GSP Question

[johnsonlee42]

Hi I have a question for you guys... I got a Green Star Polyp frag two days ago. The first day it did really well, all the polyps extended and it looked great. The second day it seemed as if the polyps were not extended as before and they looked slightly less enthusiastic. Today I checked up on them before I went to work, and it looked as if the polyps were having a hard time extending - all the bumps looked as if polyps were ready to burst out, but only a small handful really showed their "green eyes." Other corals in my tank are doing quite well - I have kenyan trees, daisy polyps, mushrooms (though I know those don't count), waving arm polyps, button polyps, pom pom xenia, frogspawn, a zoo colony, and yellow polyps. I used to have a GSP colony that did great until I put a leather in, and the GSP reacted poorly to the leather's presence and closed up forever. I have since then gotten rid of the leather, so I don't know what the issue is. I don't have the strongest circulation so I'm not sure if perhaps it's a diatom-building up issue on the polyps... I used a turkey baster to blast at the polyps a little to clear them if there was anything there, but I'm not really sure that worked. Any advice you guys can give would be most appreciated!!!

 

[Deanos]

Hard to determine without knowing your lighting levels and the water's chemical & flow parameters.

 

[johnsonlee42]

In regard to lighting it's about 4 watts/gallon... I have nano tank (Marineland Eclipse - that should also give you an idea about the water flow), so that's with a a 50/50 Coralife 10W bulb and an 8W 18,000 Powerglo bulb. I know it's not a ton, but the tank isn't that deep, and everything seems to be thriving so far. In regard to water parameters I change about 30% of the water weekly. Last water test had 0 nitrite, 0 ammonia, pH of 8.3, and low on nitrates (I don't remember the ppm unfortunately). I add a drop of Kent iodine on a daily basis as well.

 

[bad coffee]

I don't think you need the Iodine every day. You might be od'ing the tank.

what kind of lights were the GSP in before you got them? They could be adjusting to the new light level. Also, is there enough flow on them?

B

 

[johnsonlee42]

Hmmm I was going by the directions that Kent provided, but it won't be an issue to cut back, I had just started to do it recently.

In regard to flow it's weird because the last time I had GSP that did really well before I added the leather, it was on the bottom of the tank (this was before I added the Coralife 50/50), and it did great. For this frag I'm also putting it on the bottom, and when I had put it into the tank 3 days ago the lighting was as it is. As I'm depending on the Eclipse biowheel system the flow isn't what I would call amazing, but I feel the nano tank might be a little too small to put in a powerhead? I'm up for suggestions as to how to better my tank though, I'm relatively new at this stuff!

 

[Psycho graphic]

I would stop dosing the Iodine also. The bottle I read said 1 drop per 25 gallons WEEKLY. I don't know if Kent makes more than 1 strength of Iodine though.

 

[johnsonlee42]

My bottle had said 8 drops per 50 gallons per day, and those were the directions (adjusted obviously) that I had followed. I had just done this twice though so far... here's the link to the kind I have, the directions that are on the bottle are here too: http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/iodine/Class//T1/F66GC+0064+0007/EDP/5717/Itemdy00.aspx