New to Acanthastrea, question about my frag

[LockeOak]

A few days ago I bought a small frag of Acanthastrea from the LFS and I'm attempting to gauge it's health. It appears to be an accidental frag (thus the very low price) from one of their colonies, it has one whole polyp, one polyp that is almost intact and two polyps that are less than half present when the frag broke off. It is purple with a red inner ring and a green mouth (the purple and red are roughly the color of coralline algae). It's under 130W PC 50/50 with what I would consider moderate flow. For the first day or two it looked pretty unhappy, very "deflated" flesh with prominent columnellae. I have seen no polyp extension day or night. Yesterday it looked a little better, more "full", and today the flesh around the rim of the skeleton where it broke is puffed up. It looks very similar to the head of a dividing frogspawn when it has a "bubble" where the head is splitting. I'm interpreting this as a good sign, does this mean that it's growing or at least healing up around the edges? Also, the only food I have handy at the moment are Formula 1/2 pellets, will they make an attempt to eat this food if it's fed directly until I get some mysis? Thanks!

 

[Jefe12234]

Yeah, a lot of my frags will puff up along the edges as they grow down the side of the skeleton where they were cut. I have an Acan that I got as a frag from an LFS as well. A lot of the frags I get this way are not very healthy looking at first. The tissue is stretched with skeletal features clearly visible beneath. I find that feeding them really helps at this time. Although, they usually don't have enough polyp extension to feed yet, so I cut off the bottom of a 20oz bottle (or whatever size will fit) and place it over the frag. Then I use a syringe with some airline tubing to place food on top of the polyps. The mouths will consume the food even without the help of feeding tentacles. I would also try to use a finer food than whole mysis. Pellets should work, but try to chop the mysis up if you use that. It makes it easier for them to digest.

 

[LockeOak]

Well, I just did a little experiment. With all of the pumps/powerheads off I dropped a formula 1 (the meatier variety) down a straw held right over the mouth of the mostly intact polyp. It landed close to the center of the mouth, the polyp "walked" it over to the mouth and swallowed it whole. I saw only a hint of tentacles, it looks like it may be putting them out now but they weren't necessary for it to move the pellet a short distance to the mouth. Great, it matches your experiences Jefe. Thanks!

 

[Jefe12234]

Great! Do that every other day or even every day and it should be looking much better within a couple weeks or so.