One of these torches is not like the others...

FlyinAg · Jul 6, 2023

What is up with this guy? Sorry for the poor lighting and color, but the normal torch is a nice green with pink tips, and the goofy guy is purple with whitish tips.

The purple one has continued to grow this crazy long body with short tentacles while the green one has grown like you'd expect. The purple one was there first. Maybe it doesn't like it's neighbor?

I did just go through a nasty case of dinos (LCA). My acan and monti really took a hit. The torches seemed to do ok, except this weird growth pattern...

ElementReefer · Jul 6, 2023

That kinda looks like reaching. What’s the PAR there?

FlyinAg · Jul 6, 2023

Well it has been lower since battling dinos. I don't have a number, but I run 2 kessil 160s over a waterbox 25 peninsula, open top. They were set to about 40% until dinos, where I turned them down to all blue and low intensity. A 3 day black out a week ago knocked out the dinos and I am slowly bringing lights back up.

Just odd as you would think the tentacles would grow long and reach lol.

ElementReefer · Jul 6, 2023

Coral are mostly full of water, their day to day changes in shape aren’t growth, just changing shape to accommodate flow and light. That one looks like it’s reaching up for more light.

Not even surprised the other one isn’t doing it, torches are fussy.

Salty Sea Flowers · Jul 8, 2023

to me? (and this is just my own personal opinion from my own experiences)— on the purple torch, the puffy area beneath the tentacles that are in the white brackets below; you're seeing what i've been told, is the flesh band.

and according to what i have been told, as well, the fatter/thicker it is, the healthier the coral is. i have gotten a few euphyllia that have very, very, thin, to pretty much non-existent flesh bands, and they've almost always died after that band begins to recede into the skeleton where the tentacles are.

it basically assists in keeping the flesh of the coral attached to it's hard skeleton, if im not mistaken. several of my torches have a really big flesh bands as well, and they're absolutely thriving and are almost always happy, healthy, expanded and open.

it's nothing to worry or stress about! like i'd mentioned, a lot of people (especially those that are into euphyllia, like that), when buying euphyllia, prefer to have a very thick (to decently thick) flesh band, around the head of the coral

now this can definitely be considered "reaching", too. especially since it's right beside another torch that obviously has longer tentacles. the flesh band could be expanding to push the tentacles/mouth up and closer to the light source. also, they could be fighting over light, and the green torch could even be blocking some flow, seeing as how green's tentacles are extended upwards, and leaning to the right. whereas, purple's tentacles are extended straight up, with no visible lean.