Why do Duncan coral not like me

[MNFish]

For some reason I cannot keep Duncans.
I have a mixed reef with:
Cyphastrea
Platy
Digi
Plate Coral
Multiple Alveopora
Multiple Zoa
Multiple Palys
Multiple Goni
Multiple Blasto
Micro
Dendro
Lepto
Favites
Spath
Multipe Acro
Tarts
Clam
Chalice
Turbinaria
Acans
Montis
......

And Everything is doing great and growing but I have killed 2 Duncan coral...
I just cannot seem to keep them alive and I gave up buying them, but at the same time always love the way the look.
What is the secrete for Duncan coral?

 

[ZoWhat]

Can't really answer this without knowing the size of the tank and how closely the corals are aquascaped together

It's a much different world at 3am when sweeper tentacles come out and chemical warfare among corals start.

Unseen world without a deep red led light at 3am 4am


.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Hmm, where are you locating the duncans? In the wild, they live in somewhat deeper areas with a more moderate flow.

I also have a mixed reef, although quite a bit smaller than yours. My Duncan started as one medium sized polyp and few tiny babies.. It gets ~65 PAR amd moderate-low flow (by today's standards) on the one side, mostly. I restrict feeding to a mysid or two a week to try and keep it contained, but it still keeps on growing...

A short vid of the flow showing the polyps doing their 'wavy-wavy' thing:

 

[MNFish]

Hmm, where are you locating the duncans? In the wild, they live in somewhat deeper areas with a more moderate flow.

I also have a mixed reef, although quite a bit smaller than yours. My Duncan is in ~65 PAR and ogets some flow on one side, but it is quite moderate. I restrict feeding to a mysid or two a week, but it still grows:

A short vid of the flow showing the polyps doing the 'wavy-wavy':

That is a beautiful Duncan!
I think I may have been giving it too much light but I tried low light places as well and just had no luck.
I would really like to try another one but feel bad since I have already killed two of them.

 

[MaxTremors]

As kind of mentioned above, Duncans are defenseless, they don’t have nematocysts to sting other corals and defend themselves, so they will always lose if another coral gets aggressive. Personally, I’ve found Duncans to be one of the hardiest LPS corals (which wasn’t always the case, I remember 15-20 years ago when they weren’t as common having a harder time with them), along with hammers and blastos. I’ve found that Duncans like almost soft coral level of nutrients, but as long as there is some nutrients in the water, they should do well. They like to be fed once a week or every other week with something small but meaty (mine love mysis and brine shrimp). They like medium lighting and flow (they should be swaying back and forth in the current). All the Duncans I’ve had in the last 10 years or so have been almost bullet proof. I don’t know, I think we all have one or two species that we should have no problem with, but for whatever reason they just don’t do well. For me it’s frogspawn (this despite hammers thriving) and orange lobos (which I think are technically acanthostrea pachysepta). Duncans are so cheap these days (which is insane, because they’re a gorgeous coral, I’ve got a pink and teal one right now that’s really pretty, I guess it’s because they don’t really fluoresce like a lot of other corals, so that may be why), I’d keep an eye out for a healthy 2-3 head frag locally and give it another go, if you’ve only killed two of them it could just be they were unhealthy specimens.

 

[Nano sapiens]

That is a beautiful Duncan!
I think I may have been giving it too much light but I tried low light places as well and just had no luck.
I would really like to try another one but feel bad since I have already killed two of them.

The good news with Duncans is that they are generally quite hardy, can produce lots of polyps buds, frag/heal well and are quite common in the hobby. Look for a moderate light spot where something like a Ricordia would do well (although a Duncan can take perhaps a bit more flow). Once seated, don't move it around as they can take their sweet time to settle in, so to speak.

 

[Nano sapiens]

That is a beautiful Duncan!
I think I may have been giving it too much light but I tried low light places as well and just had no luck.
I would really like to try another one but feel bad since I have already killed two of them.

Funny thing is, about 15 - 20 years ago I had a large and rather bland green-grey colored colony in a 55g and I really had no affinity for it at all (I moved it on fairly quickly). In my more senior reefing years, I've developed a much higher esteem for them

 

[Kellie in CA]

Everyone has one that they just can’t seem to keep. For me it’s mushrooms. As for Duncan’s…. I literally scraped them off down to bare rock, and twice as many grew back a few months later…. from nothing! It was so weird!
I feed all my LPS heads individually once a week with a long tweezer… that might be why they like my tank.

 

[jett555]

My Duncan was happy where there was less flow near the bottom of the tank.

 

[Staghorn]

Are you feeding them? I

 

[WVNed]

Mine are always really happy until they are dead.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Cause you are mean to them.

 

[Saminpa]

I have been through this myself unfortunately with Duncans. It really frustrated me because I love them for whatever reason. I’ve been in the reef hobby for a little over a year now. During the first 7 months i got four different frags from a company and within a few weeks they were gone, it was very frustrating. Back in February I decided to get 2 frags from a different company, they’ve been growing and thriving since!!! With that said I’m assuming it’s related to one or both of these things. Either my tank wasn’t balanced enough for the ones that died, or my parameters/lighting/flow are just that different from the first company. Maybe try a different vendor??
My lavender has grown from 5 to 16 heads in 4/5 months, my green stem 2 to 8 heads in the same timeframe.

 

[MNFish]

Are you feeding them? I

Yes is it possible to over feed them?