Corals Not Opening

I bought some zoanthids and a mushroom coral about a week ago and bought some clove polyps, more zoanthids, and some GSP 2 days ago. The first zoas have only had a couple of polyps open up, and the other zoas have been completely closed. The GSP opened up a little bit yesterday, but is now closed again The mushroom's doing fine and looks great, as well as the clove polyps. Do you know what's going on?

 

GSP while hardy can stay closed for several days in a row, I have it stay closed for up to 2 weeks. Increasing or playing with the flow can help.

Where are the zoanthids placed in the the tank, at what level?
Please post parameters as able.

 

I'm getting my water tested today at my LFS for po4, so I might as well test everything else. I let you know the results.

 

So I got my water tested a couple of days ago and they said that my nitrates were at 50-60 so they told me to do about 3-4 water changes this week and then to do a water change every week instead of every two weeks (which was what I was doing). The GSP have been doing great, but the zoas still closed. I have other zoa colonies that are doing great. Are they closed because of the nitrates? I also have a peppermint shrimp. Do you think that he would have something to do with it?

 

very high chance.
how old is your tank?
did you check your other par yet?
did you use live or base rock/sand?

 

It's been running for 6 months.
What do you mean by "other par"?
I used dead sand, but all live rock.

 

could definitely be closed due to the high nitrates. The other zoas are probably fine because they were already in the tank and the nitrates increased gradually over time giving them time to acclimate. The new zoas went from what was probably low nitrates to high nitrates over probably an hour's time.

The water changes are a good idea but you need to find out what is causing the high nitrates. Are you over feeding, too many fish, not enough flow, etc.

 

What's your:
Salinity:
Magnesium:
Calcium:
Alkalinity:
Temp:

If you don't have a test kit yet, I would highly recommend this test kit.
http://www.marinedepot.com/Red_Sea_...ater_Aquariums-Red_Sea-RS21510-FITKMK-vi.html

 

I have 2 ocellaris clowns and 2 chromis and I feed once a day. I vary the diet by giving them flake food one day and live brine shrimp on the other. I give them enough food to finish in about 30-45 seconds. They definitely have enough flow.

 

And no, I don't have a test kit. I'll look into the red sea test kit, though.