Acans Retracting

[nat45928]

I’ve been having an issue recently with my Acans retracting. They’ve been growing on and off for the past year, but I’d never say well. Recently they’ve started not fully extending during the day and their tissue seems to be getting slightly whiter.

Tank is a 12gal
Salinity is 1.026
pH 8.2
Mag. 1450
Calcium 510
Dkh 9
Phosphate .25-.50 ppm
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 20-40ppm

Light is a Kessil A80 at full blue intensity, and that’s puts the par at the Acans around 60. I also have a XR15 Gen6 Blue I could use. I feed them brine shrimp and Coral Vite regularly.

I attached a few photos, the one with coralline visible (and no dragons breath algae) are the current photos.

Any ideas what might be going on? Thank in advance for any help!

 

[Foxy-88]

Hows the flow and if they are getting whiter could be light intensity as well honestly. Afe you spot feeding them I saw feeding brines just curious. All parameters looks good. How are the temp swings on such a small tank?

 

[nat45928]

Flow is low-ish. The hammer in the background gently moves. I had a Nero in there for a bit but it seemed like a lot.

Yep, generally spot feed. Temperature is pretty stable but I can’t say I check it consistently throughout the day. When I do check it’s right around 78.

Do you think there’s too much light or not enough? Recommendations seem pretty all over.

 

[nat45928]

View attachment 20251224_193325_FCC6280C-9983-4327-B655-8FAC6362C294.mov

Here’s a video of the flow.

 

[Foxy-88]

Flow is low-ish. The hammer in the background gently moves. I had a Nero in there for a bit but it seemed like a lot.

Yep, generally spot feed. Temperature is pretty stable but I can’t say I check it consistently throughout the day. When I do check it’s right around 78.

Do you think there’s too much light or not enough? Recommendations seem pretty all over.

I feel like advice will be all over the place have you adjusted lighting recently. To me its seems like you posted current and before pictures (i may stand corrected) the 2 top pictures seem whiter than the 2 bottom which are blue. I know with lps for sure fluctuations in anything like nitrate, phosphate as well as alk and cal will do it. Are you on a doser or are you manually supplementing back in? Are you running an ato salinity spikes on small tanks can influence a lot too

 

[Sam7]

Are sure your par is 60 on the bottom? Seems a little bit too low if only 60.. Some your acans on the rocks look to be standing up like there not getting enough light . I dont see any flow happen down low. Do you have any shrimp in the tank at all? Some shrimp will eat or bug your acans to death. All we can do is suggest....you are the eyes on

 

[Foxy-88]

Are sure your par is 60 on the bottom? Seems a little bit too low if only 60.. Some your acans on the rocks look to be standing up like there not getting enough light . I dont see any flow happen down low. Do you have any shrimp in the tank at all? Some shrimp will eat or bug your acans to death. All we can do is suggest....you are the eyes on

Completely agree. My shrimp always anger my corals and anemones. But at the same time, powerheads get bumped, we never assume the light is right, parameters fluctuate, water changes could play a factor as well.

 

[nat45928]

Flow is low-ish. The hammer in the background gently moves. I had a Nero in there for a bit but it seemed like a lot.

Yep, generally spot feed. Temperature is pretty stable but I can’t say I check it consistently throughout the day. When I do check it’s right around 78.

Do you think there’s too much light or not enough? Recommendations seem pretty all over.

I feel like advice will be all over the place have you adjusted lighting recently. To me its seems like you posted current and before pictures (i may stand corrected) the 2 top pictures seem whiter than the 2 bottom which are blue. I know with lps for sure fluctuations in anything like nitrate, phosphate as well as alk and cal will do it. Are you on a doser or are you manually supplementing back in? Are you running an ato salinity spikes on small tanks can influence a lot too

Yea, that’s right the current are the first two, before are the second two photos.

Manually supplementing all-for-reef, pretty minimal though. Numbers are generally in check with weekly 10% water changes.

No ATO, just manual top ups with RODI.

 

[nat45928]

Are sure your par is 60 on the bottom? Seems a little bit too low if only 60.. Some your acans on the rocks look to be standing up like there not getting enough light . I dont see any flow happen down low. Do you have any shrimp in the tank at all? Some shrimp will eat or bug your acans to death. All we can do is suggest....you are the eyes on

Do you think they’re standing up in the third and fourth photos?

There’s a pistol shrimp and watchman goby that live in the cave you can see in the front on the left side.

 

[Sam7]

Do you think they’re standing up in the third and fourth photos?

There’s a pistol shrimp and watchman goby that live in the cave you can see in the front on the left side.

nah pistol shrimp is fine

 

[Sam7]

im talking about the bottom two.....whats newer the top two

 

[nat45928]

im talking about the bottom two.....whats newer the top two

Yeah, newer is the top two.

I’ve switched the A80 light from whiter to bluer spectrum. The third and fourth photos are from over 6 months ago. Since then I’ve adjusted the light to be full blue