Duncan Help!!!

[Newbie Fish]

Hi guys

I just got a new Duncan coral with about 15 heads last week. It was doing alright, but today I got home and noticed that the tentacles were not as spread out as normal, and that most of the heads seem to be spitting out a stringy brown goo from their mouths. Is this normal or am I in trouble? There is no skeleton showing and the heads aren't retracted all the way.

[apexifd]

just pooing... it's working hard to get those nasty out...

[daniella3d]

Duncans are immortal.

Hi guys

I just got a new Duncan coral with about 15 heads last week. It was doing alright, but today I got home and noticed that the tentacles were not as spread out as normal, and that most of the heads seem to be spitting out a stringy brown goo from their mouths. Is this normal or am I in trouble? There is no skeleton showing and the heads aren't retracted all the way.

[Newbie Fish]

just pooing... it's working hard to get those nasty out...

Thanks for the info. They seem to be done doing their business and look good again.

[KevinK]

Duncans are immortal.


thats interesting you say this.

I have 2 frags of them, one with 4 and one with 5 heads.

one sits on the gravle and the other about 10 inches from the top.

one always had short tenticles of about 1/2 inch

the other was a nice flower size like 2 to 3 inches, than over time (6 months) thy bothe went down to only 1/8 of a inch and dont want to open up.

thy are still alive, but already for about a year thy dont do a thing, where all other coral around it and in my frag tank are doing all well and growing.

I once have tried to target feed them (about a month after thy went small) and did this 3x a week for a month.

when target feeding thy did not take a thing so I stoped it.

so now you say thy are hardy, what more can I do, thy are already schrivled for about a year

[skabooya]

is the flow too strong for them? Try lower flow for about a month and see what happens.

[KevinK]

is the flow too strong for them? Try lower flow for about a month and see what happens.

I did it all over tha past last year, it is gust to odd.

ir is gust that it is already for so long, and over time I have tried diferent elevations under the light (for lets say 2 months) nothing, target feeding for a month, nothing, flow from bairly no flow for a few weeks to a mod. flow for weeks, nothing

now thy gust hang in there as stumbs with bairly anything happening.
all my frog S. hammer coral, zoa's, all do well, and thy are all fare enough apart (minimum 6 inches ore so)

so it is a real question what could be wrong,

I did not change salt brand, nore type of light ore feeding habbit to fish, thy gust do nothing, while thy can be so, so great

[daniella3d]

They do like to eat, and they do like metal halide a lot. Often when they are retracted and refuse to come out, it is probably a little late to try to feed them.

This does not mean they will die, but they might take a while to come out again. Shutting down pumps and putting some cyclops on them might do the trick but you might have to wait until they regain some strength before they will take the food. I find that my duncans do better under metal halide rather than T5HO but that's me.

If they don't grow new heads, they probably don't have enough light or enough food or both.

I had a frag that I have salvaged from one of my friend's tank that had nitrates at 100ppm and the duncan was really going to die, or looked like it. I saved it but it took a very long time to come back and even now it has small heads and does not eat as much as my own duncans. Do you have high level of nitrates?

And what type of light do you use?

thats interesting you say this.

I have 2 frags of them, one with 4 and one with 5 heads.

one sits on the gravle and the other about 10 inches from the top.

one always had short tenticles of about 1/2 inch

the other was a nice flower size like 2 to 3 inches, than over time (6 months) thy bothe went down to only 1/8 of a inch and dont want to open up.

thy are still alive, but already for about a year thy dont do a thing, where all other coral around it and in my frag tank are doing all well and growing.

I once have tried to target feed them (about a month after thy went small) and did this 3x a week for a month.

when target feeding thy did not take a thing so I stoped it.

so now you say thy are hardy, what more can I do, thy are already schrivled for about a year

[reefwars]

They do like to eat, and they do like metal halide a lot. Often when they are retracted and refuse to come out, it is probably a little late to try to feed them.

This does not mean they will die, but they might take a while to come out again. Shutting down pumps and putting some cyclops on them might do the trick but you might have to wait until they regain some strength before they will take the food. I find that my duncans do better under metal halide rather than T5HO but that's me.

If they don't grow new heads, they probably don't have enough light or enough food or both.

I had a frag that I have salvaged from one of my friend's tank that had nitrates at 100ppm and the duncan was really going to die, or looked like it. I saved it but it took a very long time to come back and even now it has small heads and does not eat as much as my own duncans. Do you have high level of nitrates?

And what type of light do you use?



same here my duncans loved my halides they werent opening right under someone elses t5's but under my halides really bloomed.

[dreef]

Right on the bottom for me, 20" deep tank with T5's 6 inches off the water.Never fed them a morsel,low flow and grew 2 heads into 20 in a year :) You halide people :P

[daniella3d]

I am not a "halide people". I do have both T5HO and MH but none of my 3 duncan did well under T5, but are thrving under MH...go figure.

Mine grew 7 heads to 60+ in 3 months but I do feed them few times per week. Yes they can pop heads very fast and a lot of them...they take forever to grow new shaft.



Right on the bottom for me, 20" deep tank with T5's 6 inches off the water.Never fed them a morsel,low flow and grew 2 heads into 20 in a year :) You halide people :P

[Matman]

Duncans seem sensitive to chemical warfare, mine got pretty ugly at one point when I had a leather coral nearby. It took some time, but it came back after I got rid of the leather.

[jorjef]

I have three that do well under T5. I had one that closed up for two weeks and couldn't figure out why. Healthy and eating like a hog one day and closed the next. I wrote it off to a regenerating mode of some sort until.................... one day I saw the problem...Damn pecking of my Coral beauty.. I only saw him do it once but I'm sure it was more just that the Duncan may have decided he had enough and because he was closed most of the time the fish would give it little attention and if I never caught him giving it a little shot that day I would have never known the better. Coral Beauty is now gone and the Duncan is out happy as ever.
If you notice one of the fish lingering around sort of checking it out yu may have found the problem.

[fishytime]

I am not a "halide people". I do have both T5HO and MH but none of my 3 duncan did well under T5, but are thrving under MH...go figure.

20" deep tank.....they are on the bottom of the tank..... lit by T5.....110g tank with just over 10000gph of flow.....oh! and they are mostly shaded by an over hang........:wink:
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o19/fishytime/Fishytime%202/IMGP5513.jpg