TheMysticGriffin
Community Member
Hello, I went on holiday for about one week and when I came back all of my corals were doing fine and they were all happy but in this week my LPS have started retracting. I have changed my lighting schedule to reduce white light, but they were already used to it and did not seem to care until I switched the mode of my lights to advanced mode since the normal mode has a misfunction, although I don't think this caused it since the lights are 80% blue, 80% royal blue, 5% red, 10% white, 20% violet. I did a 10% water change to see if things would clear up and it helped the goniopora. The retracting corals are as follows:
Acantophyillia: Would open up to be half the size of a dinner plate but now barely extends its flesh and seems scrumbled up. It was very happy one week ago.
Alveopora: Bought it 2 months ago, did great for 1 month but then retracted into its skeleton, only extends during midday and is nowhere near the size it once was.
Goniopora: Expanded greatly, but recently seems to be close to the base and does not appear to be very happy.
Blastomusso: Same with goniopora, grew to huge sizes but now does not extend as much or hardly at all.
Hammer coral: I have 4 hammers, one of them is doing great and is growing but the other ones are not expanding as much as they used to, the yellow hammer is doing better after the water change but the others seem the same.
Corals that are doing well:
Zoanthids, they seem to be unaffected.
Clove polyps, they are also doing well although they don't expand as much during the late hours anymore.
Fungia plates: They are probably the LPS that is doing the best right now, they are very happy and eating well with tentacles expanded.
Frogspawn: Seems to be unaffected.
Today when I came back, I checked on the acanto to see it had a gaping mouth, I took it and turned it upside down and some zooxalanthe came out of its mouth followed by a few amphipods, after which it expanded its flesh for a little while and seemed happy as it closed its mouth. I've got a question, I recently bought a skunk cleaner shrimp, could he be the culprit? I've spied on him at night with a red light but he seems to mind his own business if we don't mind the occasional picking of amphipods through corals. The tank is free of any fish, I cannot get fish since the tank has ich and is in a fallow period, I've also got an algae problem and I'm presuming this is because of the phosphate present in the tank after I clean the glass after around 12-24 hours the glass gets an algae film on it is this normal? The rocks are covered in algae but are not the hairy kind its just stuck onto the rocks and does not feel slimy or does not have a texture (It's just flat on the rocks, like coralline but its brown). I don't do regular waterchanges to the tank so could that be the cause of the problem? (the last waterchange was around 2 months ago). I use red sea salt from red sea (the company) and the corals seem to be liking it but I'll step up on the water changes and do them weekly from now on (I'm gonna do one tomorrow as well), but I'm really suspicious about amphipods, I've got thousands of them (not exaggerating) they are everywhere when the lights turn off they appear literally everywhere could they be the cause of coral irritation? I'm really fed up with them because there are some huge ones like the size of a grain of rice and they seem to be crawling over the acanto, could these be the cause of the issue? I've got a calcium and pH test kit, but I will get a kH test kit and a phosphate test kit tomorrow, the values are:
pH: 8
calcium:400 ppm
salinity: 1.025 (measured by refractometer)
I'll update this post tomorrow when I get the other tests done.
Also all my corals close up at night, literally all of them close up at night even the acanto, fungia and goniopora. Is this normal? I know that zoas close and hammers close but this applies to all my corals, they become very small and just shrivel up until the lights turn on, the amphipods come out at night could this be the case of their retraction? I'm lost on how things can escalate so quickly, one week they were doing extremely well and this week they are declining, there is no tissue loss and they seem to be just relatively unhappy but I want to solve the issue. Any ideas on what could be the cause?
Sincerely, thank you.
Edit: Aquarium is 120 liters with the sump, I use a tunze 9001 doc skimmer and a carbon pouch followed by biological filtration. Tank is medium to low flow.
Acantophyillia: Would open up to be half the size of a dinner plate but now barely extends its flesh and seems scrumbled up. It was very happy one week ago.
Alveopora: Bought it 2 months ago, did great for 1 month but then retracted into its skeleton, only extends during midday and is nowhere near the size it once was.
Goniopora: Expanded greatly, but recently seems to be close to the base and does not appear to be very happy.
Blastomusso: Same with goniopora, grew to huge sizes but now does not extend as much or hardly at all.
Hammer coral: I have 4 hammers, one of them is doing great and is growing but the other ones are not expanding as much as they used to, the yellow hammer is doing better after the water change but the others seem the same.
Corals that are doing well:
Zoanthids, they seem to be unaffected.
Clove polyps, they are also doing well although they don't expand as much during the late hours anymore.
Fungia plates: They are probably the LPS that is doing the best right now, they are very happy and eating well with tentacles expanded.
Frogspawn: Seems to be unaffected.
Today when I came back, I checked on the acanto to see it had a gaping mouth, I took it and turned it upside down and some zooxalanthe came out of its mouth followed by a few amphipods, after which it expanded its flesh for a little while and seemed happy as it closed its mouth. I've got a question, I recently bought a skunk cleaner shrimp, could he be the culprit? I've spied on him at night with a red light but he seems to mind his own business if we don't mind the occasional picking of amphipods through corals. The tank is free of any fish, I cannot get fish since the tank has ich and is in a fallow period, I've also got an algae problem and I'm presuming this is because of the phosphate present in the tank after I clean the glass after around 12-24 hours the glass gets an algae film on it is this normal? The rocks are covered in algae but are not the hairy kind its just stuck onto the rocks and does not feel slimy or does not have a texture (It's just flat on the rocks, like coralline but its brown). I don't do regular waterchanges to the tank so could that be the cause of the problem? (the last waterchange was around 2 months ago). I use red sea salt from red sea (the company) and the corals seem to be liking it but I'll step up on the water changes and do them weekly from now on (I'm gonna do one tomorrow as well), but I'm really suspicious about amphipods, I've got thousands of them (not exaggerating) they are everywhere when the lights turn off they appear literally everywhere could they be the cause of coral irritation? I'm really fed up with them because there are some huge ones like the size of a grain of rice and they seem to be crawling over the acanto, could these be the cause of the issue? I've got a calcium and pH test kit, but I will get a kH test kit and a phosphate test kit tomorrow, the values are:
pH: 8
calcium:400 ppm
salinity: 1.025 (measured by refractometer)
I'll update this post tomorrow when I get the other tests done.
Also all my corals close up at night, literally all of them close up at night even the acanto, fungia and goniopora. Is this normal? I know that zoas close and hammers close but this applies to all my corals, they become very small and just shrivel up until the lights turn on, the amphipods come out at night could this be the case of their retraction? I'm lost on how things can escalate so quickly, one week they were doing extremely well and this week they are declining, there is no tissue loss and they seem to be just relatively unhappy but I want to solve the issue. Any ideas on what could be the cause?
Sincerely, thank you.
Edit: Aquarium is 120 liters with the sump, I use a tunze 9001 doc skimmer and a carbon pouch followed by biological filtration. Tank is medium to low flow.
