Mouth open meat coral

Afkomjorgen · Mar 29, 2024

I want to help this meat coral, it’s been looking like this and shrinking for several weeks
Parameters are not great but they are consistent
Alk 6, Sal 1.027, nitrate 16, phos 0.5, ca 400
Water temp was a little low last week

What can I do? Slow alk increase is underway

VintageReefer · Mar 29, 2024

Do you feed it? At night it should open more and have feeder tentacles, that’s the best time to give it food

Afkomjorgen · Mar 30, 2024

I’ll check it during lights off. Would feeding it help? Figured this amount of mouth showing was probably a bad thing, but if it’s just hungry then that’s easier

VintageReefer · Mar 30, 2024

They should be fed at least once a week. Ideally 2-3x

Feeding is easy. It can be thawed mysis, pellet food, or to save time I’ll take a cup of tank water, throw in a few pinches of flake food, stir with baster and then slowly drop into the mouth area and feeding tentacles. My lights are nearly out and some of my various meat corals are showing they are hungry

You want to wait for fully open mouths/tentacles like this. Ignore the blue. If I bring my lights back up they will start to close

This guy is not ready. He’s getting ready but he’s not ready. Feeding him now might annoy him so I’ll wait.

He will look like this when he’s ready

If yours doesn’t open all the way after 2 hours of lights out, then it’s possible he is nutrient deprived and doesn’t have the energy to open fully and I would turn off all water flow and drip sinking food slowly directly into the mouth. For a few days and watch for improvement.

Afkomjorgen · Mar 30, 2024

Thank you so so much this is great infomation!

VintageReefer · Mar 30, 2024

Your parameters are a little bit off from what I would keep, but I think the primary issue is feeding

My next steps would be
Alk 6, - try to keep 8-9 range
Sal 1.027, lower to 1.025-1.026
nitrate 16, decrease to 5-10
phos 0.5, decrease to < .1
ca 400 this is ok but on low end, 400-450 is recommended

This all can be corrected with a few large water changes over the course of a week or two.

Afkomjorgen · Mar 30, 2024

VintageReefer said:
They should be fed at least once a week. Ideally 2-3x

Feeding is easy. It can be thawed mysis, pellet food, or to save time I’ll take a cup of tank water, throw in a few pinches of flake food, stir with baster and then slowly drop into the mouth area and feeding tentacles. My lights are nearly out and some of my various meat corals are showing they are hungry

You want to wait for fully open mouths/tentacles like this. Ignore the blue. If I bring my lights back up they will start to close

This guy is not ready. He’s getting ready but he’s not ready. Feeding him now might annoy him so I’ll wait.

He will look like this when he’s ready

If yours doesn’t open all the way after 2 hours of lights out, then it’s possible he is nutrient deprived and doesn’t have the energy to open fully and I would turn off all water flow and drip sinking food slowly directly into the mouth. For a few days and watch for improvement.

VintageReefer said:
Your parameters are a little bit off from what I would keep, but I think the primary issue is feeding

My next steps would be
Alk 6, - try to keep 8-9 range
Sal 1.027, lower to 1.025-1.026
nitrate 16, decrease to 5-10
phos 0.5, decrease to < .1
ca 400 this is ok but on low end, 400-450 is recommended

This all can be corrected with a few large water changes over the course of a week or two.

Do you have any experience with triggering feeding response using oyster feast or something?
I had no idea feeding was so detrimental for these corals I really appreciate your help

VintageReefer · Mar 30, 2024

Afkomjorgen said:
Do you have any experience with triggering feeding response using oyster feast or something?
I had no idea feeding was so detrimental for these corals I really appreciate your help

I don’t with oyster feast but I know many corals like that. I’ve never tried.

I have triggered feeding response before though. Sometimes I want to feed them all and go to bed and some are not ready. I will cut off flow and start the tanks feeding process with the corals not ready. I use a mix of food typically, so I can use one batch to feed any type of coral.

For flake food, I like PE Mysis brand Mysis flakes. I don’t trust other companies multi colored rainbow flakes lol. Mysis is good for corals, this is Mysis in flake form. I even have fish that refused flake for years and when I got this, the ate it.

https://a.co/d/5W2f39S

So. Cup of tank water. A bunch of those flakes. I add in small powder based food like benepets benereef, or reef roids (sparingly), or frozen Mysis. Sometimes I’ll add a eye dropper of amino acids, or Restor, or Reef Energy AB+

You just basically make a little mix of a couple things because we don’t know what the closed coral wants or needs at that moment so we’re giving a little variety and one baster squirt will have everything. Then with current off, slowly dispense a few inches over the closed coral, let gravity allow the food to naturally sink and land on it. Then I go about feeding my other corals. Some larger LPS will take food, close up, and a few minutes later be fully open for second meal lol. By the time I’m done feeding everything, the closed coral is usually enticed, open and ready to eat

For you…it may not open like I’m describing. In that case I would use smaller food and try and drop it in the mouth. I’m curious to see what happens at night after a few hours of darkness for you

Mr. Mojo Rising · Mar 30, 2024

I think it looks fine. Other than your parameters being off and unstable, the best you can do is stabilize the parameters and maintain them.

crazyfishmom · Mar 30, 2024

Polyp lab’s Polyp enhancer is great for getting a feeding response.

The best way to feed Coral for me has been to add a couple of mL of this to the tank at the end of the light cycle and wait 5 minutes. All the corals open right up and then I feed them whatever I am feeding that day. Works like a charm. Everybody eats.

Afkomjorgen · Mar 31, 2024

Ok fed everything today. One of the other meat corals that was deflated opened right up and asked for seconds. This one still looks the same but accepted the food. I fed a soup of benereef LPs pellets, mysis, benereef, and oyster feast

You all helped me immensely with this guy. Thank you! Fingers crossed for a swift recovery