i have a frogspawn which i've had for 3 years now. when it first came into the retail reef store in my neighborhood its tenacles were extended beautifully and i bought it. a month or so later they are distended and have been that way for about 2 years 11 months.
i've been in this hobby for nearly 40 years... all i can provide this and every coral as a hobbiest is a synthetic enviorment... without living in the tropic's and having a inlet and outlet hose going from the sea into my tank all i can provide is a synthetic enviorment. i'm convinced that corals recently plucked from the sea on display for sale still have the vibrance their natural enviorment provides...
but once some time passes in captivity they resort to their synthetic enviorment the best way they can.
i have 12 watts per gallon of metal halide and atinic VHO's on my 55 reef tank,
a sump / refugium, lots of live rock, carbon filtration, a skimmer and i use RO/DI water exclusively... yet my frog is distended tho vibrantly colorful.
the case i'm trying to project is that what comes out of the sea when first brought up is as healthy as found in the sea and thats what corals look like
' brand new ' so to speak. but about a month or so later, in our synthetic enviorments, they do retract there tenacles / polyps to reflect their synthetic enviorment.
