Rainbow Acan Looking Deflated

BottomCoastReefs · Aug 11, 2014

i want to hear any thoughts or experience on this issue from the community. as the title says my acan is looking deflated today just out of no where all perams are PERFECT in my frag tank, constant water changes and maintenance since frags are leaving all the time. wondering if there are any pest or things i should look out for that may cause this. As i think about it while writing this post i have 5-6 hermits (blue and scarlets) to control algae but they do such a **** good job that there is little to clean, also been noticing aggression lately as these guys fight for shells... can these guys be a possible culprit? leave your thoughts below.

Heres a pic from about 3-4 days ago

and one from today looking all ****** out of no where

flowflezy · Aug 11, 2014

How long have u had it? Tried any other spots in your tank?

DVeit · Aug 11, 2014

Mine was deflated today as well! Interested for the answers on this. I've had mine about a month. Some days it looks great but every now and then I see it deflated. What kind of lighting/flow do acan's like?

beatsbymd · Aug 11, 2014

From my experience it's always your levels. One of my acan colonies was doing that a while ago. Test your water parameters, my guess is your Kh is a little low. That's what happened with me. For some reason my alkalinity dropped and the second I dosed they went back to their happy acan selves.

I keep mine low in my tank with high mid-high flow. I feed them oyster feast and live pods that I hatch every week.

Good luck!

BottomCoastReefs said:
i want to hear any thoughts or experience on this issue from the community. as the title says my acan is looking deflated today just out of no where all perams are PERFECT in my frag tank, constant water changes and maintenance since frags are leaving all the time. wondering if there are any pest or things i should look out for that may cause this. As i think about it while writing this post i have 5-6 hermits (blue and scarlets) to control algae but they do such a **** good job that there is little to clean, also been noticing aggression lately as these guys fight for shells... can these guys be a possible culprit? leave your thoughts below.

Heres a pic from about 3-4 days ago

and one from today looking all ****** out of no where

Eckolancer · Aug 11, 2014

I have some that do this then later in the day they are back to normal. I have about 15 types of acans some right next to another type will deflate while others are fine. I agree if they stay like that your levels are changing to much, to low or high. May even be to much flow.

CaliforniaCoralCo · Aug 11, 2014

I agree with beatsbymd, test your levels. What is your Kh and Calcium at? Do you feed it? Have you moved it lately?

Good luck!

DVeit · Aug 11, 2014

My kh is 9.5, ca 475.

Triggreef · Aug 11, 2014

Eckolancer said:
I have some that do this then later in the day they are back to normal. I have about 15 types of acans some right next to another type will deflate while others are fine. I agree if they stay like that your levels are changing to much, to low or high. May even be to much flow.

I agree with this. Mine do this sometimes more drastic and no rhyme or reason. But at night they always have their feeders out, and then they look good for the first few hours of light. After that they deflate sometimes and sometimes they re inflate again before the end of the light cycle.

CaliforniaCoralCo · Aug 11, 2014

Is the Kh always around 9.5? I keep mine at around 8.1-8.5

DVeit said:
My kh is 9.5, ca 475.

DVeit · Aug 11, 2014

Yes I try to maintain between 9-10

CaliforniaCoralCo · Aug 11, 2014

Ok cool. Then I would think it would be flow, light or feeding. Do you feed it? What kind of lighting and flow do you have it under?

DVeit said:
Yes I try to maintain between 9-10

DVeit · Aug 11, 2014

I have two Kessil 360W-E's, connected to my apex maxing out at 75% for a short period and going through the kessils full 10-20k spectrum. Flow is a Jebao wp25 connected to the apex as well with random waves and flows throughout the day. Flow is quite strong throughout the tank. Every once in a while I feed it some LRS reef frenzy pieces, but not often.

CaliforniaCoralCo · Aug 11, 2014

I'd say try a little less flow. And feed them twice a week. You're gonna notice a difference.

See my small colony in the front. I've had that for 4 weeks, and now there's 5 new heads growing on it. You can see 3 of them in the front and side of the acans. Try it out and let us know how it does!

jpines · Aug 11, 2014

This happened to several of my acans during the past 3 weeks. All of them are 3-7 head frags. And they stayed this way for about 5 days and then once they inflated there were new heads growing...idk if that had anything to do with it or not. Could have been chance alone, but maybe they're using the energy to expand? My hammer did the same thing for 5 days and when it expanded all the way out again it was divided in half and had a new branch popping out of the base...food for thought

Eckolancer · Aug 11, 2014

Ok I'm running 3 of the same kessils on a 48x 26 x 20 deep tank. 2 wp40s full power with random flow. I run kessils at 100% for 8 hours a day and 50% for 1 hour before and after that 8 hours. Now for spectrum I do the following for an hour each 0%, 20%, 40%, 60% 80%, 100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 20%, 0% acans are loving it and swear I see new heads each week. I never feed my corals only the fish get fed a lot. Also my levels are 8.5alk 440 cal 1350mag .05 nitrates .005 phosphates

Fishlee · Aug 11, 2014

I found running gfo made my deflated acans reinflate

BottomCoastReefs · Aug 12, 2014

WoW!!! didn't expect for this thread to take off as it has. Let me give some background info on the tank. its a 20long frag tank plumed with a 10gallon sump. After rock displacement in the sump i have a total volume of about 23 gallons. No skimmer just tons of rubble rock filling the entire middle chamber in the sump. I have 1unit of chemiPure Elite. Light the tank with 2 kessil A150 15kOceanBlue and an mp10 for flow on constant wave mode. i move the acan about once a week when doing water changes but never seen adverse affects as it has stayed plump with tenticals out at ALL TIMES. Colors up even more and more everyday and i feed it MicroFauna LPS Pellets about once or twice a week, maybe more if im not lazy. I do a water change every weekend and clean up all debris off the floor which is easy with a bear bottom tank. Do a 5 gallon WC with premixed water from LFS and they use FRITZ brand salt.

Now that all the technical SHIZZLE-WIZLE is put out there i think i figured out the problem thanks to you guys suggestion to check my parameters stating a similar experience when alk and cal are low.
Thinking my levels are perfect due to constant maintenance i never thought to check so i did and Lo and BeHOLD my ALK is LOW!!! tested twice to make sure i didn't botch the results and found my Levels to be at 2.3Meq/L = 6.4DKH Using RedSea Pro kit
i didn't check my Cal as i am too tired tonight and its a bit of a longer test but will be buffering the sustem tonight, Now that that is sorted out, any suggestion on keeping my alk up and stable?

jack89 · Aug 12, 2014

tagging along this thread....

DVeit · Aug 12, 2014

Oh yeah bottomcoast. Gotta get that dKH up! I prefer between 9-10kh and all my corals thrive (besides acan recently) and my ph stays up. I keep the alk up by dosing seachem reef builder alkalinity/kh powder. What's your Ph at? I moved my acan yesterday evening, interested to see how it looks when I get home. I also recently dosed Kent Coral Vite and Reef Essentials. I wonder if that has something to do with it's deflation?..