Corals that do nothing

[JG1]

Any advice for corals that neither grow or color up for months on end? I have a ice fire echinata frag that I received in March. It's roughly a 1/3-1/2" little nub, very light base (whitish). Looks exactly like this but a tiny nub of it.

It has very good polyp ext at night and even during the day sometimes. Problem it it will not grow at all, or even color up. The edges of the tip are VERY light blue, lighter then the pic above.

I have the frag about 2/3 the way down in a 20" tank with a 6 bulb PM 7.5" above the tank.

I'm not sure if I should try the coral in a different spot or just let it be.

 

[lolgranny]

did you acclimate it to your light before mounting it? You might of light shocked it. I know they are slower growers, so its possible its just getting use to your tank. If it has good PE its clearly happy and i wouldn't move it.

 

[Logzor]

Your coral is suffering from either photo-inhibition (too much light) or it is being starved (not feeding enough, too much GFO, etc). It could be a combination of those issues, even.

Double check your salinity and make sure that you're measuring with a refractometer calibrated with calibration fluid. The symptoms you mentioned could also be a result of high salinity.

 

[DustinB]

I have noticed with smaller frags, sometimes they just won't do much for a while. Most of the time when they do start to grow it will encrust pretty good, then sprout stalks from the encrusted part and the original "stalk" never grows. I have a few like this still in my tank. Maybe something to do with being so small and not being able to produce enough food to grow well.

One example, I have a colony that used to be about a 3/4" frag of LE Turquoise Lovelli. It took about 4 months to encrust across the plug, then one day it just decided to start sprout shoots from the encrusted area. It took off from there and those shoots rapidly grew into large stalks.

 

[JG1]

Here's that little nub. It's encrusted well over the last 4-5 months but other than that, nothing.

 

[JSeymour]

Looks like it's doing well. I think your just seeing why echinata can be so expensive, slow growth. Like Dustin said, your first branches will likely come from the base not the "frag". If a coral has encrusted good, but isn't growing, I'll cause some minor damage wherever I want a branch to start. Seems to work well.

 

[Reef Bass]

Echinatas can be slow growers, and I've experienced similar growth patterns to what JustinB describes with new small frags which encrust first and then send up new vertical growth from the freshly encrusted parts while the original vertical growth never grows further.

I've noticed in general that when an acro branch no longer displays a brightly colored tip, that branch is done growing.

 

[wizardx322]

icefire is super slow grower i've had mine for almost a year and it hasn't grown more then an inch

 

[chessmanmark]

You took a lovely picture, but what I want to see is the base. Some corals will take up to a year to base before taking off.

 

[saw wave analog]

It may be small, but it looks awesome

 

[Whisperer]

Many frags first establish a wider base and shoot peripheral branches from it rather than growing vertically from the tip of the original frag. There are many variables as to rate of growth such as the specie, lighting, flow, nutrients, predators, parasites, external irritants ( such as frequent manipulation or moving of the frag).

 

[JG1]

Thanks guys.

It has encrusted pretty nicely, and the polyps are always at least partially out. Perhaps it's just throwing a solid base before it goes vertical.

 

[B3ach]

Your coral is suffering from either photo-inhibition (too much light) or it is being starved (not feeding enough, too much GFO, etc). It could be a combination of those issues, even.

Double check your salinity and make sure that you're measuring with a refractometer calibrated with calibration fluid. The symptoms you mentioned could also be a result of high salinity.

Sorry to jack the thread, but how can corals suffer from too much GFO? What does too much of it do the tank?

 

[Snowsrfr]

It may be small, but it looks awesome

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.......

 

[M88A2]

I remember reading somewhere that corals need a miniscule amount of phos. and having an ULN systm deprives them of the tiny amount they need. I think it was posted that to combat this, ppl with ULN systems tend to feed a bit more than average. Additionally, you have to aclimate the corals to an ULN system if they didnt come from one already. Using too much GFO doesnt allow for this aclimation and shocks the system/coral. I'm no expert and just going off of memory so someone correct me if i made and error.

 

[stevejrnc]

Was the frag the end of the mothers longest branch
I have a wild one and have notices the longest brach frags
haven't grown
but frags taken from the newer shorter braches are growing
not fast but are doing somthing

 

[jbanks]

I agree with many others here JG1. This is a slow grower, I have mine right beneath my hawkins, which is just off the botom of my tank and although I hadn't seen much growth in almost a year, the coral has laid down a nice base and has colored up very nicely. Its actually starting to show some growth now. I think your frag looks great. Just give her time and stability.