Slowly shrinking Toadstool.

[El Maestro]

Hi,
I got this toadstool, with a frag pack last week and it could be my imagination but it seems like it is slowly shrinking. I currently have a couple of types of chalice corals, twelve zoa varieties and one hammer. They all seem fine and have at least decent polyp extension or open polyps with no tissue recession or any red flags. This leather however has looked like it was slowly shrinking since I put it in my tank. The polyps seem to be out 24/7 even after lights out. I currently have it in the bottom third of my tank with moderate/low flow. I had it in the top third of the tank with moderate flow the last couple of days and it seemed to have shrunk more. My light is an AI blade set at 30% on all channels. I have two clowns and a royal gramma that are healthy and don't disturb the coral. I had had a bit of an algae problem that I corrected through water changes, manual removal and getting a full-fledged clean up crew. My salinity is 1.026 I haven't tested nitrate recently but it normally comes up 0, I just have the cheapo API test kits though.

Is this just part of their normal cycle? I have a fantasy of having a giant neon green leather taking up 1/3 of the tank.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

IME they like medium light and flow. Flow is important to them and I see the polyps moving on the pic so that’s good. You don’t mention tank size or wattage so don’t know how effective 30% lighting is, although 30% does seem unusually low unless you bought super over powered lights for your tank. They also like some measurable nitrate and phosphate in the water, API tests are not accurate enough for our hobby, try salifert instead. With that said, corals can take weeks or even months to acclimate to a new tank, so you have to give it more time, one week is a short amount of time to a coral.

 

[El Maestro]

Sorry tank size is a 40 breeder. And yeah I know salifert or those new Hannah checker things are the way people are doing it these days. Honestly I just have been going off of rate of algae growth to tell me where my numbers are. Fast=too high, slow but still have to clean the glass some =good. It’s just softies and a couple lps with a light fish load so I’ve yet to buy filtration beyond a surface skimmer while I wait for the rock to develop…and so I could spread out the cost over several months.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Your lights are set way too low for the tank size, your corals won't grow. IMO you should be up around 70%-80%-90%. If the light is not strong enough for algae to grow, then its not strong enough for corals to grow either, corals and algae need the exact same things in terms of lights and nutrients.

Algae is not the correct way to judge the lighting, algae will always grow, especially in a new tank that is less than a year old. The younger a tank is, the easier algae will grow. Algae is tackled with nutrient control, filtration, increased algae grazers, and increased water movement. We all have to clean the glass every couple of days, this is normal.

Again not much info on your tank set up, but I would suggest to get your lights and flow dialed in to a working level. Develop a plan to tackle algae, start a new thread if you want

 

[El Maestro]

It’s a 40 breeder so only 18” of depth, I’ve got a tunze 6045 doing laminar flow on one side and a hygger gyre at 30% about 4 in from the top. I feel that the flow is fairly dialed and not really looking for advice on that. The light is an AI blade coral grow at 30% on each channel because that hit 40 watts of usage which is supposedly the ideal range for softies/lps according to a video I saw with Ryan Batchelor on his Patreon from a few months ago where he tried a number of lights and tuned them based upon their power usage and tested it with a par meter. I can try to bump it over the next couple of weeks but it’s an 18” depth and I have no SPS nor plans. All my other corals are growing acceptably and coralline algae are etc. It’s really just this toadstool causing me concern.

 

[El Maestro]

Well I bumped my lighting to 45/45/75 which is a more than 50% bump and the toadstool looks bigger already. I’ll give it a couple of weeks and observe. My hammer is slightly retracted now but it will live. I think I will make a new update on my tank thread asking for opinions on the next steps for the tank. I appreciate your feedback.