Acro Polyp Extension

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Alex Cataldo

Alex Cataldo

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Hi everyone, recently I noticed that one of my acros has had virtually no polyp extension. The flow has not changed, and it was in the tank for about 2 months prior with some growth. One thing I noticed was that there seemed to have been more and more detritus in the water column lateley, which I siphoned off the bottom of the tank a day ago. Another reason I did the water change was to potentially remove any contaminants in the water, I was also dosing Acro Power and that has been the only thing dosed since the tank was setup. My guess is that the larger polyps we’re getting irritated by the stuff in the water and are closed up, but some very small polyps on new growth remain open. Alk: 8 Cal: 460ish Mag:1400 Temp: 78 Currently running carbon
 
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I routinely gently blow off detritus on my acros. As long as parameters and nutrients are in check, there should be some polyp extension as long as nothing is irritating/nipping it. I just recently acquired a ASD rainbow that has minimal to no polyp extension. It’s about 2 months old and everything else has massive polyp extension. I’m guessing it just needs a longer acclimation.
 
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If you are not going to get some fish in the near future, then dose some ammonia to get your corals some nitrogen. Residual levels of N and P on a test kit are fools gold, but ammonia/ammonium from fish waste are a good thing to have. Availability > Residual

I agree that PE is not a sign of much except to see if something changes. It can be a false flag which can get people into trouble chasing things, or it could be important... hard to say. I would look for other indicators.
 
REEFTIDE said:
I would check again with a new kit because undetectable is not good
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jda said:
If you are not going to get some fish in the near future, then dose some ammonia to get your corals some nitrogen. Residual levels of N and P on a test kit are fools gold, but ammonia/ammonium from fish waste are a good thing to have. Availability > Residual

I agree that PE is not a sign of much except to see if something changes. It can be a false flag which can get people into trouble chasing things, or it could be important... hard to say. I would look for other indicators.
Click to expand...
There are fish in the system (the tank is hooked up to a bigger sump and tank) so there is a steady supply of nitrogen and phosphorus. Part of me thinks that the tank may be running very low on nutrients since my refugium has barely grown, and the skimmer doesn’t pull out much. I want to invest in a nice no3 test kit like the nyos so I will update the thread or make a new one when those numbers come out
 
If you have fish that are supplying waste, then it doesn't matter what the residual no3 is, as long as it is not getting to where it can limit calcification or zoox activity (in which case, PE might be higher since the coral has to respire more). I have .1 residual nitrate - there are photos in my rebuild thread of all of my corals from acropora to softies and nems that don't care at all. Undetectable on most kits is usually around .1 to 1, which is fine.

You might need to feed the fish more, but I don't know that this will help with PE for this one acropora.
 
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REEFTIDE said:
I would check again with a new kit because undetectable is not good
Click to expand...
Ok, so a new Nyos Nitrate test kit came in yesterday, and Nitrate is maybe slightly detectable, it shows it being at about 0.1 PPM Nitrate. Since then, I have turned off the skimmer and refugium and am trying to bring back up the nutrients to at least 1-5 PPM nitrate. It would make sense that its the nutrients because of the paleness of the corals.
 
jda said:
If you have fish that are supplying waste, then it doesn't matter what the residual no3 is, as long as it is not getting to where it can limit calcification or zoox activity (in which case, PE might be higher since the coral has to respire more). I have .1 residual nitrate - there are photos in my rebuild thread of all of my corals from acropora to softies and nems that don't care at all. Undetectable on most kits is usually around .1 to 1, which is fine.

You might need to feed the fish more, but I don't know that this will help with PE for this one acropora.
Click to expand...
I suspect a rather large drop in nutrients as to why this is happening, with no nutrients the algae living in the coral is suffering
 
jda said:
If you have fish that are supplying waste, then it doesn't matter what the residual no3 is, as long as it is not getting to where it can limit calcification or zoox activity (in which case, PE might be higher since the coral has to respire more). I have .1 residual nitrate - there are photos in my rebuild thread of all of my corals from acropora to softies and nems that don't care at all. Undetectable on most kits is usually around .1 to 1, which is fine.

You might need to feed the fish more, but I don't know that this will help with PE for this one acropora.
Click to expand...
I also have an auto feeder I could try, but the fish are very small and I worry about overfeeding. Just a thought
 
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