My Buttons are falling off??

[pdwire]

I recently purchased (3 weeks ago) an aquacultured Button Polyp from etropicals. It seems to be doing great and has been opened up since day one.

However, over the last few days I have seen a couple of the polyps floating around in the water column. It appears that they just were pulled off the rock they were attached to. Is this normal? Do they spread this way?

My suspects in the tank would be the coral banded shrimp (i blame him for everything) or hermits. I have seen the coral banded crawling on the polyps scavenging for food but never pulling at the polyps.

Other livestock include: snails, clown, tang, serpent star and other soft corals (leather, colt, finger). All inhabitants appear healthy and happy and water conditions are good. I have not supplemented iodine but do water changes every 2 weeks.

Any help greatly appreciated

 

[SquishyFish]

I have had zoos do this before. Basic causes are the same as they are for everything else....water flow, or light, or nutrition...or a combination. They dont like high flow...moderate light, and mine seem to do better when I dose iodine.

But thats just my eperience.

Squishy

 

[reefrunner69]

It is possible that it is simply propogating itself, poerfectly happy zoos and buttons will do this from time to time, on the reef...it's all about real estate.

FWIW, my zoos love blindingly intense light and very high waterflow, my buttons could care less.

 

[pdwire]

Do you directly feed them or just let them grab it out of the water column? I have not been directly feeding mine. Could this be a reason?

 

[reefrunner69]

Mine grab what they get, I very rarely (like 2 or 3 times in the last 18 months) target feed any of my corals. However I feed a food that will feed all the animals in the tank, they just gotta catch it themselves.