brown button polyps

[Guest samson]

I have a small grouping of brown polyps in my tank that i placed about 1.5 weeks ago. They were open for a couple of days and then I think some hermits meesed wiht them and they have been closed now for about 6-7 days. There is a small polyp on 1 side that will open, but the larger 3-4 of them are slammed shut.

 

Is this normal?

 

Nitrate level is at .20, I am in the process of working it down. But that doesn't seem to effect my shrooms or my feather duster, who are both going on 1 month in the tank.

[flaunt]

what exactly did the hermits do to them? i don't remember my hermits ever messing w/my brown polyps, but my coralbanded shrimp has grabbed onto one every once in awhile... if they get injured they might close up for a little while. button polyps (atleast mine) are pretty damn resilient, so just keep the water parameters good, and make sure they don't get algae growing on them while they're closed up. i had a group of about 7 button polyps and they almost all died because they were closed when i had an outbreak of cyano... they couldn't open with the cyano growing over them.

[Guest samson]

i saw them fighting on and near them, and crawling over them. But, they haven't actually attacked the polyps. they don't have any algae on them yet, and I put them in a good water flow area this morning. They were down on the substrate for ahwile at first when the hermits decided to "play" on them.

[BustytheSnowMaam]

I have a zebra hermit that likes to sit on my GBPs- the polyps that he sits on have died, but other polyps that were damaged seem to heal the best in my tank under strong lighting and minimal water flow (I have a 10, and my polyps are in the middle of the tank, towards the top). I would take a chopstick and flick the hermits off each time they come near the polyps.

Tasha

[flaunt]

i would just hang on and watch them... they will most likely reopen after awhile. i've had buttons that i thought for sure were dead but suddenly "came back to life."

[Guest samson]

I actually did something similar with a feeding prong, i just pushed the little guys out fo the way....i think the smaller hermit that was lsoing the battle was very grateful :-)

[Guest samson]

Yeah, i figured I would just wait and watch. I am in no hurry. If they take awhile and heal up great. What will be some signs of them dying though?

[flaunt]

well if they start withering that's a pretty good sign they're on their way out... but even that doesn't necessarily mean they're dead for sure. i have a few now that are recovering from my cyano outbreak but were withered to almost nothing just about a month ago. basically i'd worry about algae if it starts growing on them and if they start looking like a dead flower.

[Guest samson]

okay, thanks for your help!

 

have a good one. I'll keep you posted.

 

Sam.