Acans not extending

[Charlie brown]

So just a question I have had a frag for at least 8 months and was doing awesome but now for some reason my acans aren't extending if that's what you would call it I usually say "plumping up" anyways they aren't plumping up anymore they are hard to the touch like you can feel the skeleton. They haven't lost color and at night when the lights are off they plump up and extend their feeding tentacles to they are still alive just wanna know what might of caused them to not plump up during the day and only at night with the lights off? Should I try moving them to lower lighting? Where they are at right now they were booming started with one head and in 4 months got 8 heads and awesome colors now up to 12 heads still has color but not plumping up anymore so is there anything I can do to help it bounce back

 

[DLHDesign]

What are your tank parameters? Are you able to compare them to what they were historically (when they were doing awesome)?
Can you think of anything about your tank that has changed recently? New additions (fish or nearby coral), new equipment, feeding changes, lighting changes, etc...?

 

[Charlie brown]

Just added a file fish for aptasia but other than that nothing has changed my parameters haven't changed either small increase in nitrates but all my other corals are fine and thriving

 

[CindyKz]

The file fish might be nipping at them.

 

[xjiang7]

Check on anything like lighting or flow that might have been changed. I used to have an Acan did great and grew for a year, when I upgraded to a larger tank it stopped extending and didn’t recover, regardless anything else in the tank was doing great.

 

[DLHDesign]

Just added a file fish for aptasia but other than that nothing has changed my parameters haven't changed either small increase in nitrates but all my other corals are fine and thriving

Is there aiptasia in or around the acans? If so, then they are likely suffering from a toxic battle. You would want to manually remove the aiptaisa heads (which will very likely cause them to spread to other areas of the tank, but the file fish should handle them soon enough).

It's possible, as @CindyKz suggested, that the file fish is bothering them. I wouldn't give that a high probability if there is aiptasia in the tank for it to go after, but it's certainly possible. File fish tend to hang out and not move about overly much when not in search of food, so if the fish is hovering over or around the acans, this may be the issue.

An increase in nitrates may be indicative of other changes going on in the tank as well. And some corals are more sensitive to changes than others, so even what you feel is a small change may be impacting them. What are the numbers behind this increase (how much on average over how long)?

 

[AcanSam]

What ever came of this? Acan come back or did it die off?

 

[AcanSam]

What ever came of this? Acan come back or did it die off?

 

[AcanSam]

What ever came of this? Acan come back or did it die off?

 

[AcanSam]

What ever came of this? Acan come back or did it die off?

 

[Charlie brown]

What ever came of this? Acan come back or did it die off?

Sorry to get back so late been busy with holidays but it's still kinda the same it has improved just not extending like it use to it has improved but not like it was before I'd say imrovpent by 45% the color has started coming back a bit too