gsp dying...

[renogaw]

I've noticed my gsp is steadily declining. last saturday the rock was completely full because i remember showing it to my aunt/uncle that came up for the first time. today, nearly half the purple has lost its polyps, and the rest of the polyps are really small, almost as if they are headed out. i picked up the rock and was able to shake debris off of it, and i did a full out test and everything was fine.
they have been growing and growing for months now, why all of a sudden would they decline so fast? i haven't moved them, only thing different since monday was i replaced the magnets on my powerheads with suction cups that i rinsed off. the magnets were showing signs of rust.

 

[teen]

if all other corals and inverts are fine, i would rule out the rusty magnets. even though rust in a reef tank cant be good.
gsp have a tendency to close up for a while, sometimes as long as 2 weeks. im not sure why they do this, but mine do it every so often, but always bounce back. i would be suprised if there actually dieing becasue there pretty much impossible to kill. i would rather deal with a rock full of apstasia(sp?) than deal with trying to get rid of gsp. thats how hard they are to kill. give it several days and i bet they come back.

 

[pyro]

This might not pertain to you specifically, but I thought I'd put it out there for reference sake. Mine were growing like a week and I split them and moved half up to the top of my tank and half down. While I think they like the extra light, I beleive micro algae of sorts grows on the rock in the higher light and inhibits growth because the clump down lower are growing much, much faster and I think the top clump are actually slowly receding.

 

[renogaw]

teen: thanks, any idea how to tell if they are dying? will the purple mat start receding?
Pyro: mine are up top towards my light, i'll check to see if anything is growing on the mat that shouldnt.
thanks both