Is my Meteor Shower Cyphastrea happy?

[jbenn]

Like the title says. I have a meteor shower cyphastrea and it doesn’t look like others I’ve seen. The polyps are wide open and I can barely see the encrusting beneath. Is this normal?
I’ve had this frag for a couple months. It still hasn’t grown off the plug.
It’s high up in my tank and I’ve got strong lighting (MH/T5). Flow isn’t too strong.

 

[LegendaryCG]

Doesn't really look like cyphastrea to me.. -- EDIT-- I guess maybe it is I've seen some photos from different angles that sorta look similar. My cyphs never extend that much they stay much tighter together.

 

[RedReefer]

It’s happy the polyps are way out. Mine is on my sand bed and the polyps are smaller than yours. There’s many variations of this coral. Just fyi

 

[Sthomp01]

they look very happy

 

[Spieg]

Cyphastrea do better in moderate light. Polyp extension may be an attempt to shade the base.

 

[jbenn]

Cyphastrea do better in moderate light. Polyp extension may be an attempt to shade the base.

That’s what I was pondering. I guess the only test is to lower it down and see what happens. I didn’t want to move it if it was happy though.

 

[srt4eric]

I started getting much better growth at moderate light as opposed to high. I didnt notice any growth till I moved it lower in my tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Good polyp extension in fact unusual as it is seeking more light
These are slow growers relying moderate light and water flow and occasional feedings

 

[mermaid_life]

Wow it almost looks like a leptastrea with that polyp extension!

 

[VB313]

Mine love it low low light never seen extension like that, also had faster growth with higher alk

 

[Dkmoo]

Entrusting corals are more depended on calc, alk, and PH for growth. Light only provides the energy that the zoox converts to O2 and sugar. These two things do not directly cause coral to grow. Coral use these as chemical energy source to further convert calcium, carbonate, and proteins into "growth". Cyph doesn't need that much energy so high light without the proper calc, ph, alk will not cause it to grow.

It's polyp extension is a natural reaction to the high light so it looks like the reaction is a healthy one. High light only cause polyp retraction if the coral is stressed from a sudden change to high intensity. Cyph can accept a wide range of light if properly acclimated, so looks like yours is already acclimated to the light level.

Moving it to lower areas should have little impact on growth bc its not a light issue causing slow growth. More likely a combination of ph, alk, calcium, or nutrient issue (in that order)

 

[jbenn]

Entrusting corals are more depended on calc, alk, and PH for growth. Light only provides the energy that the zoox converts to O2 and sugar. These two things do not directly cause coral to grow. Coral use these as chemical energy source to further convert calcium, carbonate, and proteins into "growth". Cyph doesn't need that much energy so high light without the proper calc, ph, alk will not cause it to grow.

It's polyp extension is a natural reaction to the high light so it looks like the reaction is a healthy one. High light only cause polyp retraction if the coral is stressed from a sudden change to high intensity. Cyph can accept a wide range of light if properly acclimated, so looks like yours is already acclimated to the light level.

Moving it to lower areas should have little impact on growth bc its not a light issue causing slow growth. More likely a combination of ph, alk, calcium, or nutrient issue (in that order)

That’s good info. In the right conditions how fast should I expect cypahstrea to grow? I test my water weekly and the parameters are as follows:
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0
Phosphate-0
Salinity-1.026
pH-8.0-8.2
Alk-8
Calc-450
Mag-1350

I dose BRS 2 part calc and alk.

 

[X-37B]

Thats a cool looking piece!
Mine is a branching type.
It was a small nub a year ago.
Never seen polyp extention like yours.
Its halfway up in my 120 running halides for the last 3 months.
T5's prior with decent growth under them.
I dont remember the name of it though.
Here it is today.

 

[Cell]

Looks great to me. Some cyphastrea have crazy polyp extension.

 

[Dkmoo]

That’s good info. In the right conditions how fast should I expect cypahstrea to grow? I test my water weekly and the parameters are as follows:
Ammonia-0
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-0
Phosphate-0
Salinity-1.026
pH-8.0-8.2
Alk-8
Calc-450
Mag-1350

I dose BRS 2 part calc and alk.

These look good - but 0 no3/po4 suggest low nutrient. What else do you have in your tank and how well are they growing? In terms of nutrients, corals primarily needs disolved organics or coral food to fuel growth, and indirectly no3/po4 for its zoox growth. That's why people suggest something like 10 ppm nitrate and 0.03 po4 bc that's a measurable indication of now much nutrients put in the system. IMO this should be achieved not by specifically dosing no3 or po4 but indirectly by feeding more coral foods and amino, any of the food uneaten by corals will be either pulled by skimmer or converted by bacteria to NO3/Po4, which the zoox in coral then absorb.

Do you target feed or dose amino? If other corals in your tank are growing faster then it might be a competition issue where there's not enough nutrient to go around. Do you have a lot of fish? Either case target feed or dosing amino should help. This may increase ur algae growth too but there are other ways to control that.

Nutrient cycle is a complicated thing to get balanced bc there are a lot of biological process involved and not all nutrient control methods does the same thing. I made this chart for a diff thread that illustrate the major processes to help you target where you need to do.

 

[jbenn]

These look good - but 0 no3/po4 suggest low nutrient. What else do you have in your tank and how well are they growing? In terms of nutrients, corals primarily needs disolved organics or coral food to fuel growth, and indirectly no3/po4 for its zoox growth. That's why people suggest something like 10 ppm nitrate and 0.03 po4 bc that's a measurable indication of now much nutrients put in the system. IMO this should be achieved not by specifically dosing no3 or po4 but indirectly by feeding more coral foods and amino, any of the food uneaten by corals will be either pulled by skimmer or converted by bacteria to NO3/Po4, which the zoox in coral then absorb.

Do you target feed or dose amino? If other corals in your tank are growing faster then it might be a competition issue where there's not enough nutrient to go around. Do you have a lot of fish? Either case target feed or dosing amino should help. This may increase ur algae growth too but there are other ways to control that.

Nutrient cycle is a complicated thing to get balanced bc there are a lot of biological process involved and not all nutrient control methods does the same thing. I made this chart for a diff thread that illustrate the major processes to help you target where you need to do.

I don’t have a lot of fish. I have a monti cap, candy cane trumpet, and 2 softies that grow fast. The SPS, zoas, frogspawn, acans, and ricordia, not so much.
I seldom target feed (reef roids when I do) and know nothing about dosing amino. I have chaeto reactor that I set up recently. I used to run GFO but thought that may have been the cause of my slow/no coral growth issues.

 

[Dkmoo]

If some are growing while others are not then likely you got a few "strong" individual corals that's gobbling down all the food, leaving none for the rest at the table. I would probably feed more. Reefroid is good. If you dont want to "broadcast feed" and have most go to waste and convert to NO3PO4, then the more efficient way to target feed is to add very little water so that its a thick paste that you can drop directly into the coral mouth with a curve tip syringe. Just increase slowly so your chaeto reactor to keep up with the increased nutrient waste.

Here's mine that I bought a month ago. My parameters are similar to yours except I have a lot more nutrient and waste. I Broadcast feed reefroid (too lazy to target feed) and dose brightwell's amino weekly. I used to control the no3/po4 waste with fuge but have recently turned that off and used Vibrant to turn the excess algae back into coral food. No3po4 is at 15ppm/0.03 ppm currently. it fully encrusted the disk within a month. I have a lot of sps, lps and softies too. Almost everything is growing well.

increasing nutrient has its own set of problems to tackle such as nuisance algae, filter feeder explosions, and generally trickier nutrient export/control measurements. Excess nutrient can also cause corals to brown like what my cyph is doing a little bit so I'm still trying to adjust to the right level. The holy grail of this hobby is always finding that sweet spot where "all the good things are growing" while controlling all the "bad things " from growing too much. Where that spot is is different for each tank. Hopefully my chart can help you find yours.