Do Corals Have Bad Days?

[1112-425XL]

I've noticed every so often a coral will just not wake up with my lights. For whatever reason it decides it's taking the day off. It just stays closed. I'm not talking about any specific coral. Could be a Blasto, a Frogspawn, a Bubble coral, a Plate coral etc. It does seem to happen most to my Elegance coral. They all look great, healthy, colorful, expanded for weeks or months at a time. No lighting change, no parameter swings, and it's never multiple corals at a time, (that would concern me) and then the next day Boom back to normal. It's like it was out partying the night before and just couldn't deal with it. Does this happen in your reef? Is there a scientific explanation for this?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Happens sometimes.

 

[WrasseyReefer]

When I see this happen in my tank, I assume it is from a parameter swing from weeks ago. Usually, corals don’t react immediately to a parameter swing. They usually show signs weeks later. That’s why I always track all changes in my apex notes, so I can go back and see if something changed weeks ago that may be effecting something today. That’s my experience.

 

[Tired]

Yep. Usually means something's annoyed them- either a crab walked over them earlier, they're annoyed about a parameter swing that didn't quite bother anything else, maybe a loose stinging tentacle drifted over and tagged em. Generally not a sign for concern.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

For mine it's usually because one of the CUC annoyed them.