What determines the length of frogspawn tentacles

[tydtran]

I have a healthy green frogspawn. 12-15 heads, 8 in. across when fully open. Over the last month, i have noticed the tentacles getting shorter. No change in lights, water, or tank inhabitants. Coral still opens all heads fully, just short tentcles. It used to be that the tentacles stretched out 2-3 in. Now they are about 1 inch. Is this typical behavior? Is their anything to encourage longer tentacles? Are they healthier when their tentacles are short or when they're long?

 

[DetectiveTofu]

What kind of flow are they receiving? Any change in that? try feeding them once or twice a week to see if that encourages anything.

 

[jadeguppy]

I've heard they may recess some when splitting. Are all the heads doing it to the same extent?

 

[fierceseaman]

I have noticed they pull back a little bit when they begin to split.

 

[kawicivic]

I have also noticed they pull back when splitting too.... i find that corals grow out then up and then repeat the process.... in a couple weeks I would guess that it will start stretching out again and I think the stretching process is when they grow up the most.

 

[Frostyeel]

Are you feeding it? My plate coral did something similar where over time it extended its tentacles less and less until it was barely extending them at all. I started feeding it twice a week a few weeks ago and now it looks much happier and its tentacles are almost fully extended.

 

[tydtran]

Thanks for all the input. Flow in my tank is 25X turnover. All the heads do it to the same extent. I will try directly feeding them. It doesn't look like it is splitting, but then again I have never seen it split before and probably don't know what to look for.