Symphyllia Retracted

[JaaxReef]

Having a frustrating experience with my small colony of Symphyllia. Just not as puffed up as when I got it about 3 weeks ago and I can see the edges of the toothy skeleton through the flesh. Not poking through, but it is definitely retracted a bit. Thinking it may be light stress too? It is in medium flow and on the sandbed. Recently turned down my lights to see if it might help. Parameters have been steady and all other corals are doing well.

Gave it an iodine dip this afternoon thinking it could be bacterial or something. I guess we’ll see.

Calcium 400
Alk 8.4
Magnesium 1500
Nitrate 2.0ppm
Phosphate close to 0...

 

[JaaxReef]

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[JaaxReef]

So, just reading a few other forums, it seems like it is probably just “skinny” and hungry. I turned down the lights for acclimation and have been target feeding finely minced homemade food (scallop, tilapia, shrimp, calamari, and reef chili) on top of it for a feeding response at the same time before lights on every day. Not a huge amount of luck in the first few days, but I’m starting to see more of a response now! Some feeding tentacles and sucking some in. I think the consistency is helping. I’ve also got a Phosphorus supplement that I’m going to start dosing that is coming today. 0 PO4 can’t be good for it. I’ll try to get it up to .05 or so and see how that goes.

I guess I keep up the feeding and dosing of phosphorus to keep it from bottoming out and see how it goes after a couple weeks. I think my largest problem is lack of fish. Only have four in a 112 gallon setup (plus one wrasse waiting healthy in quarantine but I don’t have a lid on the main display). As I stock up fish in the future, that should help!