So I have this Scolymia....

fuzz1974

New member
I have a scolymia that has been in my tank for 4-5 months. It is doing good, but the last week or so it has had it's mouth open. It still blows up nicely, it eats when I put food on him, but it just has it's mouth open. What does this mean? My calcium is around 380-410, ph is 8.2, temp 81.7, alk is 120mg/l. Zero on ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, also phosphates.





Thanks,
Fuzz
 
your temp is a little high dont u think? But that might not be why his mouth is open. It can just be the way he is, it could mean nothing.
 
My corals, including scolymia and cynarina, don't like the lower end of acceptable alkalinity (120 mg/L should be like 7 dKH according to this conversion table ). I'm trying to keep 8.5- 10dKH, but this is personal reference. They also don't like the rapid changes, the dripping bottle, like Agu did, would be a good way for adding alkalinity supplement.

Also, I kept mine in direct sun (souther window, late autumn and winter) in the very shallow water, the high temperature wasn't liked too, tolerable - within 80.5F.

It did better in a separate brains tank, and in the tank with the few soft corals, than in mixed softies/LPS tank, but the last had tendency to produce a lot of detritus in a short time and have a low alkalinity (7-7.5 dKH), so it's hard to say, was it the influence of the soft corals or the tank conditions.
In a clean tank with a good light, even with spare feedings, it grow big quite fast.

Proximity of the heater (within 2"), with the flow from it right in direction of the coral - anothing thing that may contribute to the worsening condition. But mine contracted, not had a droopy mouth.

For an open mouth, my guess would be toxins, temperature, direct strong flow and low alkalinity - either of them.

All of the above was about the pale green kind of scolymia.
 
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