Please advise about my candy cane

[TrishK]

So I got this little guy April 17th. The picture in the blue container is what he looked like when I got him. I thought candy canes had fleshy polyps?? So I wait a month and he continues to look this way. His middle is bright green under the lights and he does open his mouths (he has two) so I’ve been waiting for him to split. When Spot feeding him with the bulb tube he feels hard...again I though he was supposed to be fleshy. To me this looks like his skeleton. I emailed the seller and asked him about it (I sent him the second picture with blues off) and he said he was in a dormant stage. Is there such a thing? It’s been a month now and I’m concerned. Should I be or is this normal? Sorry for the blue lights (pic 3 taken today)Hubby has them on a timer and I didn’t want to mess things up. I see his mouth open but have never seen tentacles come out unless he does that when lights are out. TIA

 

[F i s h y]

Everything i see looks mostly normal. It could probably be a little more "fleshy" but its current state may be due to flow. If it has to high of flow it won't inflate fully so it isn't damaged. I dont see any flesh recession, or bleaching that lead me to believe its unhealthy.

 

[TrishK]

Everything i see looks mostly normal. It could probably be a little more "fleshy" but its current state may be due to flow. If it has to high of flow it won't inflate fully so it isn't damaged. I dont see any flesh recession, or bleaching that lead me to believe its unhealthy.

Okay that’s good to know. He’s in a pretty low flow area and about 2” off the sand bed on a rock in front a big mound of rocks so the power heads really blow out way above him against the glass.

 

[splitting_lanes]

The tentacles only come out at night. Check it early in the morning

 

[Naboria79]

The tentacles only come out at night. Check it early in the morning

Yes, the tentacles come out at night. When I checked mine around 6am both of them have the tentacles out. By the time lights come on the polyps are back in.

 

[old salt reefer]

You want fluffy, feed it more, every day until it's fluffy, then go to every 3rd day or so.

 

[TrishK]

Currently I spot feed twice a week with reef roids. I also spot feed some mixed meaty foods once a week and coral frenzy once a week plus whatever is in the water column. Phytoplankton a few times a week with UV and skimmer off for awhile after. So basically feed about 6X a week. Usually His mouth isn’t open and we’ve checked him after lights out and tentacles aren’t out so will start checking In the early morning.

 

[old salt reefer]

I feed mine good size pieces of shrimp,scallop from LRS Nano frozen food. Sometimes I can't believe the size chunks they(as well as Acans)can eat. I've never see the tentacles out on this color variety just on the neon green one and I feed after dark due to a female clown that takes the food as fast as I feed it to the candy cane(and then spits its out and doesn't eat it). Couple pictures a few months apart--

 

[Naboria79]

This are the two I have. Taken today at 5:50am.

 

[Reeffragger]

This is mine.. healthy should look like mine tbh

What are your water params..

 

[TrishK]

How old are yours? Mine is only a month old so he’s pretty new yet. Is yours the green ones? Seems like are always more fleshy and grow better. My parameters are

Salinity -1.025
Nitrites 0
Ammonia 0
Nitrates 5 ppm
Phos .25
Ph 8.2
Temp 79.3
Calcium -520
Alkalinity 9
Iodine .012 per L

Still waiting on Magnesium test kit to arrive

I told my husband our phosphates were way too high and should probably be 0 or nearly. I purchased some phosguard and it came today so I will be getting that started today. We also purchased some bio rocks to put in our sump. I think these things will help a lot.

 

[Reeffragger]

Theyre the color you see.. light blue. Not green. My neon green ones are just as big.

Any LPS you can see the septa on means it isnt happy and retracted. The septa are those oval shaped spines on the top. Most all LPS have those.

Jusy to give you info my tank has phosphates in the .50-.25ppm range and nitrates are 20-50 at any given time depending on how it was since water change or how much ive been feeding.

.25 ppm is fine i assume your using the api kit though right ? Nitrates seem a lottle low so phosphates are probly lower then .25. Id up the nitrates and phosphates to 10-15ppm nitrates and see if that helps.. but thats just me of course.

Mine are a colony.. but ive had em for maybe 3 months. When i got them they were this big after a week in my tank. Sometimes itll take a few weeks to a month for an LPS to FULLY extend.. in my experience anyway

 

[MattJS]

I’ve had a few trumpets. Love them. Never heard of a dormant stage haha, but for the most part it does take a little time for them to settle in and color up.
For mine to be puffy with big fleshy polyps I put them in the lower light, lower flow parts of my mixed reef. They do pretty good in higher light, slightly higher flow, but for me they just don’t get as big and fleshy looking that way.
And as for parameters, ime they are extremely tolerant and grow pretty well in high nutrient. Don’t know how they’d do in ultra low nutrient, just cause I’ve never run my reef that way.

 

[TrishK]

Theyre the color you see.. light blue. Not green. My neon green ones are just as big.

Any LPS you can see the septa on means it isnt happy and retracted. The septa are those oval shaped spines on the top. Most all LPS have those.

Jusy to give you info my tank has phosphates in the .50-.25ppm range and nitrates are 20-50 at any given time depending on how it was since water change or how much ive been feeding.

.25 ppm is fine i assume your using the api kit though right ? Nitrates seem a lottle low so phosphates are probly lower then .25. Id up the nitrates and phosphates to 10-15ppm nitrates and see if that helps.. but thats just me of course.

Mine are a colony.. but ive had em for maybe 3 months. When i got them they were this big after a week in my tank. Sometimes itll take a few weeks to a month for an LPS to FULLY extend.. in my experience anyway

Yeah I couldn’t tell they were blue from your blue lights. In any case I know starting with one polyp takes a little longer then they take off. He has two mouths so I know he will split soon. We have a UV and bio blocks so doubt our parameters will get that high. We have loads of coral and they’re all doing great. Our Duncan is happy as a clam and multiplying like crazy. Our water is stable and very pristine to the point we have pineapple sponge everywhere lol. We just got a 4” diamondback goby in there so he’s kinda digging everywhere and throwing things out of whack for a little bit lol

 

[Bryknicks]

I've never heard of a dormant stage and would not trust them based off that info. They definitely don't appear to be happy. Do you have a photo of what they were advertised as? Curious to see how they looked before leaving the store. They should be more swollen and fleshy like above. I think you just got a bad coral. It should bounce back as long as there is still some flesh which appears to be.

 

[Reeffragger]

Yeah I couldn’t tell they were blue from your blue lights. In any case I know starting with one polyp takes a little longer then they take off. He has two mouths so I know he will split soon. We have a UV and bio blocks so doubt our parameters will get that high. We have loads of coral and they’re all doing great. Our Duncan is happy as a clam and multiplying like crazy. Our water is stable and very pristine to the point we have pineapple sponge everywhere lol. We just got a 4” diamondback goby in there so he’s kinda digging everywhere and throwing things out of whack for a little bit lol

Yours in your first post have 3 heads. Its splitting into three.

 

[TrishK]

I've never heard of a dormant stage and would not trust them based off that info. They definitely don't appear to be happy. Do you have a photo of what they were advertised as? Curious to see how they looked before leaving the store. They should be more swollen and fleshy like above. I think you just got a bad coral. It should bounce back as long as there is still some flesh which appears to be.

No unfortunately it was a “frag pack” so didn’t know what I was getting but I won’t be doing that again. I fed him some more reef roids yesterday and some mysis too and he looks better today...more fleshy I think

 

[TrishK]

Yours in your first post have 3 heads. Its splitting into three.

I was wondering that the other day if it was actually two more heads at once as he’s really getting disfigured lol. He looks happier today after two different spot feedings last night...looks more fleshy all of a sudden.