Candy Cane irritated???

[Nick Rose]

I have this Candy cane coral that is happy during the day but seems to be irritated after lights out. It would open up after dark and send it’s tentacles out and feed. But since maybe mid December it has swiveled up at night. Nothing has changed and the water parameters have been stable. At the end of November I switched lights over to a extra AI Vega light we had. The corals really perked up when the lights were changed. The tank is a backup/emergency 44 gal tank in the garage. The water parameters have been stable at 1.026Sag, 430Ca, 1400Mag, 8kh, 0Po&No, 8Ph, 80temp. The light come on at 7am peak from 12pm-4pm and lights out at 9pm. The 3 blues are at 80%, whites 50%, green 25% and reds at 15%.

 

[RobZilla04]

Id guess lack of nutrients. If N & P are indeed both 0, that's a problem (I doubt they are both truly 0.00). You can try triggering their feeding response at night with a pinch of reef roids or Rods coral blend. Otherwise the length of the photo period could be looked at.

 

[Nick Rose]

The photo period hasn’t changed since the time they use to send the tentacles out to the point they stopped. Should the peak light period 12-4pm be longer? How would I add N and P? There is no fish in the tank but I do feed the frogspawn mysis.

 

[RobZilla04]

You can still feed the tank, just very small amounts. The bacteria need something to feed on and you've got to have Nitrates and Phosphates if anything is going to live in it. How stocked is it with coral?

 

[Nick Rose]

The tank has GSP, Xenia, Adult frogspawn along with newly discovered babies and the Candy Cane. It’s a barebone tank. It has a HOB, AI VEGA, one powerhead and it gives good flow but I will be buying a Icecap gyre. The Coraline is growing nicely. Have a lot of Pods, small snails the ones that are the very tiny ones also see red feather dusters

 

[RobZilla04]

The usual suspects for irritated coral are too much / not enough light, too much / not enough flow, or nutrients. You can try moving it to adjust either of the first two but going the nutrient adjustment route could have an affect on the other livestock in the tank.

 

[Nick Rose]

The light and flow hasn’t changed since the time they sent the tentacles out and now but I’ll try and move it.

 

[Nick Rose]

An update on the Candy Canes. They are much happier. I moved them on January 12th to a new location and they perked up a few days later. It took them maybe a month or less to start putting out their feeds tentacles. A couple of weeks I also added a sump. I think that helped also.

January 13th

January 25th

January 29th

February 22nd