Hello all!!!

I have had a piece of coral laden live rock in my aquarium for about a year now. When I bought it, it had a nice colony of Evergreen Starburst Polyps on it. At the store, they were doing very, very well. Ever since I brought it home, I have never seen more than about 20 of the hundreds of original polyps open.

You can look at the picture and see that only a few polyps are open. The entire lobe at the upper left of the rock used to be covered in polyps but only about 10% of them have ever opened up while in my tank.

Aquarium Gallery - Evergreen Starburst


I have tried different locations in the tank with respect to lighting and water flow...no difference.

Anyone else ever have trouble getting evergreen starburst to open?
I have read that this is one of the easist corals out there.
All of my other corals are very happy, but not the evergreen.

Wondering if there is something else in my tank that is affecting this.


46 Gallon Euro Bowfront Tank

36" Nova Extreme Pro 6x39w T5 (2 hrs dawn, 9 hrs daylight, 2 hrs dusk)

45 pounds of Florida Crushed Coral Substrate

45 pounds of Fiji Live Rock

(2) Maxi Jet 1200

Shatterproof Heater

Tetra Bio Filter

Tank Established for over 5 years

CORALS

(2) Sarcophyton Leather

(1) Flower Leather

(1) Purple Finger Leather

(1) Evergreen Starburst Polyp colony (NOT HAPPY)

(4) Ricordea Mushrooms


(1) Blue Devil Damsel - Chrysiptera cyanea

(1) Banggai Cardinal - Pterapogon kauderni

(1) Saddled Valentini Puffer - Canthigaster valentini

(2) Blue Velvet Damsel - Neoglyphidodon oxyodon

(1) Brown Scopus Tang - Zebrasoma scopas

(2) Turbo Snails

Is it the same ones that open up everytime or do the alternate, these corals are known for staying cosed for long periods but a year does sound a long time if it is the same ones that stay closed, you could try putting them at the bottom of the tank to see how that goes since these corals do not need mega light.

check your ph and salinity.. are these the only things not opening up?
I had some issues when i had too much light in my sw, i dialed it down and now everything is going a lot better.. You'll need about 3 days to a week before they show signs of doing better so be patient.

I have a large colony of these in my system, once they shut down when I changed my bulbs, I went from 2 actinic and 1 daylight to 2 daylights and 1 actinic. They stayed shut down for almost a month, but given what i read on these forums and about anywhere i looked i just ignored this issue and moved on with my life, as my other corals were like yours doing fine.

In about a month they opened back up, first just as yours are with an arbitrary amount opening only halfway, and everyday a few more would open up. Some days they all shut down again, but dont worry... You pretty much cant kill these things :/ If you have a 10lbs rock you want to drive to ottawa you can trade for my 10lb rock with this colony on it ;)

Seems these corals just like to spit their dummy out every now and again

Is the mat still growing? They list this coral as easy it should read easy but temperamental. I have a Angel Hair same type of matting coral. I moved the tank last July and I'm still waiting for them to come out. As long as the mat is still spreading you just have to play the waiting game. It takes a special skill to kill them so I wouldn't worry about them.

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If It Is To Be It's Up To Me!!!
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do they open up at night?

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden