plate again

[Sk8r]

I have a new short tentacle plate. It comes out moderately at night, poofs a bit, has a lot of feeder tentacles in rings around the mouth. It excretes. It has tiny feeders out by day. I've seen plates look a bit more---ahem!---luxuriant. Can I expect more expansion? It is near but not within striking distance of a pearl bubble: I take it they move if they don't like the neighborhood. It is in high light, under a 250 mh, at a distance of 20 inches, under good flow.

[Sk8r]

Well, I moved it a little further from the pearl bubble, and into a slightly calmer area. It looks a little pleased, ie, the tentacles are a hair fatter, but no expansion of the base. Sigh.

[Sk8r]

And a week later, it's now eating voraciously (shrimp bits) but still stays retracted.

[dvmsn]

So do, some don't. Most plates remain retracted during the day in nature. I don't think that there is any rhyme or reason to which one expand during the day and which ones don't

[spidey07]

what is your salinity and how is it measured?

In other words - do you trust what you measured it with.

Many LPS will not "get really plump" if the SG is low.

[Sk8r]

Mmm, I'm 1.024 with a well-calibrated refractometer.

That's interesting---I've been attributing an ever so slight recalcitrance of a pearl bubble to over-feeding (it snagged 2 pieces of shrimp). It could be because the salt got a little lower during water change, due to a jostled topoff float, maybe down to 1.0235.

[Sk8r]

I've raised salinity a fraction; I've fed it extravagantly, and finally added some Kent coral micronutrients. It is now fluffing out a little: tentacles are a fraction longer and the rim is rippling a bit. Meanwhile the adjacent pearl bubble has gone ecstatic.