PPE with mouth open

[impur]

I've had 1 polyp of PPE for about 10 days now. The color looks great! But for about the last 5 days its mouth has been open 24/7. Is this a bad sign? Does it want food?

 

[floridareefs]

Are your moonlights on all night? Mine will stay open if there is a slight amont of light hitting them.

 

[twon8]

I had some pe-type that had their mouth open, kind of like a circle gaping. Not good, I lost them.

 

[cardgenius]

Try feeding it a mysis shrimp and see what happens.

 

[impur]

No moonlights. I'll try feeding it and see what happens.

 

[redFishblue]

Gaping mouth is not a good sign.
Is the stalk still plump or has it started shriveling?

 

[impur]

Stalk looks fine.

What typically causes this? The polyp is currently on the sandbed getting medium flow. Lighting is 250w MH.

pH- 8.2
SG- 1.025
alk- 9dKH
calcium- 420ppm
trates, trites, ammonia - 0ppm

 

[twon8]

have you checked for pests? something might be eating it.

 

[Jovreefer]

What lighting did it come from? if its right under the halide you might be burning it.

 

[impur]

Came from under VHOs i believe. I got some RPE from the same guy which were under the same VHOs, but i've got to confirm with him that they were under VHOs. At any rate, the RPE are right next to this PPE and doing great. I guess it wouldn't hurt to move it to a little less light and see how that affects it.


Definately no pests, checked and rechecked and every frag goes into a FW/iodine dip for 5+min before going into the tank.

 

[impur]

Well i moved it to less light. The stalk doesn't look so good either. Its not extending at all.

Any ideas on saving this gem?

 

[Jovreefer]

I'd give it a few days to see if less light helps it. These things are SUPER hardy! Check it at night to see if anything is out and bothering it. If it does not improve you could try giving it a dip in 10 part tank water 1 part h2o2. That may give it a boost.

 

[impur]

Thanks, i'll give it sometime in less light. I've been so worried i'm getting up 3 or 4 times a night to check on it and i have not seen anything bothering it. At one point, about 3 days after i got the frag, one of my ceriths was crawling on its stalk which i thought was wierd. I knocked him off and inspected the stalk but did not see any bite marks or areas that looked damaged. I'm hoping its just too much light, time will tell i suppose.

 

[trueblackpercula]

If itsopen lke this then it is normal,

 

[impur]

Here is what it looks like, this is this morning before the lights came on

 

[Jovreefer]

Well it does not look to bad to me. I'm not sure whats up with the open mouth but I've seen the shrunking stalk on my frags for the first few weeks if i were to slice the stalk off to frag it. Also sometimes when a small frag is producing new polyps, I guess they do it to conserve energy until the new polyp is open enough to produce its own energy (thats my theory anyway)

the pic is very blurry but do I see a bud in the front?

 

[gemini aquarius(t)]

i dont seeanything wrong the mouth doesnt look open but u can probably see it better than me cause u can see it in real life!

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Agree that it does look like it is gapping. Not sure if it's related, but my clams gap at times when there are problems with light level/intensity... I usually fix it by adjusting location. I think he's right when he says shade it for a bit going from VHOs to MH.

Just my two cents. Hope you save it!


Laurie

 

[impur]

Ok it came from 175w MH. So its not THAT much more light, maybe just enough though. This morning the stalk looks a lot better, much darker like it should be.

Thanks for all the help everyone!!