Help with favia

[Recliner]

I've had my favia/brain for 6-7 months now and tried a couple different placements and I just can't seem to get it healthy/growing.
I have currently have it on the bottom of my 150 tall tank, so it's about 26" below the surface. I have reef breeder value led lights with 90 degree optics.
I've never seen it extend any tentacles ever. It did look a little worse when I got it but it really hasn't changed all that much.
Salinity: 1.025
Calcium: 420-440
Kh: 8
Phosphate: ranges from 0-.25 depending on how well I keep up on changing out my gfo (changing it today)
Nitrate: 0-10 usually pretty steady at 5
Ammonia and nitrite: 0

 

[Reef Frog]

I think I own the exact same morph as you have there. Had it for about 2 years. Two small frags mounted about 12" - 14" below the water line. 6 T5s are maybe 4" above the water line. It didn't do squat for the first year; no growth & didn't notice tentacles. But the green & teal colors always looked pretty good.

But during the second year it slowly encrusted over the LR, increasing in size maybe 30% or so. A very slow grower for me. I see very short tentacles now (not real obvious, kind of looks like short brown fuzz) for a brief period only at night, usually when the water is rich with planktonic food. It's quite possible that I just missed the feeding behavior before. Look closely at night if you can.

Mine is in the middle of the tank in moderate but steady, direct flow from an MP40 running at about 25-30% power.

These Favia IME can get along just fine with photosynthesis & whatever they can snag from the water column. Target feeding will increase growth but is optional IMO. I don't know what your LED equivalent is, but mid tank moderate T5 works well. But I'm not a fan of the bottom/sand for this coral though. I lost a nice Christmas favia colony on thin rock on the sand early on & felt that the contact with the sand bed provided a vector for what killed it (my guess was a bacterial issue but not sure). But I have these corals expanding nicely on LR & think that's best. Hope this info gives you an idea on how to proceed. But as long as the polyps aren't receding, melting or otherwise getting funky, you'll be OK. But success may take a while.....

 

[Recliner]

Thanks, I'm selling a bunch of coral tomorrow and should be able to free up some space a little off the sand bed. I'll try that for the next 3-4 months.

 

[Wretched]

I have mine placed up high interestingly enough. I had it on the sandbed and it wasn't happy(24" depth) under luxeon leds. I frag him a lot and he grows back quick.