Duncan Issues

[ceruleanseaslug]

I have a stock biocube 29 and I just got a duncan a few days ago. It's been doing great up until yesterday. It's started closing more fully at night, and taking hours to open up when the lights come on. The tentacles have gotten skinny and I've noticed a lot are kind of bent up and not extended while the oral disc is out. I have it in the middle of the tank and it was looking way better than it did at the lfs until now. I bought a blue spotted toby puffer the day when it started to look a little bad. I took it back because it was going after some other corals so maybe it nipped at the duncan a little and it hasn't recovered yet? The other lps corals in the tank are doing great. All the other lps I have right now is a cyphastrea and a candy cane. They seem to do a lot better than my mushrooms and polyps for some reason. I'm probably going to take all the softies back and trade them in for lps. My nitrates are a little below 5 if that helps. I've had the candy cane for 3 months and the cyphastrea since yesterday when I brought the puffer back. I don't have a calcium, alk, or mag test but I'm going to get one soon. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[acexotix]

When I started my biocube, the duncan was my first coral. It did the exact same thing. Funny thing is, I even had the blue spot puffer too. I never found anything in any of my tests and to this day don't know what was going on. I ended up having a fellow reefer keep it in his tank for a few months. After my tank was about 7 months old, I put it back in and it had done fantastic ever since. It's grown from 1 to 9 heads in probably 3 months. I know this isn't much help but just thought Id share that I had the same experience you're having and it seemed time was all it took.

 

[Kolkri]

Are you feeding it? Where is it in the tank. Mine likes to sit on the bottom in the sand.

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

Well I think I'll just keep it in my tank for a couple more weeks and see how it does. Thanks for the story though, that was very interesting.

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

I feed it mysis every day or two and I have it up in the rocks, about midlevel.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Put it in the sandbed in a lower flow area and see what happens

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

I moved it down the rocks to an area of lower flow, I actually have a lot of flow in my sandbed.

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

Well I fed it and it looks a lot better. Not quite as good as before, but much better. What still bothers me is the tentacles that are kind of bent

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

There are also some tiny little dark brown spots on the part between the tentacles and the basae

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Need to see a picture

 

[homer1475]

Need to see a picture

+1

Definitely need a picture. Could be brown jelly, could be tissue recession, could be nothing. Without a picture, we are shooting in the dark.

 

[CuhRaig]

I have 6 heads in my 29 bio in the sand bed and I target feed it mysis. Started with 6 heads and 2 more already growing in less than 2 weeks. Such an awesome coral hope you figure it out!!!

 

[CuhRaig]

Heres a shot of mine

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

It's pretty much worked itself out except for that the base is brown instead of green. Thank you!

 

[schryvertime]

It's pretty much worked itself out except for that the base is brown instead of green. Thank you!

Glad to hear that. I'm going to be getting my first Duncan at the end of the week so trying to read anything and everything about them. Keep us/me updated on it as the week progresses.
GL

 

[ceruleanseaslug]

Some of its tentacles bend up a little bit sometimes and it's not quite as big as it has been in the past, but it's time for the water change tonight so hopefully that will help.