Star Polyp Not Opening Up

[famous]

i bought a star polyp about 10 days ago and since i have had it, it hasnt opened up. It is in an area of good light and moderate flow. some of the polyps have opened but only about 10 of about 200 polyps.

is there anything i can do to encourage it to open up?

Also i have an orange sun coral that i try and feed daily with mysis and brineshrimp. however because it hasnt opened up properly it hasnt trapped any food. is there anything i can do to feed it so the food actually gets ingested. I have tried turning all the pumps off and taken the coral out and sat it in water saturated with brinshrimp. neither will encourage it to open up enough. any ideas?

thanks

 

[-Nemo-]

i bought a star polyp about 10 days ago and since i have had it, it hasnt opened up. It is in an area of good light and moderate flow. some of the polyps have opened but only about 10 of about 200 polyps.

is there anything i can do to encourage it to open up?

Also i have an orange sun coral that i try and feed daily with mysis and brineshrimp. however because it hasnt opened up properly it hasnt trapped any food. is there anything i can do to feed it so the food actually gets ingested. I have tried turning all the pumps off and taken the coral out and sat it in water saturated with brinshrimp. neither will encourage it to open up enough. any ideas?

thanks

Water stats would be helpful to begin with.

For the sunny, have you tried to see if it opens after dark? Put it in a shaded area with good flow as they like a good amount of flow. After the lights go off, I would spray a little bit of food over the polyps to try and get them to open. Wait and see if they open. Even if they won't open completely, try to give them small pieces of food. I've discovered when having new sunnys, that even if they don't open completely, if you manage to get small particles in their polyps, they will begin to open up fully in subsequent days.

 

[famous]

thanks

23 litre tank
temp: 25 c
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0
ph 8.2
salinity 1.025

i add kent nano A and B buffer and nutrient mix every day

 

[-Nemo-]

Kent nano A and B is an alkalinity and Calcium buffer... neither of which you have listed. If you add them everyday there is the potential that they are REALLY high. You should have your KH and calcium tested.

 

[famous]

yeah i was thinking about this. it says to add every day which i have been doing for the last week but i now only do it once a week as like you said the levels are just building and building. I now just add after every water change. I did test my kh around a week ago and it was around 90 dkh

last time i did a calcium test it was reading quite high, hence why i stopped adding kent a and b daily.

I did a 10% water change today and i will test all my levels tomorrow (i use the test kit at the shop I work at) and report back.

 

[-Nemo-]

90dkh a typo I assume...

If you're going to be dosing alkalinity and calcium, you should be testing regularly, and really your tank is so small that unless it is absolutely full to the brim with corals, you shouldn't even need to dose. Water changes should be sufficient. If your KH and calcium are high, I would suspect that to be annoying any corals you have.

 

[famous]

ok thanks

i will lay off the dosing for a while. I will test everything tomorrow and see what it is like and adjust accordingly

thanks

 

[lewiss]

I had this with my star polyp when I moved it. It sulked for 3 months before opening again, and as far as I am aware my water stats were perfect, although I was brand new to the hobby so may have read a reading wrong or something!