Green Button Polyps

[addiction]

Tank water: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, almost 10ppm nitrates.
Lighting: 1 - 50/50 PC 110 watt light
1 - 50/50 40 watt light
12 hours a day for each.
I recently added some mature (large) green button polys to my tank. In the LFS, they look great, open wide etc under what I would consider very dim lighting. (I thought corals needed a lot light!) I have had them for a few days now and they won't open. This happened once before when I bought some live rock with a few polyps on it. Same thing, nice and open in the LFS, closed in my tank.
I have some mushroom coral and it is doing well. It expands as the light turns on in the morning and slowly closes up at night, just before my lights go off.
Any thought why my mushroom would do so well, but I can't get these "hardy" green button polyps to open.
Oh, they seem to have formed a slime on them too. Not good I bet.
I don't test for phosphates, but I do regular water changes. I suppose my tap water could have phosphates, but again, why would my mushroom coral thrive if I had high phosphates.
Thanks in advance.

 

[keitho]

well, do you test for copper? if you're using tap water as make-up water, copper (rather than phosphates) may be the problem. copper pipes in your house can leach copper ions into the water, which are toxic to invertebrates. different inverts react differently to certain levels of copper..i.e., the mushrooms may be able to tolerate the copper level, but the level may be too high for the buttons. i definitely recommend using DI/RO water for your make-up instead of tap water.

 

[addiction]

No, I don't test for copper. I never added any and never added any LFS water either. Can't imagine my mushroom coral and coralline algae would thrive if I had any copper in the water.
This is my second attempt at button polyps.
I find it amazing that all the LFS's I go to have their corals in dark, low light tanks. Except the corals for sale always look very healthy. I take them home an put them in a bright clean tank and they form some slime on them and don't open up.
What is the deal? Too much light maybe?

 

[thereefman52]

you have two 50/50 bulbs.. i would recomend gettin a blue actinic bulb it would help.. u need the other end of the light spectrum.. no need for two 50/50 lights