Yellow Polyps have seen better days

[badfish]

My yellow polyps dont seem to be doing that well. My zoos, xenia, GSP are doing fantastically and spreading. My yellow polyps seem to be disappearing 1 by 1. Info

130 watts, yes i know on the low end.
Ammonia - 0
nitirite - 0
nitrate - 15
PH - 8.1
Calcium - 400
Alkalinity - 1.5 - 2.0

I guess my alkalinity is a little low, can this be the cause, how can i raise it? I use the SeaChem test kit, and i am unsure if i am testing for alkalinity correctly. The reason why is it says to hold bottle vertically and add one drop at a time, but its a glass bottle and no drops come out. So i use one of those plastic pipetes and use that to add drops, this may effect my results, anyone else have this problem.

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[lando]

ALK is a bit low but not too bad. Water change schedule? My yellow polyps grow like crazy in my nano, but a lot slower in my large reef. Not sure why.

 

[badfish]

i change 15% every week, See pics below of the polyps, i think that they might be being killed by the button (i think). Can this be? they came together so i didnt think it would be a problen, but you can notice the closer ones are the ones that are dying.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b5d906b3127cce934d15279cd100000016108AaOGjdi4Ztq

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b5d906b3127cce934d15339cc500000016108AaOGjdi4Ztq

Should i remove those buttons, id rather have the yellow polyps. What do you guys think?

Thanks,

Jeff

 

[badfish]

oh and i do feed them brine and they are eating.

 

[lando]

Lighting may be a lot of the problem. Are they in an area of realy high flow? You can try some cyclop-eeze instead of brine to see if that helps.

 

[badfish]

would yellow polyps require the most light out of all my corals? My xenia seem to be doing fine. I recently moved them to a lower flow area to see if that helps. So the other polyps are not stinging them?

 

[lando]

I do not think it is another coral. General rule of thumb...the more color a coral has the more light it requires. As always, there are exceptions.

 

[ellisz]

That is weird. I bought a yellow polyp rock when started my tank. I noticed a few different color polyps on it a week or so later. Eventually, they snuffed the yellows out. I still have that rock to this day but there are not any yellow polyps on it. They are a greenish/pinkish/brownish ...

 

[badfish]

Ellisz, do they look like the ones on my rock? Do you think i should remove them? and do you also belong to reef central? I think i recognize your name.

 

[ellisz]

You could scrape them off and transplant to another rock to be safe. They looked similar. Mine are pretty nice really but not a pretty yellow. Mine look pink under actinic.

I have the same user name on reefcentral. I frequent here more though

 

[badfish]

same here, thanks for the advice, will try it this weekend, will it be easier to move they yellow polyps, or others?

 

[ellisz]

which one would you be more willing to lose I would leave the yellows if those were the ones you liked most.

 

[badfish]

i would definately rather have they yellows, thats why i brought it in the first place. Thanks for the advice. Ill be sure to keep everyone posted.

 

[vertex]

I have lots of yellow polyps in my 33g with 192W of PC lighting. They grow very very well but only the ones that I feed. I usually just feed them peices of mysis shirmp or NLS pellets every few days or so. Mine are in the top half of the tank in direct light.

Had them for about 4 months, and have 3 times as many polyps as when they started. Well over 100 now and have made several trader frags. Not sure if that helps, but I'd recommend keeping them well fed and under bright light (as high as possible) then they should start spreading.