what am i doing wrong??? coral....

[peckhead]

what am i doing wrong?
i gota green ricordia from swf.com...it started to grow really fast until yesterday. now today it is almost all gone. it pretty much is just a little purple slab. all the green bubbles are gone, itlooks like it is just the bottom of the coral now.
all i have in the tank is a clownfish, ble leg hermits, a coral banded shrimp, cleaner shrimp, nass snails and turbos.
also, today when i turned my lights on my colt coral was standing all the way up strait and really tall, this coral has also grew a lot since i put it in the tank. after about a hour of the lights being on, it is about half the size it was earlier today and not standing up strait at all...
why is this happening? all levels are 0, 420 cal, 8.2ph.... is a 90g with a 30g sump/fuge. i have 2 mj 1200 and 1 mj 900 with a mag 9 return.
help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks in advance...

 

[peckhead]

oh and i have a 760w mh/pc fixture.

 

[reefkprz]

well as for the ricordea sounds like it let go and left its base behind. look through your tank to see if its kicking around behind your rocks, the base should regrow. just my guess.
the colt could be getting ready to shed. all my finger leathers go through pahses where they look like crap for a couple days then come back.

 

[peckhead]

the colt also had some geen hair on it, just a tiny bit on one or 2 of the fingers... i pulled it off though. i dont have any hair algea anywhere so i dont think it was that... maybe your right about it shedding... i sure hope so becasuse this is kinda depressing considering these are supposed to be easy corals to keep.
should i leave the base of the ricoreda where it is? it doesnt look good. its purple and kinda stringy too..

 

[reefkprz]

those are whats left behind after the seperation, I would move it to lower flow, and slightly higher lightting as too high a flow or too low of ligting are the most common reasons for them to let go.

 

[peckhead]

do u no what the hair on the colt is?
and its so wierd that the ricordea let go because it seriously grew alot in a week and now there is almost nothing left

 

[reefkprz]

the "Growth" was probably it expanding to its greatest potential trying to gather light for photosynthesizing, once it decided it couldnt get enough it let go in hopes of falling into a brighter zone. thats my guess.

 

[peckhead]

i just looked at the colt again. it nearly doubled in size from ten minutes ago. before it was about 2 inches and not standing up. now it is almost standing up all the way and is about 4-5 in. its full hieght i would say is 6 or 7" ....this is so wierd. it isnt the first time it has done this though but today it shrunk to a all time low... i hope this is all normall

 

[miaheatlvr]

Originally Posted by peckhead
do u no what the hair on the colt is?
and its so wierd that the ricordea let go because it seriously grew alot in a week and now there is almost nothing left
I hate that when that happens! You dont know where they are but you might see one here or there, you can only hope they left something behind to grow again.

 

[reefkprz]

the hair on the colt could have been hair algae, I have had algae grow on some of my leathers while they are closed if they are closed long enough, then it all comes off with the shed.

 

[reefkprz]

its completly normal for leathers to have ugly days.

 

[peckhead]

i guess the colt has polyps right? the little spiky things on them, those are polyps right? they are almost always open. even when it looks like crap, they are still open...
i love this coral so i hope it always looks good. right now it is almost back to its full size.