help with polyps

[antonym518]

anyone know whats going on with these button polyps???

[wildreef]

Originally Posted by antonym518

anyone know whats going on with these button polyps???

whats wrong ? one appears to be closed' and you have the actinics on ?
the rest look fine as far as appearance go's in the pic. "full" and open

[Tangster]

If you are referring to the three or four in the middle that are closed up Thats nothing to worry about I don't think.. maybe they have caught or snagged some food in the water .. Or even it could be a speck of algae if they do not reopen take a Q tip or old soft tooth brush and gently rub them off to clean any algae that may have grown on them.. But I'd give them a few days they looked fine to me..

[lunatik_69]

I also dont see anything wrong with them.

[antonym518]

They are closed and shedding almost. Is this normal for soft coral? They have been closed for a few days. They didn't eat anything.

[Tangster]

Not sure what you mean by shedding ? sliming maybe ? Try to change the water flows a little bit to help clean them off Anything near to them another type of coral really close ? You keep carbon running ? Might want to try that if you are not now using carbon.. Actually these corals are next to impossible to kill or harm unless you have water parameters off the charts .

[antonym518]

ok, what about a parasite

[omard]

Originally Posted by antonym518

anyone know whats going on with these button polyps???

Ok...here is list I archived long ago. Think originally was from poster over at RC.





25 Reasons why your polyps won't expand.

1. You have a zoanthid eating worm.

2. Sundial snails. ( I've experienced this ) Zoo eating snails.




3. A fish that is nipping at them, there are several well documented cases of this. ( I've experienced this )

4. An invert doing the same. ( I've experienced this )

5. Unstable or fluctuating parameters.

6. Large Emerald Crabs or a Sally Lightfoot. Both can and will
consume, kill and cause polyp retraction. ( I've experienced this )

7. Sea Spiders.

8. If shipped, the water was much too cold and you placed it directly into your tank without slowly drip acclimating them. Or, the inverse, the water was too warm.

9. Nudibranchs

10. Stray Voltage.

11. Excessively high Iodine which would prove fatal.

12. Light shock

13. Polyps that were kept in PC or VHOs and then placed mid to high level under MH's without light acclimating them. Possible burning could also occur.

or

Polyps that were in maybe dual 175 SE Mh and then placed mid to high under 400 watt DE MH, will cause possible burning or a delayed expansion.

14. Other stinging corals.

15. Chemical warfare.

16. Overpowering current. (I've experienced this )

17. Excessive collection of sediment. See post 1, 6 and 7 in the link below.

18. Nuisance algae around the polyps which will irritate them and prevent them from expanding. (I've experienced this )

19. Temperamental, yes, they are, there may be nothing at all wrong, that simply don’t want to expand for that day.

20. Fungus

21. Bacterial infection.

22. White lesions also referred to as Zoa Pox.

23. Amphipods, which I have only witnessed eating sick, dead, dying, decaying polyps. Doesn’t mean they won’t eat perfectly healthy ones, I just haven’t witnessed it, some have.

24. Extreme hypo or hyper salinity


25. And the final reason may not be any of the reasons above. Why? Periodically, polyps will retract from days to 10 to 14 days, during which they will clean themselves externally. Then without any advanced notice, they will unfold like a flower or a summer’s morning.



(Zoanthid Predators, Irritaters, & Diseases)



PS. There are proactive measures that one can take to prevent or greatly reduce your chances of experiencing the above. Most notably...

1. Dipping
2. Close inspection
3. Quarantine your new purchases
4. Educating yourself on what to look for and recognize. I think a lack of knowledge is the one major contributors to most unfortunate experiences in reefing.









Palytoxin is an incredibly complex marine natural product containing 71 stereochemical elements. Palytoxin, isolated from soft coral (most notably, zoanthids), is considered to be one of the most toxic non-peptide substances known, second only to Maitotoxin.

Typical symptoms of palytoxin poisoning are angina-like chest pains, asthma-like breathing difficulties, tachycardia, unstable blood pressure, hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells), and an electrocardiogram showing an exaggerated T wave. The onset of symptoms is rapid, and death usually follows just minutes after.





FYI

[lunatik_69]

Great list Omard.

[antonym518]

thanks for the list. It does seem like they maybe cleaning them selfs. I hit them with a lot of flow for an hour or so today and seem to be peeking out a little. It was like there was a thin membrane comeing off of them. That seems to make the most sense, I have had a lot of the problems you are mentioning. But this is different.