tubinaria pelata acting wierd

[jezzeaepi]

I have had my tubinaria pelata for about a month. Every day the polyps have been extended, and it always responded well to feeding. For the last two days the polyps have been retracted all day. It hasnt extended even during feeding time. Is this something normal or should I be concerned?

The only things that have changed in my tank since the time that it was doing fine and the time that it retracted was1 water change and the addition of a few small lps frags(that arent showing any sweeper tentacles and are 6+ inches away).

Ill recheck my paramaters, but as of 2 days ago:
5 nitrate
0 nitrite/amonia
8.25 ph
420 calcium
1320 magnesium
2.95 alk
.5 phosphate(this I just started testing for, but dont suspect that its jumped at all because my feeding has remained constant)

Im going to recheck them all now, but dont expect that theyve changed. I rechecked amonia and nitrate last ngiht and they were unchanged.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[johnski]

my tubinaria pelata closed once for 3 weeks, i thought it was a goner, then it just came out again, just keep an eye on it , maybe be doing whatever mine was doing

John

 

[jezzeaepi]

Thanks for the reply. Im hoping thats all it is. I have a ton of other small coral colonies in the tank and they have all been extending as normal. The two frags that I added on the day where it closed up was a blasto merlti and a candy cane. Both are located a foot+ away. It was my understanding that only soft corals put out chemicals that bothered other corals? I replaced my carbon jsut to be safe.

 

[IslandCrow]

My T. peltata does seem to be very vulnerable to the attacks of other corals, so even though it sounds like yours are well spaced, I may not rule it out completely. I have a small hammer frag about 4-5 inches away that seems to be affecting it. I haven't seen any sweeper tentacles, but it releases some sort of stringy mucus that causes the peltata's polyps to close up. The good news, if that's the case, is that it doesn't seem to do any permanent damage. Hopefully yours is just being shy, though. It sounds like your parameters are fine. You probably are already, but also make sure it's not collecting any detritus. That seems to keep mine from opening fully as well. Ironically, it's only when the polyps are fully open that the detritus gets trapped on it.