Closed soft corals

Michaelrisucci

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All of my soft corals (mainly worried about my zoas) are closed and will not fully open. They haven’t been moved from their original spots which they were originally opened in, along with being dipped before put into tank, no changes in circulation and parameters seem to be in check. My Duncan coral is currently growing a new head, which would make sense why it is closed, and I thought that maybe it could be excreting some sort of chemical to stress out the rest of the corals?
Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 7ppm
Nitrites: 1ppm
Phosphate 0.05 ppm
Calcium: 430ppm
Dkh: 12
Salinity: 35ppt
Lights: viparspectra 165w x2
 

Fishy888

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All of my soft corals (mainly worried about my zoas) are closed and will not fully open. They haven’t been moved from their original spots which they were originally opened in, along with being dipped before put into tank, no changes in circulation and parameters seem to be in check. My Duncan coral is currently growing a new head, which would make sense why it is closed, and I thought that maybe it could be excreting some sort of chemical to stress out the rest of the corals?
Parameters:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 7ppm
Nitrites: 1ppm
Phosphate 0.05 ppm
Calcium: 430ppm
Dkh: 12
Salinity: 35ppt
Lights: viparspectra 165w x2

What test kits are you using? ALK is on the high side of normal. What light settings are you using? If your settings are too high soft corals and zoas tend to stay closed even when most LPS are happy
 
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Michaelrisucci

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How long have they been in your tank? Added anything else recently? Changed light settings? Using RODI water?
They’ve been in my tank for about 2 months. I haven’t changed the light settings. They run on ch1 50 (blue) and 30 (white) for about 12 hours. I’m using RODI water that I make at home with the aquatic life twist in RoDi system.
 
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They’ve been in my tank for about 2 months. I haven’t changed the light settings. They run on ch1 50 (blue) and 30 (white) for about 12 hours. I’m using RODI water that I make at home with the aquatic life twist in RoDi system.

That is pretty intense if the lights are not mounted very high off of the tank. But, you said they were open before, right?
 
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Michaelrisucci

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How long have they been in your tank? Added anything else recently? Changed light settings? Using RODI water?
They’ve been in my tank for about 2 months. I haven’t changed the light settings. They run on ch1 50 (blue) and 30 (white) for about 12 hours. I’m using RODI water that I make at home with the aquatic life twist in RoDi system
That is pretty intense if the lights are not mounted very high off of the tank. But, you said they were open before, right?
Yes, they were open. The lights are mounted about 16 inches above the 18 inch deep tank. The zoas are on a piece of dry rock about 4 inches off of the bottom of the tank. Should I try to lower the lighting?
 
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Michaelrisucci

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What test kits are you using? ALK is on the high side of normal. What light settings are you using? If your settings are too high soft corals and zoas tend to stay closed even when most LPS are happy
I’m using the Salifter test kits. I was using 30 white and 50 blue, but I just changed it to 10/10 and will see if it works.
 
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Fishy888

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I’m using the Salifter test kits. I was using 30 white and 50 blue, but I just changed it to 10/10 and will see if it works.
If 10/10 works for you then you can try 10/20. Xenia and GSP can take more light than most soft corals but they have to be acclimated very slowly to it. I was fortunate with mine because they were used to higher lighting when I got them but most are under blues only when you get them at a LFS. That’s why most of the time you want to keep the lights down on soft corals in the beginning.

Edit:
I just saw that you had your corals under the higher settings since you’ve had them. I still think dialing back the lights is a good idea. Raising phosphates to 0.1 ppm and Nitrates to 10 ppm would be beneficial for your corals as well. That ALK could probably come down to 9 or 10 dKH. What brand of salt are you using? Also are you using a refractometer to test salinity?
 
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Seansea

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Have you turned off lights in room sat back and just watched for a half hour or more. Something tells me your lemonpeel is getting himself a little nip here and there. My bicolor does just enough to irritate my zoas and blastos
 
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Michaelrisucci

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Have you turned off lights in room sat back and just watched for a half hour or more. Something tells me your lemonpeel is getting himself a little nip here and there. My bicolor does just enough to irritate my zoas and blastos
I removed my lemonpeel from my tank and moved him to another yesterday and am still not seeing any results.
 
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Michaelrisucci

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Not knowing what else you have in the tank, rather than dialing back the lights, try relocating the unhappy corals to another (lower lighted) part of the tank.
I have moved them all to different spots spread across the tank. In the tank I have:
Fish / inverts:
Melanarus wrasse
Powder blue tang
Green mandarin goby
Square back anthias
Pink skunk clown pair
Astrea snails
Blue and red leg hermits
Turbo snails
Margarita snails
Red linckia star
Sand sifter star
Corals:
Green star polyps (open)
Green button polyps (closed)
Misc. zoas (closed)
Sun corals (open)
Rhodactis mushroom (healthy)
Emerald Duncan (open)
Rainbow war acan (healthy)
Tyree favia (healthy)
 
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Seansea

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How long have you had the lemonpeel out? Maybe wait another day and see whats up? Corals tend to act weird sometimes. Just close up for a while then pop open like nothing happened.
 
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melonheadorion

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i had my zoas close up on me about a week ago and had to do with an alk and PH drop. however, ive also had some just close up for a week for no real reason, and about a week or so later, they opened up
 
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Seansea

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If everything else in your tank is fine i wouldnt sweat them being closed. I think they will open back up at some point. I swear mine have just gotten use to my bicolor picking at them. He nips em they close for about 2 minutes then just open back up.
 
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