What's wrong with my acans?

[Bars]

Ever since I bought these frags, they just look kinda sad. They were extremely puffy when I bought them, good colors on them, but they just won't puff up in my tank. The best extension is the green one in the picture, the one behind (supposed to be a rainbow, which it was when I bought it) usually looks like on the picture. Got them +/- 6 months ago.

They're in a medium flow, semi-shaded spot. Feeders are out throughout most of the day.
I spot feed them reef roids once a week, but I'm not sure if they even take it.

Parameters as of today:
Kh: 9.6
Calc: 435
Mg: 1290 (usually higher, around 1400)
NO3: 10
PO4: 0,05

I'm doing bi-weekly water changes, no dosing (yet). My lfs recommended to start dosing amino acids for my buttons, so I've started doing that last week.

Any thoughts? Maybe or maybe not related: no matter how many times I try, xenia, gsp and zoas all keep dying on me.
Everything else is doing fine (Euphyllia, elegance, Ricordea, Goniopora, Blastos etc.). Hammers and Blastos splitting/growing heads.

 

[Braves Fan]

What kind of light are they getting ?

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Think it might need a little more light. Looks like it’s pretty shaded

 

[Braves Fan]

Thats what I was thinking

 

[The Aquatic Arsenal]

I am thinking lighting as well. You said they are partly shaded, so maybe they are being picky and not liking the shade or the direction of the flow. Everything else looks pretty good.

 

[eggplantparrot]

feed more solid foods. I find my Acans don't really like particle foods. but they will eat up what I feed my fish. i direct feed with a long pipette into as many heads as I can. this seems to help with growth

 

[Braves Fan]

I don't have anything to back this up jmo in a normal average lit tank ,, corals not shaded ,, getting light ,, chalices on the bottom ,, Favias above them ,, then acans getting around 250 to 275 Par maybe a bit more ,,

 

[Bars]

Thanks! I'll move them to another spot and give them some more solid food.

 

[Braves Fan]

Try some Fauna Marin pellets ,, acans love them ,, don't expect the acans to recover quickly with more light ,,it is what it is ,,,

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Thanks! I'll move them to another spot and give them some more solid food.

Move them to the light SLOWLY. Lps aren’t very forgiving when it comes to low light to high light. I lost an acan from moving it into the light too soon.

 

[Bars]

Will do
The lighting in the pictures is worse than it actual is by the way. I just noticed. They're more in a spot with indirect light than a full shadow spot

 

[Bars]

Alright, so I think part of the problem might be that, even though I've spot fed them for months, they haven't really eaten any of the roids/mysis/artemia.

I came across a video on how to 'properly' feed reef roids yesterday. I used to use a turkey baster and about half 1 teaspoon of roids. As suggested in the video, I took a full spoon this time and a small 10 ml syringe to get a thin paste. Turned all the pumps of for a good 20 minutes and have never seen my corals eat so much roids. The acans ate an insane amount, same for my mushrooms and for the first time I've seen my sps actually eat the roids. All the euphyllias hold on to the paste much better than before (probably because it's thicker now) even with flow.

To be fair, with most of my corals I never really saw a response to the feeding, except for the blastos, caulastrea and elegance. I always blindly followed the instructions on the packaging, but I'm definitely going to continue feeding them like this. I feel like for the past 6 months I've mostly fed the algae in the tank.

And a nice little bonus: no huge amounts of slime and uneaten roids are flying through the tank anymore once the pumps turn on

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Alright, so I think part of the problem might be that, even though I've spot fed them for months, they haven't really eaten any of the roids/mysis/artemia.

I came across a video on how to 'properly' feed reef roids yesterday. I used to use a turkey baster and about half 1 teaspoon of roids. As suggested in the video, I took a full spoon this time and a small 10 ml syringe to get a thin paste. Turned all the pumps of for a good 20 minutes and have never seen my corals eat so much roids. The acans ate an insane amount, same for my mushrooms and for the first time I've seen my sps actually eat the roids. All the euphyllias hold on to the paste much better than before (probably because it's thicker now) even with flow.

To be fair, with most of my corals I never really saw a response to the feeding, except for the blastos, caulastrea and elegance. I always blindly followed the instructions on the packaging, but I'm definitely going to continue feeding them like this. I feel like for the past 6 months I've mostly fed the algae in the tank.

And a nice little bonus: no huge amounts of slime and uneaten roids are flying through the tank anymore once the pumps turn on

Yup. That’s how I feed reef roids too. Except I spot feed with a fine point 10 ml syringe. Every once in awhile I mash mysis or krill down to a liquid and feed the corals that. Your acans and most lps corals will have a much better feeding response to meaty foods such as mysis.

 

[Braves Fan]

Just don't over do it I use the coke bottle trick also ,, if I don't want to turn down my flow or to keep the fish from messing with the coral after I feed it ,,

 

[NinnJinn]

Just don't over do it I use the coke bottle trick also ,, if I don't want to turn down my flow or to keep the fish from messing with the coral after I feed it ,,

Care to explain the coke bottle trick?

 

[Braves Fan]

Just cut the top off a 16oz plastic coke bottle ,, make a slurry with Reef Roids or any other powdered coral food ,, use a syringe ,, place the coke bottle top over the coral ,, slide the syringe thru the opening of the coke bottle and feed the coral ,, doesn't take but a few mins and you can remove the bottle and move on to the next coral ,, I use bigger liter bottles for the bigger corals ,,

Just have to hold the bottle so it doesn't float off ,, or shove it down into the sand for the coral that are on the sand bed ,,

 

[NinnJinn]

Just cut the top off a 16oz plastic coke bottle ,, make a slurry with Reef Roids or any other powdered coral food ,, use a syringe ,, place the coke bottle top over the coral ,, slide the syringe thru the opening of the coke bottle and feed the coral ,, doesn't take but a few mins and you can remove the bottle and move on to the next coral ,, I use bigger liter bottles for the bigger corals ,,

Just have to hold the bottle so it doesn't float off ,, or shove it down into the sand for the coral that are on the sand bed ,,

thank you for the tip/trick

 

[Bars]

How fast should I except to see changes in appearance?
I moved them to a spot with direct light, near the sandbed, a few days ago. They still look the same as 2 weeks ago, except for the rainbow and small red frag. They're a tiny bit more 'fleshy'.

Not sure if I'm being impatient. I tend to compare them to my Euphyllias, which react within a few hours to changes in placement, lighting or flow.

 

[Braves Fan]

I have found with acans that aren't doing good ,, it takes awhile ,, sometimes they didn't make a recovery ,, sometimes they do ,, sometimes you will lose polyps and be down to one polyp left ,, when they aren't doing good they most likely won't eat ,,, best you can do ,,

Get them into the light you think they need ,, if you have access to a Par meter ,, use that ,, find a spot that is getting a Par number around 200 to 225,, not a lot of direct flow ,, feed them a bit of food once a week , they don't need much ,, and forget about them ,, as long as they are alive ,, your doing good ,, maybe get a couple of cheap acan frags from the LFS or online ,, place them in different areas of your tank ,, just to see if one area is doing better than another ,,

Acans ,, like most corals on the mend ,, they just take time ,, if they make a come back ,, you have learned something about acans and your system ,,,

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Acans will not react within days. They react within months. You just have to wait. Euphyllias that have lost color from being in not enough light take awhile to color back up too.