What’s happening to my plate coral.

[MrDLHughesY]

Hi guys my plate coral looks to be somewhat receeding as some of its skeleton looks visable. Any reason for this happening ? My crabs are constantly waking all over it which obviously it’s not going to like.

Sal - 1.026
PH- 8
Nitrate - 25ppm
Phos - 0.1pp
Alk - 7.3
Cal - 450
Mag - 1410
Temp - 76

 

[Euphyllia97]

Considering the values your water looks good. (Maybe a bit high on nutrients but nothing too extreme)

I would suggest you to increase alkalinity to 9.0 dkh as 7,3 is close to seawater, but gives you small room for error. Maybe you had a small drop in alkalinity and ph got affected.

Have your values been stable for a long period? How old is the tank? Have you checked for bad hitchikers during the night? What lights are you running?

 

[W1ngz]

it's not getting blasted with too much flow, is it? Perhaps a current eddy from the rocks?

 

[DarthSimon]

Have you tried feeding your LPS? Some Reef Roids or Reef Energy would work well...

 

[MrDLHughesY]

Considering the values your water looks good. (Maybe a bit high on nutrients but nothing too extreme)

I would suggest you to increase alkalinity to 9.0 dkh as 7,3 is close to seawater, but gives you small room for error. Maybe you had a small drop in alkalinity and ph got affected.

Have your values been stable for a long period? How old is the tank? Have you checked for bad hitchikers during the night? What lights are you running?

Yeah values are stable never really fluctuate much. Tank is over 1 year old. Not checked for hitch hikers.

 

[MrDLHughesY]

it's not getting blasted with too much flow, is it? Perhaps a current eddy from the rocks?

Could possibly be as I just recently changed my pump from standard to a sicce syncra silent 0.5
But wouldn’t it move if it wasn’t happy. I wouldn’t say it’s getting blasted but maybe abit more flow thank before

 

[MrDLHughesY]

Have you tried feeding your LPS? Some Reef Roids or Reef Energy would work well...

Yeah I feed it reef roids and frozen brine quite frequent but it just gets hammered by crabs and shrimp when I do

 

[W1ngz]

But wouldn’t it move if it wasn’t happy.

Corals don't move.

 

[MrDLHughesY]

Corals don't move.

Are you being serious

 

[W1ngz]

Are you being serious

Anemones move, corals do not.

 

[NanoSteam]

Anemones move, corals do not.

Plate coral can move by inflating and deflating itself

 

[MrDLHughesY]

Anemones move, corals do not.

Plate corals can move

 

[W1ngz]

Interesting, I've seen them dig themselves out of the sand by themselves but not outright move around.

 

[35ppt]

Corals don't move.

These corals definitely do. I've had them travel around in my tank, I had one that was hell bent on tucking in next to a chalice. I'd move it every morning and by the next morning there it was again. I moved to the other side of the tank and it's more or less staying put now.

I agree with the above advise. The only other thing I would add is if it dies leave it in and you might be gifted with whole horde of baby plates:

I had an orange one die on me but then babies started to form:

About a year later:

Two years later:

And still popping off more:

Ever seen two fungia that grew into each other? I've got a couple of these:

Quote Reply

 

[MrDLHughesY]

These corals definitely do. I've had them travel around in my tank, I had one that was hell bent on tucking in next to a chalice. I'd move it every morning and by the next morning there it was again. I moved to the other side of the tank and it's more or less staying put now.

I agree with the above advise. The only other thing I would add is if it dies leave it in and you might be gifted with whole horde of baby plates:

I had an orange one die on me but then babies started to form:

About a year later:

Two years later:

And still popping off more:

Ever seen two fungia that grew into each other? I've got a couple of these:

Quote Reply

Wow that’s amazing

 

[35ppt]

Wow that’s amazing

My pistol shrimp kept running off with them so I had to put them in a tupperware until I could get them all sold off:

All of the plates except for the double have been sold off and I've already got another tuperware full of them!

 

[MrDLHughesY]

My pistol shrimp kept running off with them so I had to put them in a tupperware until I could get them all sold off:

All of the plates except for the double have been sold off and I've already got another tuperware full of them!

that’s cool to know I would have for sure took it out of the tank

 

[Reefer40b]

When they die they usually pop some babies out as a last stand, so just leave it in the tank. After some time you will see them pop up around your tank a lot of the time.

And yes plates inflate to move like balloons, as long as flow is good enough.