Sps no polyp extension

[heller792]

Hi. Ive been keeping sps for about 4 months now and when i first started i collected a frag of a solid green/blue acro. When i looked at it in my friends tank it had really great polyp extensions (about 5 mm). I then introdued the frag into my tank only to find after a week all the polyps had retracted never to be seen again. Any idea? I change 10 percent every week and overskimm with a skimmer rated for twice the tanks volume. I also test everything weekly and as of a couple of hours ago these were the results.

salinity 1.026
Nitrate 0 tetra and salifert
Nitrite 0 Salifert
ammonia 0 salifert
Mag 1500 salifert
kh 8 salifert
calcium 450 salifert

I have a ph swing from 8.3 to 7.8 at night and ive posted in chemistry forum to try and get an answer to that. I also use prodibio reef kit and zeo start, phols xtra, zeo bac and zeo food.

Any advice and i would be grateful

Dave

 

[seaguy7]

Do you have any angelfish or butterfly fish? When I added a dwarf angel (Potters), my PE disappeared during the day but would look good at night. I never saw the Potter nipping until one morning right after the lights came on. I sold him off and I again have great PE during the day. Some people have great success keeping SPS with angels and limited daytime PE. Most SPS do not have PE during the day in wild natural reefs since there are usually fish around that nip so it isn't a requirement.

If you get no PE at night (when checking with a flashlight), then you likely have some other issue.

 

[heller792]

Nope, dont have any angels or butterfly. The coral has become a really vivid blue and looks really healthy but like i said its just strange that its not extending anymore. I will have a look to see if i can find a pic of it when it went into the tank and what it looks like now.

Dave

 

[laud]

Do you have a picture of it?

 

[heller792]

the mrs will be back in about 30 mins with the camera. I will post one as soon as shes home.

 

[heller792]

Heres a pic of the frag in question.

Its not just this one, non of my acros have any real extension.

Dave

 

[volcom69]

Lack of food, to many nutrients, and non stable water parameters all seem to have an effect of PE well at least in my tank thats how it is. So i would look at these things and see if any of these are the culprit.

 

[southstar066]

Check for red bugs. I had them and they will take away all polyp extension on the coral they are hosting. Once I got rid of them I got my PE back

 

[laud]

Maybe it needs some time to acclimate. The color looks awesome. I got a green slimer that took almost two weeks for any pe. Now it is shaggy.

How much flow do you have?

 

[rmosqued]

I don't know, if this will help, but when I purchased a good size sps frag a month ago, I noticed the PE wasn't so great at a dkh of 9, but when I adjusted it to 11dkh, the frag is doing well, it looks pretty hairy too.

 

[sanababit]

look for red bugs

sana

 

[flamron]

http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html

Lots of good info on redbugs!

 

[heller792]

thanks all, cant see any red bugs but i will check again tomorrow

 

[AquamanE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15175998#post15175998 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by heller792
thanks all, cant see any red bugs but i will check again tomorrow

IMO they sometimes are not visible unless you take a close up pic and zoom it with software.