Open brain coral shrinking

[diver0077]

:?I looked at my open brain coral yesterday and it had shrunk quite a bit, is this something I should be concerned about? I have a 29 Gal. reef tank with a Aqua Remoa skimmer and an Emporer filter, 75 watts of T-5 lighting and I am using reef trace elements and PhyoPlex to feed. Can anyone help me with this?

 

[Juck]

My green open brain is always changing size. If it's just been fed and it's happy it's about 6" in diameter,,,, if it's just 'purged' it shrinks to about 2".

If I've fed it a bit too much it swells up like a softball and then POOF ,,,, spews half eaten food all over the place.

When I overdosed on Kalk a few months back it didn't look happy at all for a couple of days but seemed to recover ok.

Assuming your params are ok, it might just be purging. How long have you had it?

 

[fungia]

if it is only a few days, i wouldnt worry about it. a lot of my lps will close up for a while like that, but if it goes longer i just do a water change and it perks them back up.

 

[Len]

You may also want to consider relocating it. I find they behave different under different conditions. But personally, I'd wait it out a little longer since it's only been a couple of days.

 

[diver0077]

I have had it about 2 months, and all my params are ok, I was wondering if I had enough light, my soft corals seem to be ok. The LFS said that T-5 give off a greater intense lighting and that open brain corals did not need alot of light.

 

[Anonymous]

touch it once to elicit a defensive reaction. it'll shrink right before your eyes.

 

[diver0077]

What do you feed it? I thought it just needed calcium and light??

 

[Juck]

I used to feed it little bits of Formula 1,, or whatever it's called,, the brineshrimp one,,, nothing else would eat it in mytanks and I didn't want it to go to waste. It will eat almost any marine flesh though, as long as it's small enough.

It would eat best at night when it's tentacles were out,,,just put a tiny bit of food and it will take it and pass it into to it's mouth.

I don't think they actually need direct feeding,, I haven't fed mine for a few months (since I ran out of Formula food) and it's fine.