fleshy brain, not fleshy

I haven't had the piece long. It was a bit more fleshy when I got it. Water levels are good now although I did have an ammonia spike which killed 2 fish...possibly from having too many turbos and them dying. I've also been finding blue crab legs here and there so some of them died off too. My CUC was too big.
The fleshy brain is laying on the sand bed. fair indirect flow... I don't have a heater but I live in SW Florida and it's 78 degrees in my house or more at any given time.
I'm wondering how much light this piece likes (in my siggy) if it needs more or less. Tried direct feeding it but it's rock hard, nothing porous to take food. Besides, the cinnamon shrimp take it all anyways.
Still has a lot of purple and green but it's just not opening up at all. rock hard.

Any suggestions on what I can do to make this more fleshy? All my other soft corals are doing really well but this one is my favorite and I'd like to see it grow.

 

I would move the Goniastrea to a lower lighting area.

Try introducing some fish food to the tank at night after the lights have been out for a couple hours. Then wait 20 minutes and look for a feeding response, if you see one target feed the coral. Try turning off the pumps for 10 min while it eats.

It may not show a feeding response the first time but keep trying without compromising water quality.

 

ok I can do that, only problem is there isn't an area with less light because it's on the sandbed and my lights are phenomenal. Only thing I could do is switch around my aquascaping and create a cave and stick it in there which, I'm willing to do. & probably not a bad idea.
Any liquid nutrients that might help?
Pardon my ignorance but I remember my ex using some liquid purple stuff in a bottle for our corals...

 

To truly narrow down the issue you will need to make sure your parameters are in line, specifically alk/cal/mag. LPS do very poorly with swings or parameters that are off.

Sometimes just moving a coral to the back or not directly under the fixture helps.

Take either pellets/flake/frozen and make a nice slurry in some display water. Any combination of those foods works as well. Frozen mysid or cyclopeez is a good choice as well.

Purple should not be used unless you can test for and monitor alk and cal. There are much better wise to adjust those levels.

 

can my LFS give me levels on alk/cal/mag or just PH, ammonia, nitr/and nitrates?
my test kit doesn't cover these.

 

Oh for sure, but if you are going to keep stony corals you will need your own test kit.

You can buy them test kits like RedSeaPro or API off the internet or at LFS that contain all three test kits.

 

cool. I'll definitely pick one up, and find a less lit place for the Goniastrea. Thanks Corailine!

 

Sure no problem.

It's a very nice piece.

If you are going to invest in stony corals an investment into a test kit is well worth it.

 

for sure.

 

new spot. When I picked it up it felt a little more fleshy than it did before I moved it to the sand bed.
Just hoping the coral banded won't pick at it. That's his cave.