Acan help please!!!!

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

Just bought this acan yesterday around 3pm cst. It was really open beautifully at the LFS, and pretty open while drip acclimating. Shocking!, once introduced to tank it hasn’t open or expanded its polips at all. Showing a little bit of skeleton. I know It’s only been 24+ hours but I’m starting to worry.
I placed frag on the sand bed lower par range

ph 8.1
Dkh 9
Calcium 446
Lights kessil a360x running on acclimation mode
Please help with suggestions and opinions!! Thanks

Hemmdog · May 18, 2020

What are your nutrients at?

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
5 nitrate
.02 pho

PicassoClown04 · May 18, 2020

IME I don’t drip acclimate corals at all. The way they function is they spit out all the old tank water and refill themselves with the new water, so drip acclimating stresses them out because they’re trying to do this spit/suck in thing for that entire period. Were they brightly lit at your lfs? You might want to try to match the light intensity they came from.

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

The lfs was pretty bright, mostly blues from what noticed when choosing this frag. A lot of threads are saying to lower light and start them off with lower flow as well. I have several torches, hammer corals. Bubble corals and BTA. I did a lot of research before purchasing and follow all the recommendations. Just paranoid I guess

PicassoClown04 · May 18, 2020

I’ve got six different acans and that’s what I do with all of them. I have never acclimated an acan by putting it on the bottom, it always goes on the acan rock (I have three tanks but this one has four acans so I’ll post it). Whenever I buy a new coral i just temp. float it for maybe 10-20 minutes then pop em in the tank wherever I want them to go. IME acclimating coral to your tank on the bottom gets them irritated cause they have to adjust to less light and your CUC crawling over them occasionally, whereas hermits and snails don’t really mess too much with stuff on the rock work. It may be closing because it’s not getting enough light but mine never show skeleton, not even at night. Hope the little guy pulls through okay and I hope this helped! Green/blue, red/blue, rainbow, red/purple from left to right

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

Thanks for you advice! You have a beautiful tank! I’m Jealous!!

I will raise him up a little bit in the morning before the lights go on, and see if that helps at all.

I did dip the coral for a few mins as well before adding to main display. It’s probably just super ticked at me

clown99 · May 18, 2020

Give it a few more days to adjust. Even with drip acclimation, acans also need to adjust to alkalinity, flow, light settings and schedule, etc. Keep your parameters stable.

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

Thanks clown I will try n wait it out. I might think to raise them up a little bit from sand bed!

PicassoClown04 · May 18, 2020

Yep that sounds like a good plan to me! Acan seem to be fairly hardy since each frag usually includes multiple heads so if one head is lost, the others can rebound and grow over the dead spot.

Anihiel1 · May 18, 2020

Mine did the same thing at first until I realized it was the flow not just the light. He seems to like middle of the tank, semi-indirect medium flow. How is your movement around him?

MikeRizz88 · May 18, 2020

Current spot the acan is in is not a dead spot but a lot lower flow than spots available in the middle of the tank. I’m up for moving if that helps at all. This acan has a magnificent color variation but I know with some led lights they possibly change colors. But I rather it be happy and change colors if that the case

Anihiel1 · May 18, 2020

I'm no expert by any means, but mine likes enough flow that his tentacles wave a bit, and he basically filter feeds 24/7. Even though I supplement LOL. They just always seem hungry. If he can't filter feed due to low flow he may be closed to conserve energy until food is available.

PicassoClown04 · May 19, 2020

IME acan colors don’t really change much with light, they may fade/get brighter but if you buy a red acan it stays a red acan. Flow is 100% important! Sorry, forgot to mention that. I have all of mine in moderate-high flow and moderate-high light. In the posted pic they are under two AI Prime HDs about 3 inches under the surface for reference. For the future, I have definitely noticed improvement with 2-3x targeted feeding of reeferoids with the flow off. They extend feeding tentacles and it’s very cool to watch them eat. If you have problems with receding in the future for apparently no reason, try feeding them.

MikeRizz88 · May 19, 2020

Your opinion helps!
With that being said I wonder if I should move him to a more flow area of the tank and try spot feeding some reef roids to maybe entice them to open up.

Anihiel1 · May 19, 2020

Agreed. I'd definitely move him a bit higher with more flow and baster some reef roids around him to trigger a feeding response

PicassoClown04 · May 19, 2020

Yeah, I use a 10 cc syringe (no needle) and a medical pee cup (gross but efficient) to mix 40 ccs of tank water and a pinch of reefroids. This feeds all of the coral in my tank so please adjust accordingly! Don’t squirt the acan too hard or it will go into defense mode, I’d try feeding tomorrow after you see how it reacts to the new lighting/flow we want to make sure we don’t overwhelm the poor guy, he’s been through a lot. When you reposition him on the rocks, make sure nothing can knock him over, he’s not shaded, and nothing is close enough to sting him.