Red Planet Stunted...

[Joe Knows Reefs]

I've had a red planet frag in my tank for about a year or maybe a bit longer. Initially it encrusted very well and has covered a large portion of the rock its on. It has never really grown up and tabled or branched out though. It continues to encrust more and more, but does no tabling. There are a few nubs and I did a little growth test by knocking a nub off a few months ago. It grew back in a matter of weeks but it still won't grow upwards.

My tank is very stable and I have great color, health, and success with all other acros, but my red planet is a little disappointing. Any ideas?

 

[Just Clownin Around]

Leave it be and it will start to table when you least expect it, my main branch was 1.5" thick and spanned 14" across. I never touched it besides when I broke a frag cleaning the glass

 

[Joe Knows Reefs]

Leave it be and it will start to table when you least expect it, my main branch was 1.5" thick and spanned 14" across. I never touched it besides when I broke a frag cleaning the glass

I've heard a couple of other people say the same thing....I bought on the original ORA plug and it was pretty beefy at about 3.5" at that time but hasn't done much outward growth since then.

 

[Reef lvr]

Same thing with mine

 

[Salty Dog]

patience

 

[agsansoo]

What type of lighting do you have ? Mine grows up and out very quickly. It wants high intensity light.

 

[PR_Reefers]

I have this same problem with my pink lemonade!! it'll encrust over everything, in it's search for higher ground. I was gonna mention cutting off the tip of whatever branch you had but guess you already tried that. I have to another idea that I can think of,to stimulate it.. If you are able to able to move it place it very low for a couple of weeks on your tank and maybe it'll try to branch in search for light, once it does & if it does it should bump it out of stunted growth and it will continue to grow once you move it to high light again. It shouldnt have any rock in contact with it so it will chooses to branch instea dof encrusting over rock to get to get higher. Another way could be placing it on a plug raised from the rockwork by the plug "stalk" so that the edges of the plug are not touching any rock surface it shouldn't want to grow underneath the plug, where there is no light. This is just me thinking crazy theories but it comes kind of, from the same principle that plants shoot upward in search of light when there is competition, maybe since the coral feels its already receiving sufficient light it might want to colonize a larger horizontal area as much as it can before growing vertcally since its already in a good spot on the reef. I might be trippin also, lol... Maybe you can also try gluing a dead sps skeleton to it and it should try to grow over it and in the meantime may decide to branch out! Just sharing my pov....Anyways like mentioned above giving it more time is the other option.

 

[Gravesj1s]

Ime, light seems to effect the color more than anything.More green with red polyps in lower light.In high light less green with hot pink coloration.

One thing Ive noticed it likes a lot of flow and I'd guess that maybe worth looking at,too. Just my experience.