Green Star Polyp Problems

[tholleyh46]

Hi,

I've had a cluster of Green Star Polyps for about 2 months. They've been quite hardy but the polyps haven't come out now for about 36 hours. Is this normal or have they possibly died? I checked all parameters and nothing appears out of whack - everything else appears to be doing well. I've never noticed them stay retracted this long before.

Did a 20% water change to cover anything I might have missed, curious if anyone has experienced something similar, or know what else I might check.

Thanks,

Tom

[charlie]

It doesn't sound good, but I would wait it out for another day or so before I got real worried. I have had leathers not open up for about 4 days before, and everything turned out OK. Good luck!!

[reefracer]

Don't worry these things do that usually before they get ready to grow some, btw they are almost indestructable. I have them in 3-4 spots and soon will have to try to limit their spreading to save the rest of the rock from being over run with them. That is the #1 problem with this spieces they grow too well in aquariums. Good luck.

[tholleyh46]

You know, funny you mention that. I came downstairs this morning, took a look at the tank, and the GSP suddenly decided to air their heads today.

Hadn't seen them in a week or so. I moved them around a little while they were hibernating; hopefully they like their new home.

[CMOS]

Hi,

I've had a cluster of Green Star Polyps for about 2 months. They've been quite hardy but the polyps haven't come out now for about 36 hours. Is this normal or have they possibly died? I checked all parameters and nothing appears out of whack - everything else appears to be doing well. I've never noticed them stay retracted this long before.

Did a 20% water change to cover anything I might have missed, curious if anyone has experienced something similar, or know what else I might check.

Thanks,

Tom

tholley,

A basic question but are you using tap water? DI? RO? This may have an effect on these animals.

CMOS

[tholleyh46]

I guess the answer is all of the above, I use tap water that I run through an RO, then a DI filter. TDS from my tap water is a little on the high side and perhaps my filters could use replacing as my TDS reading on the DI water is about 8, but certainly better than the 500 plus reading I get from the tap.

I will replace the filters but I just bought a new skimmer, several plumbing parts, some overpriced from Japan in the last week. You know the drill. Therefore, I'll have to stiff arm the new filters for the RO/DI system for a while so my wife doesn't strangle me. Although, anything less than 10 I hear is pretty good.

In the interim, the GSP are once again flourishing, but perhaps I think I may have had them too close to a Colt Coral or a mushroom quite possibly. Thanks.

[charlie]

Yep, you are walking a thin line with your TDS at 8. You could just add another DI cartridge to your RO/DI and that would also help. I run 2 DI cartridges on mine, and change them out at different times and it seems to work for me.

[tholleyh46]

Here's a shot of the GSP, they're doing much better. I'm gonna be dangerous with this new camera. If you look you can see one of my sea cucumbers, don't find them often. I even found my lost acropora behind my rocks taking photographs this evening. It was my favorite, I don't think it'll make it though - darn turbo snails!

[Future]

Nice.

My GSP tend to retract at odd times, but I've noticed they aren't so inclined to "direct" flow as opposed to flow bouncing off the tank wall, then onto them. I'm actually trying to get them growing to cover a chunk of LR that's otherwise just an eyesore. Progress is slow, but steady.

[tholleyh46]

Looks good future, I had mine on a rock but now they're just on the sandbed. They seem to do okay there but I'll probably move them to a rock soon. I'm going to be taking my DT down real soon to re-plumb it with NPT pipe.

I bought my tank in Japan from an LFS there that was going out of business, need to buff all the scratches out of the acrylic and see if I can figure out how convert it from metric to NPT plumbing. Should be exciting; perhaps I'll document it and call it a Converting a 120cm x 60cm x 60cm acrylic tank to a 47.5" x 23.5" x 23.5". I'm waiting for a few metric/NPT pvc adapters to kickstart the project and a couple parts from Rei Sea in Japan before I get started. Hopefully the GSP don't take off and cover my sand bed before those parts arrive.