Corals sulking except GSP and anemone

[becks]

Hi all,

My corals lps & sps have been retracted for the last few days and sulking, I’ll double check my water parameters shortly but they were all within range two days ago.

My hammer coral although not retracted it’s not fully expanded like it normally is, my Duncan’s are sulking as are my acans etc

What’s odd is my GSP and anemone are absolutely fine so I don’t think it’s a contaminant. Tank is currently fallow so nothing is nipping them

I’ll get more information once I carry out all my tests to confirm numbers.

Alk: 8.5
Cal: 450
Mg: 1350
Nitrates: 10

 

[najer]

Have you got a pic please?
Have you changed anything like light or flow or added any coral recently?

 

[Porpoise Hork]

Right off the bat , it looks like your Alk is a tad low and the nitrites a tad high as well. What is the water temp, salinity, and PH at?

What all do you have in the tank? Do you have any ornamental shrimp like Fire, Banded or cleaners in there? My fire shrimp constantly irritates the duncans and my clowns occasionally try to host on one colony from time to time. This usually prompts them to pull in for a few hours or more.

 

[becks]

Temp is stable at 26.7c, ph 8.2 my nitrates have always been between 2.5 to 10ppm and it’s never shown any issues before, so I don’t believe it’s due to nutrients.

My tank is fallow and my cleaner shrimp leave the hammer alone completely and only climb over the Duncan when I feed the fish, but since I’m fallow I just drop a clam in every few days but because this sinks straight to the sand bed the shrimp don’t climb on the Duncan.


Quite a few weeks ago my gyre packed up and my only flow was the return pump until I could get some wavemakers two days later (weekend and a few days later) ever since then I’ve had issues with the corals.

My flow is roughly the same, if they anything it’s better as it’s more random rather than the linear flow the gyre produced even when on a controller.

I’m mixing up some salt water to do a 25% waterchange.

 

[najer]

It could just be the flow, lps can sulk for weeks lol, give it a week after the waterchange to give us an update if it goes well, update sooner if it goes more pear shaped.

 

[Wieloch89]

Agreed... it’s probably just a flow issue. If you’re getting a more random flow, then you probably kicked up some sand particles and whatnot that are floating through the water irritating your filter feeders. Give it a few days or a week and see what happens. Water changes never hurt either.


Also, 8.5 is nowhere near low for Alk. Seawater is closer to 7.8 dkh, not as issue.

 

[becks]

Update: as I hate it when people don’t update their threads when they have problems

It’s been a few days since my last water change and my corals are perking up a lot. My trachy is looking nice and inflated, same as my acans etc.

My Duncan is still looking the same and my hammer is extending further, not the same as he was but, looking much better. I’m going to do another 25% waterchange over the weekend.

This is after I had a strange fluorescent orange algae under antics growing on my back walls and at one stage in the water column. Since that’s no longer appeared my corals are looking better. In fact my tank has never looked so clean.

 

[alton]

Once I know my lighting is fine, my next step is to always do a large water change. This seems always fix things when something does not look right.