. Something to think about it and good luck.

Checked that, it's ok, still testing zero. My tap is only 14 to begin with.

Mag over normal range can give a bit of a burn. Maybe drop back to 1350 range.

In the process but it's a bit tough since the salt is mid 1400's when mixed. I could mix in a lower mag content salt I guess.

I do think it was lighting for two reasons - Any of the damaged polyps on my birdsnest are on the top side, and my red planet had some green on the base until a couple weeks ago when it started to turn lighter red, and then a few days later the polyp extension stopped. I have a green monti cap that is a little faded also. My tank doesn't look at all that bright but I guess LED's are pretty strong. I am going to leave at the new lowered setting are for at least two weeks and observe, and then increase my T5 photoperiod slowly without touching LED intensity.