Why can I keep Acan Echinata but not Acan Lords?

[bphelps81]

I keep a 125 gallon mixed reef with sps, lps and softies. Everything seems to thrive with the exception of a few things.....Acan Lords and Zoas.

I keep the Lord's low placement with moderate low flow. My echinatas thrive nearby (not too close). The lords justdon't open up fully. There feeders are out at night. I don't get it.

Are they susceptible to something? Are they difficult to keep happy? I keep my SG at 1.024. Nitrates and Nitrites are low but I don't really monitor anything else. I've never seen any fish or inverts near them.

Other lps that thrive in the system are lobos, hammer, torch, frogspawn, bubble, war coral.

Some lps I've had difficulty with in this system are elegance and dragon soul favia.

What should I be looking at?

 

[Philly_Reefer]

not sure I can answer 100% but follow up questions, Mentioning u have thriving lps is not telling whole story. How old is setup or the corals that you are saying are thriving. I know I have battled zoas happiness in the past, and I monitor a lot and it never made sense, after my system matured the zoas started thriving in that they are now huge colonies over the years. So that is my reason for questioning the definition of thriving. (edit) p.s. my levels I can test never changed, only thing that changed was maturity of tank

now on to questions, have you tried diff placements? what kind of lighting do u have? what was the lighting the corals came from? did u acclimate the lighting? these can help paint a better picture for us. want to help

 

[bphelps81]

Thanks for the response. The tank is a fairly mature tank, about 3.5 years. I have tried different placements, mostly low in the tank with SPS on top shelfs. I tried to keep them in the low flow zones in my tank as well. I have LED lighting with blue at 60% and whites at 40% during peak hours. As far as acclimation to the lighting I usually try to start with partially shaded area and move them out to unshaved over tims.

 

[Tweaked]

I too have moved away from lords as I seem to kill LPS with large mouths incluing meats, lobos, etc. My echinata's are doing amazing, and just recently added an acan micromussa colony. 2 months in and looking good. We shall see.