feeding euphyllia/coral and polyp reaction?

[Chris Craig]

I got a question about how polyps react to feeding. I had my tank cycle for three months before I put any coral in it. I currently have 1 porites, 2 montipora, 1 ricordia, 1seriatopora 1 euphyllia. the corals have all been in the tank for two weeks and polyp extensions been great on all coral and there color and size are increasing wonderfully; the seriatopora grows about .5-1mm each day and everyone appears to be eating things in the water column. Today I feed my euphyllia a piece of shrimp about 1cc in size and it took it! That was awesome I thought. Later this evening its polyps started to retract... I got worried that the light my have been to bright; I have a Orbit Current Marine Pro led and had it on the coral acclimation setting (40%) and had switched it to the regular mode last night. So anyway I was a ding bat and moved it...and dropped it on the substrate! I decided I had done more damage myself and put it back. After a bit I saw a little of the shrimp regurgitated but not all of it. Now that the moon light cycles on its seeming to be fine and the mouth that ate still seems as if there is food in it. To the question, do LPD polyps have reactions after eating and during digestion, and was this what my euphyllia was doing ( it happened quite afew hours after feeding; 8 to be exact) or was my euphyllia responding to its own circadian rhythm and the change in lightin made it retract as it did? All so was this regurgitation something to worry about?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[sde1500]

Best to not mess with the corals, euphyllia tend to retract for no reason. I came down this morning to 80% of my torch heads retracted. Minutes later they were all out. Sometimes they just do it, sometimes its related to food, expelling waste, something touching it, etc.

 

[MondoBongo]

double check your alkalinity.

in the past i've noticed diminished polyp extension from my euphyllia when alkalinity is low. it also happens sometimes for unexplained reasons, but an alk swing is an easy thing to rule out.

if the alk number is solid, then i wouldn't worry too much about it unless it persists for a day or more.

 

[Chris Craig]

Right on, thanks for the feed back! That's kind of what I thought, that was the first time I messed with anything and learned my lesion the dropping way. The euphyllia looks all good now. My parameters are Cal 350 ( just dosed some kalkwasser with top off) dKH 9.2, Mag 1400, nitrate <.2, Phos 0. All these according to the books and other opinions ive been reading on the forums are OK but could use a little dialing in. But every thing is growing...which the calcium is telling me; it was 450 four days ago. I also have seachem reef builder which I'm going to try to increase my dKH with.

Cheers,
Chris