Frogspawn help please

[spunky]

ok so here is my problem i need some advise. my aquapod was setup in march of 08 and in may i got some frogspawn from a local reefer and it has been doing great and getting really big until like nov - dec it started shrinking and bleaching out so i thought it was about time to change my pc's but it is now feb and the only change that i have seen is that it has gotten a little bit of color back. is there anything i can do to make i come back to the way it was before. first pic is when i first got it and the second is from right now.

 

[jubbin2001]

Have you tried feeding it? Mine always gets happy when it catches mysis shrimp. Might need a little extra nutrition to bring him around...not only that, but they grow much faster

. I started with a 2 head frag back in....August or so, and just by the little bits he gets when it's floating around, it's up to 8 heads.
Also I noticed this the other day, my heater went out and my water temp had dropped from 78 - 72 and he got all shrunken. Got the heater problem resolved, temp back up at 78 and he is fully happy again. So he might be indicating that something might not be right in your tank....I would check parameters besides just offering him a tasty treat.
When was the last time you rinsed your filter pads and changed carbon

? I ask cuz sometimes I forget and with in a day or 2 my coral let me know something is wrong. Just suggestions

.
If your PC lights were more than 6 months old before replacing them, it might not have gotten all the light it needs. Frogspawn is mostly photosynthetic, and if your lights were out of whack, it very well could have caused it to shrink a bit, depending on how overdue they were for a change. It is very possible with the new lights you have, and a feeding here and there, he will turn around in no time and be bigger and better. Getting his color back is a good sign that things are turning around.

 

[jackri]

PC lighting really isn't that much light for frogspawn to begin with... enough to sustain it but not "thrive".
Direct feedings would help --- it's probably been starved by your old lights and the new PC lights are probably adequate enough to maintain it and do very very slow growth -- so recovery could take awhile.
That would be my guess in what happened assuming your water parameters were/are all normal.

 

[jubbin2001]

Not trying to offend, just throwing in a little personal exp. I am a little inclinded to diagree with the PC not being enough. my 29g tank has only 1 Coralife 30" PC fixture on it, and my frogspawn was about the size of a cantelope melon fully extended (I say was because I just moved him to my 125g with my new T5's, I had to split the skeleton to make placement a bit easier). I didn't really directly feed it much...at most once a month, and I didn't really feed much in the tank, since it wasn't that heavily stocked. I know he pulled food out of the water column, but he couldn't have pulled that much since there wasn't alot to begin with....specially with a tailspot, firefish, perc, and my watchman (food went in and it was a battle royal...everything was nutz darting around grabbing food

). At most I only saw him grab 1 or 2 pieces of mysis at a time, and not really all that often either.
I don't disagree jackri that PC is really the bare minimum for a coral tank, but I don't think it just being a PC light was a direct influence on it's poor health. Rather that the lights weren't changed on time (every 6 months) and the specturm you had left wasn't meeting it's requirements.
Had I known more earlier on I would definately have gotten T5's. The more PAR (usable light by photosynthetic beings) you can put in your tank, the better off you are....I would have gone MH, I just in no way can afford the cost of MH/HQI fixtures and ballasts or the monthly electricity bill for the 125g, so I went with T5's. I am really not planning on doing anything that really requires MH/HQI, so for me it's a moot point. Of course like anything in this hobby that is subject to change without notice

. I honestly think once you nurse it back to health it will be just fine, mine always has been, and I only had PC.
Either way you look at it, plenty of light, and the occasional feeding, and you're frogspawn will end up much happier and you will be much happier with it. Please keep us updated on how it's doing, I know I would be interested to know.
If I am wrong here, please let me know. I am just going by what I have learned, seen, and personally have done.