Polyp Extension

[ca1ore]

Curious for an opinion or two ....

I have a 265 display that is SPS heavy and an attached 60 frag tank. Obviously the water quality is identical, and I run the same combination of lights over both. SPS growth is about the same in both tanks, but I get significantly more daytime polyp extension in the frag tank than I do in the display. At night, it's about the same.

Why would this be?

Picture is left end of display.

 

[quahreef]

Flow or lights?

 

[Aquattro]

Fish nipping?

 

[Guygettnby]

I was thinking maybe a difference in flow perhaps.

 

[Peter Eichler]

My first suspect would be the butterflies are taking a nip every now and then, that's all is would take. Any Centropyge angels in there as well?

 

[Myka]

I'm guessing fish nipping too. It's amazing what one little fish can do with "occasional" nips. I had a Flame Angelfish in a 90-gallon SPS tank that I saw take a nip on rare occasions, and when the fish was removed polyp extension was crazy.

 

[Tweaked]

Fish nipping.. Or pooping IMO. Flow is probably where you would look first.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I concur with the above that it could be due to flow or fish nipping.

Can you provide a full list of fish in your tank please? Those butterflies should be OK with your corals. From what I can see in the picture, it could be the regal tang.

 

[sahin]

I'd bet it's one of the fish nipping.

 

[Oldude]

Seeing that you have pyramid butterflies & a regal tang I'll add another probable fish nipping vote. I have had both and once they got to be about 3 years old both mentioned fish turned into polyp nippers. However that said, in my experience there is more to polyp extension than just having the same water in both tanks - there are other differences that can also be at play with the overall environvment.

 

[ca1ore]

in my experience there is more to polyp extension than just having the same water in both tanks - there are other differences that can also be at play with the overall environvment.

Such as?

 

[ca1ore]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment. As I noted, lighting is the same in both tanks, and I think it's probably not flow. I think it probably is fish nipping, I was just curious to see if anyone would propose any other potential cause. In addition to the pyramid trio and regal tang, I do have a flame and potters angel. They have made life difficult for my clams as I see them regularly sampling the mantles, but I never see than go for the SPS.

I guess the good news is that the corals aren't dying and continue to grow, despite the relative lack of PE.

 

[Oldude]

Such as?

Environmental changes such as placement, flow, PAR, etc. I know you said the lighting is the same but there would likely be a difference in light height -coral depth and so on. These are not likely factors since you have the fish you do. Best of luck, I have seen a lot of corals grow pretty well without any noticable PE so you should be ok.

 

[Myka]

Flow can certainly make a significant difference. I had an SPS tank with about 40x turnover with some Koralia powerheads - upped it to just under 100x turnover with Tunzes ramping up and down and the difference In PE was day and night.