Daytime PE

Ssteve

New member
Tank is doing pretty good with great Polyp Extension at night and once the lights come on they retract.

I know everyone says its the fish, but I can sit at the tank when the lights come on and watch all the polyps retract about 75% within a ten minute period. Ive never seen any fish nip at corals and when I watch the tank when the lights come on, most of the fish are completely inactive during that time.

system specs:
120g
6bulb t5's
alk 8.0-8.5(been as high as 9.8 in the past with no difference in pe)
cal 450
mag 1420
nitrates/nitrites I dont know, dont test for them.
 
1 hippo
2 blue damsels
2 blk/wht damsels
2 fire fish
1 hippo tang
1 flame hawk
2 anthias
1 algae blenny
1 coral beauty
I know the coral beauty is the usual suspect but hes the latest addition and I didnt have pe before him.

Ill test the water here shortly. My issue with that is that I have seen plemty of tanks with elivated levels have perfectly fine PE.
 
So no ammonia
Nitrites are zero
Nitrates are between 0 and 2. Just enough to be a tad detectable but less than 2

This seems to be the case over the last 8 months to a year but over the last 4 months I only tested no3 once or twice.
 
Ill test the water here shortly. My issue with that is that I have seen plemty of tanks with elivated levels have perfectly fine PE.



I was more concerned with there being zero nutrients in the water rather than the other way around. You've seen my tank and I would say it leans toward "excessively nutrient laden" and I have pretty good pe.

I was more wondering if the polyps weren't out because there wasn't anything for them to eat or whatever
 
yeah my tank is far from low nutrients. I feed three to four times a day usually and recently started braodcast feeding reefroids once or twice a week. I also only run carbon and at a low amount.
 
Check your light intensity as well. If your SPS is growing with good color I wouldn't worry but having a good PE when lights are ON is a big plus.
 
What kind of sps are you keeping? At night my entire tank has great PE but during the day only my milli's, tenius and a few others have great PE. I have also had prior tank's where it was great PE and then some that had very poor daylight PE. Like mentioned above, if they are growing well and colored up well you are doing well.
 
I have a good mix with just a couple millis and they have great PE, but none of my acros have any during the day.
 
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I would say hippo, low nutrient and too much light!

But why would you want pe?

If there is no food in the water ...

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