Dormant Coral? Enticing growth (1 Viewer)

[-AnThOnY-]

My tank at the house was fairly low on the totem-pole for maintenance for quite a while. I used to have a large toadstool (6-8" diameter) that slowly withered and disappeared but not before budding two babies.

Question being, those two babies have been in existence for a year or so and one is quarter size in diameter and the other is less than dime sized in diameter. Like I said, for a while my tank at home wasn't up to par so I didn't expect much growth, but I have now had this rock with the two babies in my office nano since August and they don't appear to have grown at all. Getting good growth elsewhere (macros growing, couple dozen new shrooms, birdsnest growing, blasto doing well, scroll coral frag encrusting, gorgonian growing etc...tank is fed frozen&phyto every day during the week, pellets auto fed over weekend, plus dosing aminos. Other inhabitants are 2 clowns, yasha goby, pistol shrimp, sexy shrimp, and CUC.

Any thoughts on dormancy in corals and what I can do remedy? I can only assume its a result of being in the other tank so long but I don't know.

 

[frankc]

With it being surrounded by mushrooms, one possibility might be chemical warfare. If it's possible to remove one, it would be interesting to move one a little farther from the mushrooms and see if it grows any faster.

 

[Reefahholic]

IMO dormant corals are either lacking elements or have too much of an element. Of course there’s a lot of other things that come into play like lighting, nutrition, nutrients, flow, stability, etc. Let’s assume these are all within reason, but some elements are very low or completely depleted. Or there’s some contamination in the tank that you aren’t aware of. This will lead to a coral sitting or growing very slowly.

I’d definitely try what frankc said also. Allelopathy is real.

 

[-AnThOnY-]

With it being surrounded by mushrooms, one possibility might be chemical warfare. If it's possible to remove one, it would be interesting to move one a little farther from the mushrooms and see if it grows any faster.

Easy enough to try! Will frag one off after Christmas.

IMO dormant corals are either lacking elements or have too much of an element. Of course there’s a lot of other things that come into play like lighting, nutrition, nutrients, flow, stability, etc. Let’s assume these are all within reason, but some elements are very low or completely depleted. Or there’s some contamination in the tank that you aren’t aware of. This will lead to a coral sitting or growing very slowly.

I’d definitely try what frankc said also. Allelopathy is real.

Easiest thing to try is fragging it, will try that first and see how it goes!