Polyp Extension at Night

[Isoprene]

I have a quick question for you guys. I see really good polyps extension during the day on all of my sps. When my lights are out, right around now all my sps polyps are retracted. Isn't this opposite of the normal trend? I see a lot of "night time" photos of people with CRAZY polyps extension for feeding at night. Am I doing something different or weird? My day / night schedule for my lights follows normal day / light hours, although this should matter that much. I am seeing good growth and good color, can not complain all around about anything in the tank, was just wondering.

Any thoughts here?

 

[Chameleon]

weird

 

[Battlecorals]

That is definitely a little suspicious. Perhaps some critter that comes out at night? How do they look otherwise?

 

[Dowtish]

Freak of nature! This is odd fo sho!

 

[bct15]

Is there a nipper on the prowl at night?


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[Isoprene]

i dont think so? Nothing seems nipped nothing looks odd, color is good on all of them, and they are all growing or encrusting. I have 1 browned out but thats always been brown even from day 1. The polyps are significantly inverted during the night time, ill take a picture tomorrow morning and post it.

 

[Isoprene]

O and all my lps have good polyps extension at night as well, its only the acros, mille's and mainly my sps that do not.

 

[Chameleon]

just out of curiosity what is your diurnal pH swing if you know it?

 

[Isoprene]

I havent really ever considered this an issue, I will check it this morning and this afternoon to see. Ill post that and some picture to give you guys a better idea of whats up.

Also I lost two fish jumping out of my tank at in the same night yesterday. A possum wrasse which i can understand but also a bumblebee goby that never comes close to the top of the tank. AT ALL. They were both found about 2 cm from one another, and I dont have a cat that could have picked them out in their sleep. IDK what happened but something weird is going on at night. I have had both of these fish for about 6 months or more.

 

[MattL22]

U ever check tank in middle of night when u wake up for something??
I get best polyp extension on sps in the middle of night

 

[Isoprene]

I dont really wake up in the middle of the night, this sounds dumb but its true I sleep like a rock. I will try and get up to check it, This morning nothing looks weird. I am up right around now and my blues dont come on for another 4 hours so this is the middle of the night for them really. I have never seen anything but bristle worms during the night that was cause for concern.

 

[joeyhatch11]

I've found that my Duncan's and Plate coral open up alot more at night. Durning the day my zoas are all open. Some will close up at night and other stay open 24-7.

 

[Chameleon]

Stray voltage?? Any equipment run only at night??

 

[shellynjason]

Hmmm my sps have the same full polyp extension day and night, every single day.

sounds like you need to set an alarm clock for Midnight just to see if there is any extension at that hour and to check on the tank - let us know what you see?

 

[MattL22]

Not always but most times I check sps late at night polyps r much more extended then they are during day

 

[Zack]

I just checked my tank of of sps frags only and noticed all of mine are not fully extended, (some are) and my lights don't come on till 12. So this is the middle of.night for my corals. I get great polyp extension during the day though. Just letting you know isoprene- your not the only one out there! :)
I am 99% sure I don't have any pests I started with all dry rock and have taken extensive measures to make sure I don't introduce anything in there. Wonder what the deal is? Have you figured anything out with yours yet?

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[sleeri]

My SPS exhibit the same behavior. I have outstanding extension during the day. Night extension is just average. I don't have any pests that I'm aware of. I dose AA and feed my tank all during the day, so maybe my SPS are just on a different schedule, but not sure.

 

[gmoney243]

Could be asterinas crawling on them at night. Def sounds wierd as most my sps have better PE at.night and my millis and pink lemonade gets insane.

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[sleeri]

Here's an example of the polyp extension I get during the day. This is a small colony of Pink Lemonade. Seems great to me.

 

[Isoprene]

Well i cant get good pics because my camera wont pick up anything worth seeing, butt I woke up Friday night (well night for my tank about 8:00am) to check and it turns out I have a ton of bristle worms haha! more than i imagined! About 6 of them were out, im sure there is more lurking. As far as I can tell I have zero pests, bristle worms don't mess with the acros it seems, they never have any marks or anything on them. My parameters are within perfect range and holding stable. I check them every week on Tuesday. Salinity stays constant, check that every day. ONLY thing about pests I could think of is since my one emerald crab (smaller one) died my bigger one (I only had two) seems out and about A LOT. He might be scurrying along the base of the acros looking for food, or possibly nipping for polyps because hes hungry. This has happened to me before but it was VERY noticeable, the thing sniped a tip right off, leaving a white spot! So I don't believe this is the case here but im not ruling anything out. I haven't seen any tissue damage or irritation other than what I cause with my clumsy hands when rearranging things.


Anyways when I looked at night it seemed that one of my acros that don't extend much during the day, my lokani, showed a small amount of better extension at night. However what baffles me is that my mille's have almost zero polyp extension at night and are fully extended during the day. Could it be that I feed when the lights are on and at their peak once a day everyday? No need for polyps at night because they get enough light / nutrients during light hours? IDK! grasping at straws here. Either way it seems everything is growing like CRAZY and coloring up beautifully, even better this month than ever before, I am super happy with my tank. Ill keep this updated if anything changes but so far the no polyp extension at night is going to stay a mystery for me.

My lights clicked off 1.5 hours ago, and ill describe what I see. First off a ton of bristle worms, more than last time I checked, I have never really worried about these guys but dang there is a lot. Since my wrasse has been gone a lot more copepod activity, as well as these weird looking trunks...almost looks like a conch "trunk" like of an elephant or ant eater trunk that is sticking just ever so slightly out of the rock holes (spotted two of these). I have never seen these before and it looked like they were hunting coepods, they were sitting very still then would strike and try and grab one really quick then go back to sitting still. Im a little worried what the heck are these guys? Anyone?

Acros are ALL full retracted. Every single one, including mille's and my lokani. Anyone have any ideas based on my novel above?