Duncan coral care and advice

[zenfox8]

Just an update, a couple days later and I've noticed some improvement - it's got a couple of tentacles out, but still not back to its usual self. I've checked my parameters and here's where I'm at:

Calcium is at 380, which I've been dosing to get up - it was lower previously and the coral was open. Alkalinity is at 9 kh. Salinity is at 1.023, but I'm aiming for 1.024 with top-off water. Temperature is steady at 80. Nitrates and ammonia are both at 0.

I did a 10% water change last week and made some slight adjustments to the lighting over the past couple of days. I also took your suggestion and moved the coral off the sand bed to a piece of live rock - it's still in a low to moderate flow area.

Any other ideas on what I can try?

[Wildman]

Keep working on getting that calcium and salinity up, it's on the right track. If you're seeing some tentacles now, try feeding it a bit, might encourage it to open up more. I'm also wondering, are your lights always that dim or is it just the pic? Not that it should cause it to close up, but it could be an issue once it's fully open. And how's the shrimp situation, is it still picking at it? That could definitely be irritating it and causing it to stay closed.

[zenfox8]

I'll make sure to bump up the calcium and salinity levels. I think the lighting might just be the camera angle, I'm using the pre-programmed schedule on my Marine Current Orbit LED light and I've checked to make sure the intensity is set to 100%. The cleaner shrimp still picks at it occasionally, but it's not as frequent now that I've moved the Duncan off the sand bed and onto a piece of live rock. I'll attach a picture of the new placement in a bit.

[zenfox8]

Here's the new placement - and I've got an unexpected photobomb from my dragon scooter, by the way.

[Folium12]

I was thinking of bumping up the salinity, actually aiming for 1.024, but I might try to get it a bit higher, like 1.025.

[zenfox8]

Yeah, I'll make sure to get that salinity up to 1.024. So, adding regular RO/DI water for top-offs can cause it to close up like this?

[felinxo]

A couple of other things to consider - what's the PO4 and Mg like in your tank? Also, how's the rest of the coral doing?

[zenfox8]

Ran out of my mag test, need to pick up another one to check.

[zenfox8]

Here is the picture of the favia frag - had to move him back down into the sandbed since he wasn't a fan of the light midway up in the tank - and here is the torch. One of the heads of the duncan is out and another head is partially out today.

Edit: Light is way brighter in person

[Kodama]

My duncan has been growing steadily, doubling in size roughly every 6 months. I've got it on the sand bed and under radion pros - seems to work well for it. I feed it krill tails twice a week, also got anemones in the tank. Flow is a must for mine, it loves it. Only time it's ever closed up is when I've had a swing in alk or salinity.