sun coral problem

Hi everyone.

I have a problem with my Tubastrea and hope someone here may be able to shed light on the situation.
I bought it about a year and a bit ago, it was in poor health but over the months i managed to get it into an excellent state.
I feed him every other day a combination of cyclop-eez freezer bar, dallies, mysid and the occasional cockle.

I sometimes soak the food in a little seachem reefplus additive.

Everything has been going fine up until about 2 weeks ago.
Firstly i apologize for the poor pictures, my nano cube makes trying to photograph anything near the curvature almost impossible.

The polyp mouths look somehow puckered, and the flesh seems to be riding away from the main skeleton )if that makes sense ) see pic 2.

I really am at a loss because i can not think of anything that has happened int he last few weeks that could have caused such a transformation.

I tested the water today and the results were

salt level was 1.025
ph 8.3
ammonia = 0
nitrite = 0
nitrate = unsure, need to buy new TK
Mg= 1150mg/l a little low i know
Ca = 425mg/l
alkalinity = 2.86 meq/l
temp is always a steady 27'c

anyone who has experience with these sun coral please please share any insights you may have.
thanks for reading.

 

I don't really see anything out of the ordinary other than they aren't extended 100%. Are they still eating?

 

ya just ooks sucked in a lil i thought they did that allthe time.

 

They look fine. They really don't like light and they do LOVE medium flow. Ill post some picks for you of mine. I have 3 and each one has over 65+ heads. look for a post of Sun corals later on.

 

Sorry i really didn't include enough info in my first post.

I should state that contrary to what i looks like the polyps are in a closed state, what concerns me is that they seem unable to fully close, it's almost like they are bloated and distended.
I normally expect to see it all tucked up for bed (so to speak) but it's almost like they are too swollen to close.

In answer to a previous poster, most of them ate last night but not with any degree of vigor.

My feeding schedule consists of putting orangina into into his clip on box up the top of the tank (lights off of course), i then add a little juice from them food to get them awake.
about an hour or so later i use a syringe and lay the cyclopeese or fish on all of the oral discs.
Wait 2 hours (or until the tentacles are thin and sticky) and do the whole thing again.
I usually feed them 2-3 times on feeding nights.

Last night though they were not fully extended, some of the polyps just seems disinterested, which is very uncharacteristic of him, usually the mere (smell?) of being put in his box sens him opening before i even have to juice it lol.

It's not anything i can quantify it's just things seems different with it, and im panicking because i can't figure out what on earth has changed to warrant such a change.

Thanks all for the answers so far.

 

nitrate = unsure, need to buy new TK

This needs to be checked for sure.. Maybe your nitrate is up..?

Good Luck, Larry

 

I've not seen this before but I actually think they've been eating too much and after a good round of waste-relieving, everythings going to be fine.

 

hehe i didn't know coral could get constipated(sp). They look really go though

 

I agree here ... Maybe slow or stop your feeding for a few days and see if they get active again (normal looking) so they will open up and look for food again.... Sounds like they just ate to much dinner...




Good Luck....