Polyps missing from Pink Lemonade

Chameleon · Jul 22, 2015

Yeah I agree with other on trying to leave it in one place and not moving it.
That being said I wouldn't worry too much of a coral doesn't put out its polyps much as a frag. Once it gets growing I would expect that to change.

Mattrg02 · Jul 25, 2015

Thanks for all the tips guys. I'll leave it alone for now, and harass something else in there.

Harold Green · Jul 25, 2015

Left field question. Do you feed the corals? A lot of members don't feed at all but I find pretty much all the corals in my tank open after I feed them. I use a mix of green water and coral frenzy and occasionally frozen rotifers.

Mattrg02 · Jul 25, 2015

Harold Green said:
Left field question. Do you feed the corals? A lot of members don't feed at all but I find pretty much all the corals in my tank open after I feed them. I use a mix of green water and coral frenzy and occasionally frozen rotifers.

I've got a container of coral food that I got from reefcleaners.org that I never used. I don't know how to get sps corals to eat it, it's just a fine powder.

Harold Green · Jul 25, 2015

Mix it with a little tank water. Turn off your sump return pump. Pour the food into the tank where the circulation pumps can spread it around. Alternately you can quirt it directly on each coral. Wait 30 minutes or so and then restart your return pump. Watch the corals each time and see if they are opening while the food is present. This is the time to feed lps larger chunks of food if they have their tentacles out. Zoa's should be feeding at that time also. Don't use an excessive amount of food, just enough to get them feeding.

rovster · Jul 25, 2015

How 'bout you just leave it alone for a month. Don't screw up your tank to make one coral happy. Mine went without polyps for a long time, then, when they were ready, they showed up, lol....

Harold Green · Jul 26, 2015

Rov, you think it screws up the tank to feed the corals? Not everyone has a large amount of fish to provide waste to feed the corals and some corals don't do well on just light.

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

I've got a tunze 9001 skimmer on its way. Should help cancel out over feeding, no? I'll try out the coral food for awhile and watch the nitrate levels.

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

Edit:

I tried the filter food stuff that I got awhile ago, last night. I wake up this morning and see the PL actually has polyps peeking out! Barely but definitely there. Maybe the tank needs more nutrients? I feed two fish once a day. Should I try amino acids or just stick with the coral food every few days?

Other things that could be considered:
My mp10 is turned up 100% on reef crest mode. Maybe this is too much flow? My other corals put their polyps out and seem to love it.

My kessil a160we is right over the PL, about 14in total separation. I run the kessil at 60%

Some think this light isn't good enough for sps while others think it could be too much. Would a coral hide polyps from too much light?

jasonandsarah · Jul 26, 2015

I have 2 different pieces of Tyree pink lemonade (both from the same original source). One I got along time ago that took me a good couple months to move to high light. The second one I just got a few months ago and almost lost it being dumb and placing it under high intensity light right off.
Fme they like high flow and moderate to high light once acclimated. Turning green is pretty normal but you can get the yellow back over time.
Like others already stated put it somewhere and leave it. Mixing a small amount of coral food in with reg feedings once a week or so isn't a bad idea. All in all if you think your nutrients are to low I'd try feeding twice a day. Your fish and corals will benifit from that if you can control the nutrients.

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

jasonandsarah said:
I have 2 different pieces of Tyree pink lemonade (both from the same original source). One I got along time ago that took me a good couple months to move to high light. The second one I just got a few months ago and almost lost it being dumb and placing it under high intensity light right off.
Fme they like high flow and moderate to high light once acclimated. Turning green is pretty normal but you can get the yellow back over time.
Like others already stated put it somewhere and leave it. Mixing a small amount of coral food in with reg feedings once a week or so isn't a bad idea. All in all if you think your nutrients are to low I'd try feeding twice a day. Your fish and corals will benifit from that if you can control the nutrients.

How did you know that the high intensity light was hurting it? I'm just trying to figure out the difference between too much light, too little light, and not enough nutrients.

Kessil told me the light is perfect for sps in my small tank, but others here state it's a terrible light for sps corals. To me, it's brighter than my old diy led light that grew sps no problem.

As for controlling nutrients, how far does a skimmer go? I'll be running one soon.

Diesel · Jul 26, 2015

A little basic stuff about Nutrients export, as you mentioned a skimmer, http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/many-means-nutrient-export-marine-aquariums-3403/

jasonandsarah · Jul 26, 2015

People question kessil leds because of shadowing. While growing out frags this will be a great light for you for sure, but once your colonies grow and start shadowing them selves the single point light source won't be able to overcome that on its own imo. Nothing adding a couple properly sized T5's won't fix or possibly adding another A160?
Anyways, I knew it was receiving to much light because there was ZERO polyp extention and it started to slightly die off/loose color. I moved it to where I should of had it in the first place and walla it's back doing good and has completely healed, colored back up and started growing.
Now I can slowly work it up to higher light next to it's older brother[emoji4]

NicksMixedReef · Jul 26, 2015

If everything else is happy, do not touch anything. Like mentioned above let it sit for another month, if it doesn't look like its dying it probably isn't! Ive put SPS in my tank (before crash) that didn't show signs of PE for months, then once it grew big enough it started to show it. I would really hate to see you kill off everything with changes for just one piece :/

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

jasonandsarah said:
People question kessil leds because of shadowing. While growing out frags this will be a great light for you for sure, but once your colonies grow and start shadowing them selves the single point light source won't be able to overcome that on its own imo. Nothing adding a couple properly sized T5's won't fix or possibly adding another A160?
Anyways, I knew it was receiving to much light because there was ZERO polyp extention and it started to slightly die off/loose color. I moved it to where I should of had it in the first place and walla it's back doing good and has completely healed, colored back up and started growing.
Now I can slowly work it up to higher light next to it's older brother[emoji4]

Adding another a160 won't be a problem at all once these have grown out.

I've got one acro that turned light brown. Is that indicative of too much light?

I'll refrain from moving the PL around for awhile. It's still alive and shows some yellow still. I'll start feeding more once the skimmer gets here. All corals seem more excited today after last nights feeding with the filter feeder food. My strawberry shortcake acro frag looks super hairy today with some very long tentacles showing. All my Zoas and palys are out and looking great. I've never seen such a response before.

Matt

rovster · Jul 26, 2015

I was not trying to be a party pooper with the leave it alone comment but I was dead serious. After surfing these forums for sometime I've noticed people are quick to jump to the "feed more" bit without knowing what they are talking about just regurgitating what they read 100 times before. Then someone ends up feeding too much to soon and creates s totally different problem and then the real games begin.

If your tank is not being fed enough then certainly upping the feeding slightly can help. But feeding the tank just to make a new coral happy is not a good idea if everything else is ok.

Also keep in mind it can take a month or more for a new addition to settle in, the same amount of time for your increased feeding to show any significant effect, so what did it, the feeding, or did it just need time.

You have to be extra careful especially with nanos that you don't overdo it. They can go downhill relatively quickly.

Bottom line is tread with caution with acros. Realize changes take time and anything you notice overnight is all on your head, lol!!

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

rovster said:
I was not trying to be a party pooper with the leave it alone comment but I was dead serious. After surfing these forums for sometime I've noticed people are quick to jump to the "feed more" bit without knowing what they are talking about just regurgitating what they read 100 times before. Then someone ends up feeding too much to soon and creates s totally different problem and then the real games begin.

If your tank is not being fed enough then certainly upping the feeding slightly can help. But feeding the tank just to make a new coral happy is not a good idea if everything else is ok.

Also keep in mind it can take a month or more for a new addition to settle in, the same amount of time for your increased feeding to show any significant effect, so what did it, the feeding, or did it just need time.

You have to be extra careful especially with nanos that you don't overdo it. They can go downhill relatively quickly.

Bottom line is tread with caution with acros. Realize changes take time and anything you notice overnight is all on your head, lol!!

In my case, it's been in the tank for a few weeks now, closer to a month. I'll have a protein skimmer soon and test for nitrates every few days. I need to get a Hanna phosphate test since my API seems to have worthless resolution. No telling how high they truly are. Nitrates are zero.

I used to be very stingy with feeding. Only feeding Once every few days. I've upped it to every day now.

jasonandsarah · Jul 26, 2015

I don't really believe in feeding coral foods regularly but there's lots of frozen foods that have rotifers, fatty acids and other smaller stuff for corals to consume. I do have a jar of coral frenzy but I rarely use it and I've had it for along time.
Also just to clarify, when I say feed twice a day I'm not saying you should double the amount of food your currently feeding. In all reality you don't have to add any extra food. Feeding twice a day is very healthy for your fish and even your corals to an extent. I feed twice a day and I'd say I probably feed 25%-50% more then I would if I fed once a day.
I agree with not changing things just for one coral and also not worring to much about PE on a new sps. It can take awhile especially on a tank that just got moved and had a really high Dkh not long ago right? I'd say hold off on the acro's all together for now.

Mattrg02 · Jul 26, 2015

jasonandsarah said:
I don't really believe in feeding coral foods regularly but there's lots of frozen foods that have rotifers, fatty acids and other smaller stuff for corals to consume. I do have a jar of coral frenzy but I rarely use it and I've had it for along time.
Also just to clarify, when I say feed twice a day I'm not saying you should double the amount of food your currently feeding. In all reality you don't have to add any extra food. Feeding twice a day is very healthy for your fish and even your corals to an extent. I feed twice a day and I'd say I probably feed 25%-50% more then I would if I fed once a day.
I agree with not changing things just for one coral and also not worring to much about PE on a new sps. It can take awhile especially on a tank that just got moved and had a really high Dkh not long ago right? I'd say hold off on the acro's all together for now.

Over feeding brings me to another question relating to skimmers.

Once I have my skimmer broken in, would it be safe to say that a skimmer pulling a lot of nasty out could signify over feeding? I've never seen anything that states how much is too much. As of now, I have zero algae in the tank. I've got cleanish biofilm that forms on the glass every few days.

One nice observation is that my strawberry shortcake frag and green slimer frag are showing great PE since putting that coral food in the water. Just wish the PL would respond the same. :-(

I'll just focus on keeping things stable for now. Thanks for all the help!

Yes, my dKH was at 18 before I figured it out and went back to making my own water again. Now it's 11dkh.