Question about some polyps I bought

[jherrin215]

I bought a few frags a few weeks ago from a local guy. Mostly SPS but I also bought a rock with a bunch of green polyps on it. There are probably 50 green polyps and when they are open and completely extended are very nice looking, in my opinion. My problem is they looked great for the first few days, really open and waving. Then after about a week they started only staying about half open. That is where they still are. They close completely when something comes by then open back up. The center flat part is visible but you can tell they are still "rolled up" around the edges, none of the little fingers around the flat plate are showing. All the sps seem to be doing good now after figuring out I had an issue with my SG. Since correcting this I am getting good PE from all the SPS. Anybody have any suggestions on what I need to check to make these polyps open up fully? I have tested everything during my SPS battle. All parameters were spot on except SG was low. Brought it up slowly to 1.026 and have been working on raising the alk up to about 9.0dkh. Any advice will be appreciated!

[jherrin215]

Here is a bad picture of what they looked like after a couple of days.
Sorry for the picture quality, taken with my cell with the tank lights off.
http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g460/jherrin215/IMAG0014.jpg
Here was a few days ago
http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g460/jherrin215/P1020266Medium.jpg
Any help would be appreciated!!

[XSharkboyX]

What were the sellers tank params?
What are all of yours?
What did the seller have for lighting?
What do you have?
Where did the seller have the colony placed?
Where did you place it?

[ReeferBill]

How about adding iodine\\ or should I ask ;;;Have you ever added Iodine?Water changes always work for me. Good Luck!!:thumbdown

[XSharkboyX]

You shouldn't need to add extra iodine to your system, unless it is a VERY HEAVY bioload. The amount in your salt mix should be sufficient. That is if its properly maintained.
There is a great article here (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-04/rhf/index.php) about reef chemistry.

Without the info to the questions above, we cannot fully answer the op question.

[jherrin215]

What were the sellers tank params?I have no idea about his parameters
What are all of yours?I don't have a list of mine here, I store them on my desktop. Here's what I know off the top of my head. SG 1.026, calc 420, mag 1400-1450, alk has been 7-8 dkh, ph 7.8-8.0, temp 78-80, nitrates 0 , trites 0 ammonia 0
What did the seller have for lighting? He had T5 lighting
What do you have? I have 2 175 watt MH for now, upgrading to 3 250Watt MH with VHO supplementation
Where did the seller have the colony placed? He had it placed about halfway up in the corner of his tank
Where did you place it? I have moved it several different places. It looked good about midway up but i never moved it till it started looking like it does now. I moved it higher up, moved it to have more flow, moved it lower down with less flow and lower with more flow don't see any difference. It is currently sitting on the sandbad with a light flow coming from a powerhead that is mounted up closer to the top of the tank. The tank is a 180 and they were in a 20 gallon tank.

[jherrin215]

never added iodine, actually never dosed anything until last night. I started dripping Baked baking soda last night to raise the alk level but have had this issue way before I started dripping this

[XSharkboyX]

Looks to me like those palythoas didnt like the shift from his/her lighting/tank params to yours. (light shock) You should always start things on the sandbed, and slowly move them up over the course of about 2 weeks. Zoas/Paly especially need to be light aclimated, as well as water chemistry aclimated. Of course it didnt help that your SG was low.
How did you transport them? Could the water temp have dropped too much during transition? Did you dip them prior to adding them to your tank?

[jherrin215]

The light issue very well could have been part of the problem as I did start them rather high in the tank but they looked great the first week or so. Temp shouldn't have been an issue, I brought them straight home (1 hour) in a warm car. I didn't dip them during acclimation, only floated them then drip acclimated them for a couple of hours. I did add them at night with the lights off so they were in the tank for probably 12 hours with no light before being blasted.

[jherrin215]

When I put them in the tank the SG wasnt as bad as it had been. I had it back up to about 1.023 when I added them. Before I recieved my calibration fluid my refractometer was showing I was as 1.025 but I got the fluid the day after I got the frags. I checked it and it was off so once I calibrated it I checked again and found out it was off. I raised it over about a week up to the current 1.026 and that seems to be when they started looking bad. The SPS finally started looking good after the week and the polyps started looking bad.

[jherrin215]

oh one more thing, what is "LE" corals? I always assumed that meant low end, but if you are boycotting them then I assume that's not the case or I would think that meant they were cheaper than the "Named" ones

[zooty]

oh one more thing, what is "LE" corals? I always assumed that meant low end, but if you are boycotting them then I assume that's not the case or I would think that meant they were cheaper than the "Named" ones

LE=Limited Edition

For example all frags from me are Zooty's LE since they are from my tank and thus worth much much more ;)

[spartyblaze]

IMO the photo you sent, the Palys were grown under too low of light because of their spacing on the rocks.

Have you put them in much higher light than the LFS that you got them from?

Seems like a change in environment more than water problems. I'd give it just a bit more time.

[jherrin215]

Ok zooty, makes sense. And blaze that could very well be the case. They were grown in a 20 gallon under a small t5 fixture. But it is strong enough to sustain several different types of sps. I put them under 175 watt halides. They are in the sandbed now but in the next couple of weeks I am upgrading my lights to 3 250 watt halides.

[XSharkboyX]

When you upgrade your lighting, make sure you slowly adjust your corals to them via screening or something of the sort. That way you don't end up with a bunch of white and brown corals.
And yes, zooty is right on. I am against naming and calling corals "LE, and High End" so people can enhance their pocketbook.