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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Can my Acans be saved?


megan

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So I bought a very small, awkwardly fragged acan about two weeks ago. It seems to be dying off pretty quickly. I think the issue is either light related or because I have not been feeding properly.

 

I have it set about 3/4 of the way down with 150 watt HQI, and I was just dusting them with frozen mysis whenever I fed everyone else. That has always been during the day though.

 

Now I just seem mostly skeleton with two small patches of color. It really is so small, I doubt I will be able to see any feeding tentacles. I have just now pulled the frag out in to a glass and just dusted it again with the mysis.

 

Is there any hope? Can you think of anything else I can do??? I have had such great luck with my open brain, I was hoping this would be similar. :(

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circusordie16

i say just leave it alone for a while, put it on the bottom somewhere in low flow and see what happens. im betting it comes back and then once it starts putting out tentacles try spot feeding it some mysis.

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Thanks. So I guess there is no sense in trying to spot feed it now if I can't even find tentacles. So toward the bottom in lower flow, Should I put it in the shade?

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ocean_of_mirth

I agree -- change things up for it, I have found that lower light can be good for stressed corals.

 

I would still feed the thing, but just get stuff like DT's frozen oyster eggs or other filter feeder food, and maybe some phyto.

 

It's a mistake to just feed our critters "large" foods like mysis, as I found out when my dendrophyllia nearly died.

 

They are purely carnivore, and it was a pain cutting up scallops and stuff fine enough to feed the thing, and then it got knocked off it's perch and was badly damaged by the time I got it back up. It had two heads, and the tissue was receded so badly that half the skeleton was showing.

 

So in a desperate attempt to get it going again I just sprayed oyster eggs in it's general direction, and after a week I noticed (tiny) polyp extension (just a few tentacles, but still very exciting).

 

It's growing back at a nice rate now, and instead of two polyps I now have 6. I found that it responded to DT's phyto as well, even though it's supposed to be a carnivore. DT's will also feed the pods, which will feed the corals as well.

 

I got some "reef chili" and it really liked that too -- the extension was huge whenever I fed it that stuff.

 

It's doing very well now and I think that the tiny food saved its life, and may be much closer to it's natural diet than the "huge" stuff I was feeding before, that often ended up getting spit back out again later.

 

Good luck.

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I would still feed the thing, but just get stuff like DT's frozen oyster eggs or other filter feeder food, and maybe some phyto.

 

And try target feeding it after dark. Our green trumpet is like that. After dark it's feeding tentacles come out. During the day I can promote this by turning pumps off and dropping food right on the polyps. But if your acan is marginal, it may not respond during daylight hours.

 

HTH,

hank

 

PS: just brought our first cacn home so this is from what I read and not direct experience (except the part about the trumpet.)

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[Thanks for the advise. I put it on the bottom in marginal light, and I saw some polyp extension yesterday. I am about to do a cleaning so maybe this evening when everything calms down, I'll dust it with a little coral vibrance. :D

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