Trouble with acan and favia

[Scallywags]

Got a few corals for the WWC tax sale . Its been a few months now and most seem to be doing well and growing except the acan and favia. They seem to be stagnant and even smaller at times. I have a bunch of zoas doing well, but one I got from the sale has now closed up and hasn't opened in over a couple weeks even after trying to move up and down in the tank. I have an AI Prime over a 30g. I have a Hammer, duncan, Blasto, polyps, along with some mushrooms/leathers/zoas all growing and looking good. Phosphate seems high so I am going to yank out some chaeto from my reactor and hopefully that will help a bit as im sure its jam packed. Hair algae is starting to get a little harder to keep out so that makes sense. Water before my biweekly water change is

temp - 79.5
Salinity - 1.025
ALK - 8.2
Mg - 1600
Cal - 488
ammonia - 0
Phosphate 1.66

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[DeniseAndy]

I would guess you have some issues with chemical warfare. Depending on the size of the leathers, most acans and many favias hate leathers. Just do not get along. I do have some together in my 20g frag tank, but all are small and not near each other.

Also, some tanks are just not designed for the acans and favias. They can be finicky at times. They need low flow and lots of space without anything touching them. Acans can touch acan if both same species. Favias, not so much. They both lose to leathers though. Probably to the hammer as well.

 

[Grootzilla]

+1 on the chemical warefare with the leathers. Nothing a bag of carbon or water change can't fix though.

But also phosphates are probably the main culprit of this. Some phosphate is good for the coral but over .5ppm and it will most likely tick the coral off and stunt it's growth. Obviously there are exceptions to this in specific corals and very old tanks that have settled into that level but there is a good reason people try to maintain low phosphate levels.