Acanthophyillia fully recedes into flesh at night.

[WesternSpyKolya]

So I've got an acanthophyillia that retracts fully into its skeleton at night and never sends any feeder tentacles, I've also got 2 cynarina and they turn inside out at night sending out giant feeder tentacles so I'm confused. Why is my acantho not puffing up at night? Is this normal? Also the sides don't puff up one side puffs up fully while the other side doesn't puff up as much, when I checked I saw that tissue was receded in one place (the place had that due to shipping damage) will that heal? Parameters are normal, no other corals are affected (other lps are cynarina, indophyillia, frogspawn, blastos). I have a scorpionfish that goes swimming at night and sometimes I see him on top of the coral, could he be a culprit?

 

[WesternSpyKolya]

Bump, anything I can do to make him recover?

 

[FishyHotel]

The acanthophyllia that I have do this from time to time, and I don’t have a reason for it, but I will say the happiest I see my acantho is after I feed it some big meaty chunks of seafood. Mine really likes oysters and will be puffed up for a good while after having one. Does it have feeders out during the day? Mine will eat at night but seems to be more interested during the day.

 

[FishyHotel]

I also find a few drops of aminos will really encourage it to want to eat and find the polyp booster especially gets the feeding tentacles out.

 

[WesternSpyKolya]

I also find a few drops of aminos will really encourage it to want to eat and find the polyp booster especially gets the feeding tentacles out.

Thank you for your reply! Yes, he does seem to be very happy during the day. He extends his feeders and actively eats anything that falls on him. This usually happens in the first few hours of the night and then he goes back to normal. Perhaps its normal behavior for them?

Also that's a beautiful acantho you have there.

 

[FishyHotel]

Thanks! It was actually only orange on the pictures online lol. I wouldn’t worry about what your acantho looks like at night as long as it’s eating and inflating during the day you are good. I had another acantho that was getting picked at and it was obvious as the skeleton started showing before it really went downhill. It ended up being my pincushion urchin and I only figured it out when it started snacking on the acantho in that picture, it unfortunately the other guy didn’t make it. As soon as I started seeing signs of my healthy acantho being eaten (Mesenterial filaments doing repair from picking) I moved which tank it was in and since then mines been nothing but happy.

I have noticed my Acanthophyllia will often look to feed during the daytime and the scolys seem to want to feed at night. I think the acanthos have a stronger sting as the crabs and snails tend to stay away from trying to snatch food.