Shrinking Colt Coral

[nmywrx]

Over the last month my colt coral has been slowly shrinking, and it has been in my tank since April. All of my water parameters appear to be normal. All the other corals in my tank are doing fine. Does anybody have any ideas what could be causing this or what I can do to correct it?

 

[gh0st]

In my experience, colts tend to shrink when the temp gets too high or fluctuates a lot, alkalinity is low, lighting is insufficient, or it isn't getting enough to eat.

That being said, listing your water parameters and lighting info may shed so me light on the problem as well.

 

[nmywrx]

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
PH - 7.8 (just after the lights come on), 8.2 (before lights go off)
Alkalinity - 2.9
Salinity - 1.0265

My temp probably fluctuates between 78 and 82. My heater doesn't seem to do a good job of keeping the temperature steady. For my lighting I have a 150w HQI. The colt is pretty close to the surface. At leaste it was before it started shrinking.

 

[gh0st]

Boosting the alk a bit may help. I tend to keep mine around 4-5 meqs or 8 to 10 dkh.

Adding a cooling fan in your canopy or on the sump may help stabilize the temp, but you'll evaporate like crazy, so be sure and up the top offs.

 

[OZDIVER]

I was having the same problem with my colt coral and after talking with someone I determined my problem was over-skimming. Now I run my skimmer maybe a day or two a week and my colt coral is happy and huge.

 

[nmywrx]

Thanks for the replies. I did find the culprit. I looked under the frag that my colt was on and there was a nudibranch sitting there fat and happy. It looked exactly like a cluster of polyps from my colt coral. Those things are masters at camouflage. This was a couple of days ago and since then my colt seems to be regaining his strength. Actually he was getting kinda big in my AP24. I am just glad I caught it in time.

Thanks again.