I need help immediately! Something wrong with my GSP!

[at11ok]

So this morning when I turned of the lights for my tank my green star polyps looked fine starting to come out and open up, then I went on with my day doing errands then when I came home I looked at it again and it was completely closed and saw a white spot on it. I didn’t think much of it thinking it was always there and a fish caused them to hide. And now that I looked at it again it’s completely white! Is it dead?! How did it die in a matter of hours without showing signs? My fish and other coral or fine and open.

 

[Taipan88]

Parameters?

Any corals near it that could be stinging it? List anything close some hard corals have long stinging tentacles.

Whats else are you keeping in your tank?

I have had a GSP do this for WEEKS.. only to open up and go nuts.. On my GSP ultra new flesh is paler than the dark purple is normally sports.
GSP also like higher flow, have you changed the direction of your flow at all?

 

[at11ok]

Parameters?

Any corals near it that could be stinging it? List anything close some hard corals have long stinging tentacles.

Whats else are you keeping in your tank?

I have had a GSP do this for WEEKS.. only to open up and go nuts.. On my GSP ultra new flesh is paler than the dark purple is normally sports.
GSP also like higher flow, have you changed the direction of your flow at all?

There’s no other coral near it I only have 5 corals being a the GSP, zoa, Kenya tree, rainbow acan, and a meteor shower. I have 10 fish being 5 clown fish, 1 blenny, a bi colored angelfish, a sailfin tang and 2 Cardinalfish.
peramoders are
Salinity: 1.026
Alkalinity: 196.9
Calcium:420
Phosphate: .25
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Ph: 7.8
Nitates were worse but had been slowly being it down

 

[at11ok]

Parameters?

Any corals near it that could be stinging it? List anything close some hard corals have long stinging tentacles.

Whats else are you keeping in your tank?

I have had a GSP do this for WEEKS.. only to open up and go nuts.. On my GSP ultra new flesh is paler than the dark purple is normally sports.
GSP also like higher flow, have you changed the direction of your flow at all?

I did move my power head to clean it then put it back. It’s not in a high flow area though it’s been there for a few weeks and was happy until today.

 

[Taipan88]

Keep and eye on that Bi colour angel, they are known to eat soft corals.
That might be the culprit.

have you changed flow recently?

 

[at11ok]

Keep and eye on that Bi colour angel, they are known to eat soft corals.
That might be the culprit.

have you changed flow recently?

Yeah the bi colored angelfish does eat my Kenya tree but had been leaving the GSP alone. Would that cause it to turn white like that though? And It’s the same amount of flow but might have changed the direction a little when I cleaned the power head.

 

[blaxsun]

Same thing happened to one of mine. One of the reef inhabitants knocked it over and in the morning it was white on part of it. It's very slowly growing back in that spot (like a weed everywhere else).

I wouldn't worry about it. You can't kill these things...

 

[Taipan88]

Yeah the bi colored angelfish does eat my Kenya tree but had been leaving the GSP alone. Would that cause it to turn white like that though? And It’s the same amount of flow but might have changed the direction a little when I cleaned the power head.

Honestly I cannot say for sure as I have not witnessed a damaged GSP.
In my experience, pale flesh on a GSP is the thinner side and is mostly witnessed on new growth which is thinner / paler.


I have had a GSP close up and refuse to open in one of my tank for weeks.
I transported this to a friends tank and within 24 hours it was fully open.

1 month later we fragged the GSP and I stuck the main plug to a wall in my tank, with higher flow. It is now fully opened and extended.

The frags were taken back to my mates place and opened instantly as well.

From memory the GSP was closed in my tank for 3 to 4 weeks before we moved it. For a Soft Coral which some considered to be a pest that can easily smother everything else it does have its whinge moments.

 

[at11ok]

Same thing happened to one of mine. One of the reef inhabitants knocked it over and in the morning it was white on part of it. It's very slowly growing back in that spot (like a weed everywhere else).

I wouldn't worry about it. You can't kill these things...

That’s good to know since I really liked how it looked. It’s just weird how nothing happened to it and it just started turning white.

 

[blaxsun]

That’s good to know since I really liked how it looked. It’s just weird how nothing happened to it and it just started turning white.

Something probably took the opportunity to nip at it (could've even been one of my starfish for all I know; first time I've seen something like this in almost 2 years).

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

There’s no other coral near it I only have 5 corals being a the GSP, zoa, Kenya tree, rainbow acan, and a meteor shower. I have 10 fish being 5 clown fish, 1 blenny, a bi colored angelfish, a sailfin tang and 2 Cardinalfish.
peramoders are
Salinity: 1.026
Alkalinity: 196.9
Calcium:420
Phosphate: .25
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20
Ph: 7.8
Nitates were worse but had been slowly being it down

How are you bringing the no3 down?

 

[at11ok]

How are you bringing the no3 down?

I’m doing 10% water changes every 2 days

 

[at11ok]

UPDATE: so I guess it’s not dead! Today I looked at it and saw some of the polyps starting to come back out. It’s still white but at least I know it’s still alive. I’ll be keeping an eye on it to see what it does. Thanks to everyone who gave advise.

 

[at11ok]

So this is about as many polyps that come out now are the others dead maybe? Or still just wanting to stay in a bit longer. Also this is how it used to look

 

[jgirardnrg]

It'll bounce back... mine get moody from time to time and do the same thing.

 

[at11ok]

It'll bounce back... mine get moody from time to time and do the same thing.

The mat turned white too? That’s the thing I’m most concerned about

 

[jgirardnrg]

The mat turned white too? That’s the thing I’m most concerned about

The mat didn't turn white but we also might not have the same type of GSP. The stuff is crazy resilient, it's actually hard to kill it. I have a rock in the frag tank covered in the stuff (two different kinds). For about a week, no polyps at all and I was thinking it was a goner for sure. One morning I walked in there and it was all opened up like nothing ever happened. I also frag it a lot for locals... the frags open the next day then close up for a week and bounce back.

 

[MaxTremors]

So this is about as many polyps that come out now are the others dead maybe? Or still just wanting to stay in a bit longer. Also this is how it used to look

Neither of those pictures are showing full polyp extension. IME, GSP can sometimes take weeks to fully get comfortable and fully extend its polyps. It’ll slowly extend a few more polyps each day. Just make sure it’s kept clean (you can gently blow it off with a turkey baster), make sure your parameters are stable, and it’ll bounce back.

 

[at11ok]

The mat didn't turn white but we also might not have the same type of GSP. The stuff is crazy resilient, it's actually hard to kill it. I have a rock in the frag tank covered in the stuff (two different kinds). For about a week, no polyps at all and I was thinking it was a goner for sure. One morning I walked in there and it was all opened up like nothing ever happened. I also frag it a lot for locals... the frags open the next day then close up for a week and bounce back.

Yeah I’ve heard that they will almost never die. I also want to start dragging and selling for locals where I am too but so far the only thing I have big enough is a Kenya tree and most people don’t want those lol.

 

[at11ok]

Neither of those pictures are showing full polyp extension. IME, GSP can sometimes take weeks to fully get comfortable and fully extend its polyps. It’ll slowly extend a few more polyps each day. Just make sure it’s kept clean (you can gently blow it off with a turkey baster), make sure your parameters are stable, and it’ll bounce back.

Oh Wow I didn’t know it wasn’t fully extended before. All of the polyps would come out after I turned the light on but didn’t know they could extend more.