Duncan Tips Changing Color

ashtoreth · Dec 20, 2020

I got a new duncan a few days ago and it opened up first day in the tank and has been open pretty much every day since (except when it catches something to eat). I have a IM30L Nuvo and keep a single AI Prime 16 right now directly above it (probably around 8-10in above the water, and the water is itself around 8-9inches deep to the sand). The duncan is acclimating on the sand and gets some flow but not alot (in case helpful as reference, it's next to a hairy green mushroom that has grown nicely and looks, I think, very happy with the flow). I thought the duncan was fairly happy given it always seemed to be open and the tentacles are pointy, not stubby (altough maybe not quite as extended as some others I've seen) but I've noticed that the tentacles were very bright, fluorescent green when they arrived and now seem to be fading a bit in fluorescence. The stalk looks purple under my light and it seems like the tips are turning lighter green / fading more into purples. Is that a bad sign / am I potentially bleaching it or is that normal and it's just adapting to the new light? The hyper fluorescent greens looked beautiful so I'm not sure if I should be running my lights differently or trying the duncan in a different spot? Some of the tips were already purple when they arrived, but the ones that were green were very very bright green (and now those seem more muted). It's hard for me to catchup the color well but have a photo below of how the duncan looks.

supernanoguy · Dec 20, 2020

May have something to do with feeding/lighting. I would give it a few weeks to see where it goes with this transformation.

supernanoguy · Dec 20, 2020

Try feeding it directly with some mysis or other meaty food.

ashtoreth · Dec 21, 2020

I fed it a PE mysis flake yesterday and a bit of reefroids today and it was fine for a while but then suddenly curled up and then spat out a pink slimy glob. Is that it pooping or did it just start expelling zooxanthellae? It's looking very bothered right now so want to check if people know what it looks like when they expell their zooxanthellae. I checked my water parameters and everything has been stable:

Alk 7.5
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0
Ph 8.0

supernanoguy · Dec 21, 2020

How about phosphates. I’m learning that corals need a bit of nitrate in the water to flourish. It is possible that he came from a high nitrate tank and now has none. I would imagine he would be fine after a while. My zoas puke up little brown blobs from time to time. The fish usually eat them up. If the material is falling out of the coral I would be alarmed. Sometimes they push their stomached out through their mouths for reasons unknown to me. Perhaps too much food or something. Test phosphates and think about raising the nitrates to around 8ppm. Call the shop you got it from and ask them their parameters.
Gl.

supernanoguy · Dec 21, 2020

Alk should be around 8.5 as well from what I’ve heard for Lps at least. Variety tanks may need different.

Lsuhunter · Dec 23, 2020

Do you have a cleaner shrimp? Mine steals food from my duncans mouth and ticks it off like this. The shrimp is getting rehomed.

supernanoguy · Dec 23, 2020

I had one until it almost killed my torch coral ripping food out of it. Right after it finally finished getting into its stomach! Surrendered him same day.

ashtoreth · Dec 23, 2020

I do have a cleaner shrimp but he was nowhere near the duncan pretty much all day, including when / after I fed the duncan. He likes competing with my clowns for food at feeding time and then spends most of his other time hanging underneath an overhang very far away from the duncan. The duncan has gone back and forth from being very spread out to very bunched up once or twice a day but I'm starting to think it's just randomly temperamental / maybe just caught some hard-to-see food in the water column? It hasn't spat out anything since...so I guess I'll keep observing?