Green Star Polyps

[SteveNMegz]

hey guys

we've had our GSP for abotu a month, its grown a bit but just today we noticed that they've been closed the last couple hours (every polyp closed all the way).

Anyone experience this"????

Thanks

[Rockhead21564]

if h2o is of good quality- all good parameters than it might be a growing cycle. How old are the lights? I've seen the same thing from bad water and lights and just growth. If lights and water are okay- growth

[SteveNMegz]

well our water quality is in good paramters.
The lights we acutally just upgraded to a higher output T5 unit, which has blue moonlights.

Since hten our polyps have been staying out someitme through the night. we think its due to the blue moonlights, which light up the whole tank. perhaps they think the moon lights are the atinics (we have it on a dawn/dusk time)

[UTTAngel]

i leave my moonlights on at night, they don't seem to "keep my corals up at night" :/

[SteveNMegz]

well on our previous light fixture we had the white moonlights and there were 4 of them, everything went to sleep good at night

but now with these blue ones, everything stays up, and they really are about 3-4 times brighter than all 4 of the white ones

just a probable problem we thought it might be........

[rbursek]

REmember the moon has cycles. it is not FULL all the time, are last full moon here in NA, rise was at 6:15AM and set at 6:30 PM, so the real corales never saw moon light, just remember moon light in real time is not the same every night or month!

[Rockhead21564]

sounds like you should wait alittle while everything adjusts to the new lighting. Blue lights are best IMO, more closely stimulating natural actions. My reef tank is almost "awake" at night polys extended and such.

[SteveNMegz]

but have you noticed any disadvantages to polyps being extended "awake" at night?

should they be closed for a certain amount of time during a day/night to stay healthy???

[Li\/EWiRE]

Mine do that sometimes also from growth. But funny enough I was reading an article on lighting just today and when you increase the lighting on your system and the lighting is more intense than what the coral was use to then one of two things may happen. Either some zooxanthellae cells will be expelled from the coral or the amount of chlorophyll within those cells will be reduced. Having too much zooxanthellae cells in a well lit tank can be dangerous to corals. Under intense light oxygen generated as a by-product of zooxanthellae photosynthesis can accumulate to toxic levels within the coral itself. Alot of other members here have probably have also been reading this lately. So they are most likely hiding while going through this for survival reasons.

[SteveNMegz]

so then it would be a good idea to move them down in the tank right?

[amythist2486]

Not that I disagree with the possibility of the lights being the issue, but I know my GSP seems to go through phases where it just wont come out for a while. Ive tested the water changed the lighting and it still happens. Just a thought

[SteveNMegz]

weird thing is, once our lights went off and the moonlights came on tonight they came out

all of them are in full open position, why would they come out at night?

[SteveNMegz]

????? any ideas????

[azcraig]

Don't worry. They just do that sometimes. They'll be back out again.

[otrlynn]

I have had GSP close up for one, or even two days, for no apparent reason, then open again looking just fine. Mine are on a rock, isolated from other rocks, on the bottom of the tank under 196 watts of t5 lighting. They even did well in an older tank under 96 watts power compact. I think they are one of the prettiest things in my tank and remind me of long grass swaying in the wind, but I read that they can grow out of control if allowed to spread in a tank..

[SteveNMegz]

they were out all night, but this morning once the daylights came on they're hiding agian lol