Polyp extension only at night

[wasi99]

I’ve been keeping sps for the last few months and have been getting decent growth and they finally starting to colour up, but during the day they don’t have any polyp extension only during the night. Is there a reason as to why that is? I have a Walt Disney Acro with 0 polyp extension and then during the night it’s fully extended. I also daily feed AB+. I stopped the reef roids, should I start them again?

1.025
No3- 5ppm
Po4- .01
ca- 430
dkh- 9.3
mag-1340

 

[Clownreef]

Flow. They love flow. I have a gyre and 4 MP40's in my 180.

 

[BranchingHammer]

Do you have an angelfish?

 

[wasi99]

No, just a yellow tang, pair of clownfish, and a mandarin

 

[Softhammer]

That’s 100% natural. In the wild that’s how it goes. Over time polyps should extend during the day as long as there’s no predation occurring. I would worry about it.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I’ve been keeping sps for the last few months and have been getting decent growth and they finally starting to colour up, but during the day they don’t have any polyp extension only during the night. Is there a reason as to why that is? I have a Walt Disney Acro with 0 polyp extension and then during the night it’s fully extended. I also daily feed AB+. I stopped the reef roids, should I start them again?

1.025
No3- 5ppm
Po4- .01
ca- 430
dkh- 9.3
mag-1340

Too much light can limit PE. What lights are you running?

 

[Softhammer]

That too.

 

[blasterman]

Good growth....good color...no worries.

I have stags with too much daily PE and attribute it to low nutrient levels.

Lack of PE during the day but good PE at night is ideal.

 

[C. Eymann]

Nocturnal radial corallite polyp extension really doesn't mean anything, axial corallite polyp extension does, the axial (branchlet/branch tip) is usually only partially extended during the photoperiod, on some species, it wont be extended at all, in the dead of night however/wee early hours of the morning you will see the axial corallite polyp fully extended on happy colonies, the axial polyp of many acropora species has significantly less symbiodinium sp, (zooanxthelle) per mass of tissue than that of radial corallite polyps, this is because these polyps primary purpose is for food capture, not photosynthesis.

A stressed acropora will generally not feed/expend valuableenergytowardsfood item capture, which is why nocturnal axial corallite extension to be one of the best indicators of stability with acropora, esp new pieces.

When I worked at a wholesale /importer facility, we would have acropora colonies coming from halfway across the world and for the first few nights, despite good radial corallite daytime PE, they wouldnt show nocturnal axial polyp extension, after 3-4 days of being stabilized, we would start observing nocturnal axial corallite extension and thus the colony was deemed stable and ready to ship, frag etc etc.


Just food for thought.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Because that’s how sps are in the wild naturally....