Acan and Duncan not growing

[Radicalrob1982]

Hi all. Thanks for reading.

I've had my acan Coral almost 8 months now. It grew a bit then stopped growing. Are these meant to be fed?

My parameters are good and I've been reefing for a few years now. I have an rbta that's quadrupled in size. My zoa is growing so good too. My clove polyps are also growing very well. Almost double in size. Both my acan and Duncan coral have not grown in at least 6 months. Acan looks tightened up and Duncan only comes half way out. Duncan is getting about 160 or so par and the acan is below that and I assume it's getting around 80 to 100 par roughly. It's almost on the sand bed in my 20 long.

For my Duncan I've seen my female clown harass it sometimes. That could be a cause. But no idea about the acan

Any help or advice would be appreciated

Thanks.

Rob

 

[Naso180!]

Both can be target fed and will benefit from it. Especially the Duncans in my experience. I feed my acans periodically. Usually after lights out when their tentacles are significantly more extended. The Duncan, if it's doing well should have good tentacle expansion during the day. Which is when I feed mine. I definitely don't feed them religiously. Basically when I think of it. Maybe a few times a month. Just my 2 cents

 

[SchrutesReefs]

What are your calcium and alk levels? All the corals you mentioned with great growth were softies, those LPS need their skeletons to be fed.

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Both can be target fed and will benefit from it. Especially the Duncans in my experience. I feed my acans periodically. Usually after lights out when their tentacles are significantly more extended. The Duncan, if it's doing well should have good tentacle expansion during the day. Which is when I feed mine. I definitely don't feed them religiously. Basically when I think of it. Maybe a few times a month. Just my 2 cents

Both can be target fed and will benefit from it. Especially the Duncans in my experience. I feed my acans periodically. Usually after lights out when their tentacles are significantly more extended. The Duncan, if it's doing well should have good tentacle expansion during the day. Which is when I feed mine. I definitely don't feed them religiously. Basically when I think of it. Maybe a few times a month. Just my 2 cents

Yeah I may start a feeding regiment. I'll try once a week for a while and see how things go. The Duncan is always half out. I think it's because my clown keeps harassing it. Sometimes my clown will play in it like an anemone. And sometimes she violently attacks it and tail smacks it. Must be some kind of love hate relationship lol

 

[Kiwi369]

What lighting do you have? It could be that it's not strong enough for the two corals.

 

[Naso180!]

The clown maybe bothering it if it has an anemone and the coral is too close or was added after it. My maroon clown has knocked over big piece of rock before if she's not happy about where I placed them. Maybe relocate the Duncan to another spot

 

[MartinM]

They definitely need to be fed, and they’re probably slowly starving (like everything in this hobby, if it’s not growing, it’s starving). For my LPS, I auto feed about 2ml per hour per 200ml of a combo of reef nutrition roti-feast and oyster-feast. But you can feed something larger, like pods, mysids, etc.

 

[Radicalrob1982]

What are your calcium and alk levels? All the corals you mentioned with great growth were softies, those LPS need their skeletons to be fed.

I always keep my alk around 7.5, my mag around 1300 and my calc between 380 to 400. I test and dose frequently to try to maintain stability. I have a small hammer coral with the same symptoms.

What lighting do you have? It could be that it's not strong enough for the two corals.

I have an orphek or3 blue plus 24 inch. And one ai prime in the middle. The or3 alone is enough par for my corals because my tank is only 12 inches deep

 

[Radicalrob1982]

The clown maybe bothering it if it has an anemone and the coral is too close or was added after it. My maroon clown has knocked over big piece of rock before if she's not happy about where I placed them. Maybe relocate the Duncan to another spot

She always finds it lol

 

[Radicalrob1982]

What are your calcium and alk levels? All the corals you mentioned with great growth were softies, those LPS need their skeletons to be fed.

Calc is 380, mag is 1300 and all was 7.5 yesterday when I tested

 

[Radicalrob1982]

They definitely need to be fed, and they’re probably slowly starving (like everything in this hobby, if it’s not growing, it’s starving). For my LPS, I auto feed about 2ml per hour per 200ml of a combo of reef nutrition roti-feast and oyster-feast. But you can feed something larger, like pods, mysids, etc.

I just bought a coral feeder tube. Trying some reef roids but I don't think they like it.gonna try some mysis or brine shrimp. Hopefully they like it.

 

[SchrutesReefs]

Calcium and alk seem low to me, I would shoot for calcium at 400-450. Alk at 8-10dkh. Maybe someone else will chime in.

 

[ChaosAquaculture]

Your coral that is doing well is all soft coral that doesn't need alk and calc the way lps and sps do. Everything you mentioned that was having similar symptoms in your tank has skeletons. Your calcium is recommended to be in the 430-460 range, and all at 7.8 - 8.2 for them to thrive - kali

 

[Dkmoo]

+1 low alk and cal

Also these have large mouths that target feeding should be very easy and you will see very obvious feeding response

Do not broadcast feed, the tend to not be as effective if you just want to improve these two specific ones. Instead, make reefroid paste (don't add too much water, keep it thick, almost like a watery pancake batter), then get a J tip syringe and squirter little dollops of the paste directly on top of their mouths.

I do this every other day and my acan and duncans are some of my fastest growing lps

 

[Radicalrob1982]

Your coral that is doing well is all soft coral that doesn't need alk and calc the way lps and sps do. Everything you mentioned that was having similar symptoms in your tank has skeletons. Your calcium is recommended to be in the 430-460 range, and all at 7.8 - 8.2 for them to thrive - kali

Ok I'll try to adjust the calc, mag and Alk. Hopefully after all levels are raised it makes a difference in a month or two. I ended up buying aquaforest calc and mag. I also have some seachem reef builder alk supplement. I'll aim to try and get my levels up over the next week or so. A bit per day.

But one question is why is my anemone doing so well? It doesn't get fed. It just has light. Is that all an anemone needs ?

 

[Dkmoo]

Nem has no bone either. It doesn't need alk calc either. It was able to get the nutrient it needs from water the same way your softies are growing.

 

[nereefpat]

Calcium and alk are at natural seawater levels. They're fine.

I would try feeding them mysis with a dropper twice a week. Report back in a month or so.

 

[uhgster1]

Duncans can handle clowns, as long as you feed them once in a while. I had to stop target feeding mine from every other day to once a week once I went from three heads to forty. My clowns hang out in all of my LPS, my elegance is the favorite but the euphyllia host them too. But they are fed regularly and I think it just puts more "meat" on their bones.

 

[Radicalrob1982]

+1 low alk and cal

Also these have large mouths that target feeding should be very easy and you will see very obvious feeding response

Do not broadcast feed, the tend to not be as effective if you just want to improve these two specific ones. Instead, make reefroid paste (don't add too much water, keep it thick, almost like a watery pancake batter), then get a J tip syringe and squirter little dollops of the paste directly on top of their mouths.

I do this every other day and my acan and duncans are some of my fastest growing lps

I just bought a Julian's thing coral feeder. Gonna try feeding twice a week and see how things go. I've already started testing dosing daily. Gonna raise alk to 8.5, mag to 1400 and calc to 440. And will test and maintain those levels for now and hope it brings the corals back. Also gonna try one day reef roids and one day mysis,brine shrimp. See which one they like better

 

[Dkmoo]

I just bought a Julian's thing coral feeder. Gonna try feeding twice a week and see how things go. I've already started testing dosing daily. Gonna raise alk to 8.5, mag to 1400 and calc to 440. And will test and maintain those levels for now and hope it brings the corals back. Also gonna try one day reef roids and one day mysis,brine shrimp. See which one they like better

Raise it slowly.

IME they will eat both roid and shrimps. Shrimp may be more natural but reefroid is more nutritionally dense - its called "roid" for a reason - so it depends on what your end goal is. Biggest knock against reefroid was that it tend to muck up pO4 but since you are not broadcast feeding that shouldn't be an issue. For these reasons I like reefroid more for target feeding these corals