acan polyp recession

andiesreef

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hey everybody. my acan that i've had for 2 weeks has recently stopped looking puffy and healthy like it did 3 days ago. everything seems ok. my other corals look as bright and beautiful as ever. i feed it every few days. any ideas as to what's wrong?

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Jekyl

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Parameters and lighting?
 
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andiesreef

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Parameters and lighting?
light: not sure, probably around 125 par?
ammonia: 0ppm (tetra strip kit)
nitrites: 0ppm (tetra strip kit)
nitrates: <20ppm (tetra strip kit)
alk: ~8 dkh (tetra strip kit)
calcium: 350 ppm (redsea kit)
magnesium: 1200 ppm (redsea kit)
phos: <0.25 (API)
ph: ~7.8 to 8.2

just did my biweekly waterchange though
 

Jekyl

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Did you just start this tank? Corals should wait a month or so after fish are added. Even then they don't really thrive until even later. If intending on being serious about corals I'd get yourself some salifert kits instead of the tetra. How big of a water change do you do?
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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Did you just start this tank? Corals should wait a month or so after fish are added. Even then they don't really thrive until even later. If intending on being serious about corals I'd get yourself some salifert kits instead of the tetra. How big of a water change do you do?
my tank has been set up for 3 months. my cycle was over 2 months ago, so i added soft corals. all good. they are healthy, so i added in some more. still good. then my first lps (acans and some duncans that are fine). did a 25% WC.
 

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Softies doing well but LPS not doing well points to a possible pH issue since LPS has bones so will be more sensitive to pH instability.

Get a better test. The current range ofb7.8 to 8.2 is wayy to big of a fluctuation to be a good environment for stony corals.
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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Softies doing well but LPS not doing well points to a possible pH issue since LPS has bones so will be more sensitive to pH instability.

Get a better test. The current range ofb7.8 to 8.2 is wayy to big of a fluctuation to be a good environment for stony corals.
that's a great point. however, my duncans look super healthy. it just seems to be the acan (for now). and as for range, it honestly depends on the day. i don't really know what i can do to stabilize ph as it fluctuates a little throughout the day?
 

Jekyl

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I'm sure my Ph fluctuates like that and it doesn't cause issues. Anyone who doesn't have chaeto on an opposite light schedule will see the same swings.
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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I'm sure my Ph fluctuates like that and it doesn't cause issues. Anyone who doesn't have chaeto on an opposite light schedule will see the same swings.
this is my first reef tank so i just put the HOB filtration, heater, etc. in the main tank vs plumbing a sump right off the bat so there's no chaeto bed running right now and i have no plans to add one.
 

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My tank is 2 years old and I don't run a sump or chaeto. I do have a skimmer though. I don't think I'd run without one anymore.
 

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please note that pH scale is exponential - the CO3-- concentration (the ion that coral use to form Calcium Carbonate, or calcification) at a pH of 7.8 is approx 3x or 4x less than the concentration at 8.2.

Corals may be able to tolerate a daily swing of this but it doesn't mean they'll like it. If all the rest of your parameters, lighting, and nutrition is spot on, most likely this swing will not make a difference. However, this swing significantly decreases your margin of error in terms of what you need to maintain to keep your corals healthy.

There are countless evidence that maintaining a stable pH towards the 8.2 range can significantly boost stony coral growth and health.

in other words, 7.2 - 8.2 is OK if everything else is perfect. stable 8.2 gives u a much bigger safety blanket and generally promote better health and hardier corals, everything else equal.
 

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Newly added corals, start low in the tank and then acclimate to higher par and flow. Acans in my tank typically like lower light levels and lower flow, though. Also directly feeding them meaty foods 1-2 times per week hello then to grow a bit faster.
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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Newly added corals, start low in the tank and then acclimate to higher par and flow. Acans in my tank typically like lower light levels and lower flow, though. Also directly feeding them meaty foods 1-2 times per week hello then to grow a bit faster.
i just moved the acan out of high light and i'll probably relocate it to low flow if it continues to recede.
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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please note that pH scale is exponential - the CO3-- concentration (the ion that coral use to form Calcium Carbonate, or calcification) at a pH of 7.8 is approx 3x or 4x less than the concentration at 8.2.

Corals may be able to tolerate a daily swing of this but it doesn't mean they'll like it. If all the rest of your parameters, lighting, and nutrition is spot on, most likely this swing will not make a difference. However, this swing significantly decreases your margin of error in terms of what you need to maintain to keep your corals healthy.

There are countless evidence that maintaining a stable pH towards the 8.2 range can significantly boost stony coral growth and health.

in other words, 7.2 - 8.2 is OK if everything else is perfect. stable 8.2 gives u a much bigger safety blanket and generally promote better health and hardier corals, everything else equal.
that's super informative, thanks! how would i stabilize my ph without a sump though?
 

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that's super informative, thanks! how would i stabilize my ph without a sump though?
so this is where it will take some work/research to do investigate and do it right b/c blindly chasing pH can do more harm than good and thats why generally many folks on this forum is more on the side of "just worry about your alk" as long as pH is "in range". Without a sump, your options will be limited, so maybe there's not much you can do right now and just have to live with the swings. However, if you want to just understand more on pH, keep reading.

pH swing is most commonly caused by swing of CO2 concentration in your tank, so what you should really look into is "why is the co2 swinging this much?". High CO2 = low pH, and vice versa.

first and foremost, you should make you you have accurate readings - if it tend to jump all over the place, then chances are its the pH test that's not accurate. so chances are you may just have a "low ph" issue instead of a pH swing issue where the "swings" are just caused by testing inaccuracies. Normal pH swings you should generally see that it follows a very consistent cycle daily - highest during the day, lowest during the night. so if you measure pH on the same time every day, you should get a similar reading each day.

Assume you have a good pulse on your tanks pH swings, then you can look into why your CO2 swings that much. An easy factor to identify is obviously your livestock - corals photosynthesize only during the day, while fish/bacterial produce co2 so at night co2 raises, lowers pH. However, unless your tank is soo fully stocked where the night cycle can drive co2 that high, and you have so much corals/algaes that it can fully absorb and reset during the day when it photosynthesizes, that often times there is a second factors thats overlooked a lot that's contributing to the pH swing.

This second factor is the tank's ambient room co2 concentration - with sufficient surface agitation a tank's co2 concentration will equalize with the room's concentration - so.. is your room's co2 lower during the day b/c either no one's home b/c your are at work, or maybe because its warm out and you opened windows? and is the co2 higher at night b/c your whole family is home and you closed the windows?

so i think the first step for you is identifying the cause and better understand how pH works in reef tanks. Randy has an excellent article here: http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/ and here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/index.php

BRSTV also did a few good pH videos that you can find on youtube.

a few effective ways to correctly manage pH is:

1) open windows to let more fresh air in and reduce CO2 ambient concentration
2) if you have skimmer - run the skimmer air intact from outside.
3) get a co2 scrubber - this will mitigate but not completely solve high ambient room co2 issues, b/c while the scrubber will pull the co2 out, the regular surface agitation and the air exchange that comes from that will off set the scrubber's effectiveness a bit b/c that air exchange is still dumping more co2 into the tank.
4) refugium on opposite light cycle.
5) if your coral stocking is high enough that it requires daily ALK dosing via an autodoser, switch your alk supplement from sodium Bicarbonate to Sodium Carbonate. Carbonate will give a temporary boost to pH so what you can do is split the dosing into multiple smaller doses and dose them during the night cycle. Or if you don't want your ALk to swing that much during the day, you can spread it out more - this will be a balancing act. Ie, my tank consumes 1.5 dkh daily, so i do three 1/2 dkh doses daily 8 hours apart at 12 PM, 8PM and 4AM. the 2 doses around the night cycle helps mitigate my tanks pH swing.

sry for teh long post - maybe at the end of the day your acan issues are not related to pH. but nonetheless as you go down this hobby it's good info to have for the future.
 
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andiesreef

andiesreef

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hey everybody. my acan that i've had for 2 weeks has recently stopped looking puffy and healthy like it did 3 days ago. everything seems ok. my other corals look as bright and beautiful as ever. i feed it every few days. any ideas as to what's wrong?

713C4DF1-B589-4CB7-BB5E-4029CE66A96E.jpeg

update on the acans:

they aren't doing well at all and i've sadly determined that i don't think they are going to make it. they are stripped halfway back to their skeletons, even after moving them to under 50par lighting, target feeding, my ph stabilizing at 8.2, and careful observation. i have a few ideas on what might have happened though.

predation - i have an emerald crab and 2 peppermint shrimp in my tank, among other things. i've heard anecdotal evidence of both of these animals occasionally eating meaty LPS such as acans. i never caught anybody nibbling at my corals, but it's possible.

bleaching - i had my acans at ~100 par when i got them. after a few weeks, the recession began. i quickly moved them down to 25-50 par, but perhaps they were too stressed and unable to recover.

parameters - although i doubt this is the case, it could always be parameters. my ph has stayed at a stable 8.2 over the past few weeks and the swings have gotten less and less intense compared to the beginning of my tank, but it could have stressed the coral. my calcium, alk, and magnesium have always been within "safe" ranges for coral, and everything else in my tank (including a duncan) seems fine, so perhaps the acans were more sensitive.

regardless, this was a good learning experience and it fortunately happened on a $15 coral and not something more expensive. maybe i'll try a different approach in the future. any suggestions on what i could have done better would be much appreciated. and thank you all for your help.
 
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