piranhapat

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What are you water parameters. Don't feed them. Your putting more phoshate in. I never feed my in 4 years. Test your water and post again. Your phoshate is still high that will cause them to look like that.
 
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SteveZz

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Merrick, NY
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My duncan had a period of time where it was completely closed for three days. I realized shortly after that I had accidentally plugged my lights back in incorrectly and the daylights were coming on before the actinic lights were. This apparently upset the duncan greatly. Fixed the lighting to turn on in the correct order and a day later they began opening up correctly. Not sure if you could have a similar issue just adding my two cents. Hope it gives you an idea of something to look into.
 

piranhapat

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Do you have a small tank like 5 gallon. If you do put half your tank water and the other half with new water with LR.Put your duncan in that for few days. With a little pump and light and heater. Don't feed anything in tank. Within 3 days you should see it extend and open a little at a time. Test the water see if phoshate are lower.
 

motortrendz

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i have a duncan colony abt the size of a softball, completely open and my phosphates have been as high as .50 and as low as .07... thats not your issue.. i think 2 things light and flow.. too much of both.. put it in a shadded area and out of the path of the flow of your mp40

what size is your tank?? what type of lights are you running? if your lights are too bright or on too long they will shivel up and loose their green base they start to turn grey.. also if theyre in too much flow they tend to retract the tentacles..
 

piranhapat

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Maybe your Duncan are used to your water parameters. Any fish or coral can get used to water parameters of your tank.If you had then in your tank longer enough. Now try adding something that was kept at different water parameters. They will go into so kind of shock or die. My Duncan were open and when phoshate went to 0.08 they shrink. Made ajustment and lower phoshate Dungan opened. Just telling you what happen in my tank. Keeping phoshate high isn't a way to go....Lighting he using is LED and highly unlikely their to bright for DUNCAN. I see 36 led lights how many watts are they. Even if they 3 watts each would make 108 watts total. Wouldn't cause it.. I believed he move duncan to bottom and less flow. Something wrong with water parameters in his tank.
 
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Awibrandy

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Far Rockaway
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It's been about 16 days since this thread came up. That is not that long of a period, but long enough that if the duncans were dying I think they would have done so by now.
It seems that something is troubling this coral, and all we can do is try to guess what it is. I am having a similar issue with my dendros, and have done the moving them about for the past month or so with no results.
Let me ask the OP; Are your duncans opening after lights out? I ask because that is what my dendros have been doing.
It could very well be the intensity of your LEDs.. My duncans have been open since day one, and at that time when I got the 1 or 2 heads (from "saltwatercritters.com" whom I am absolutely positive had/has the best of water quality). My parameters were not the best (actually still aren't). My P04 were over 1.0ppms some 3 or 4 years ago when I got my duncans, and as of Monday it is down to 0.03 ppms. I'm saying this because there seems to be a bit of an argument going on about P04 being the cause... I feel that if that were the cause then my duncans should've been dead, and not grown to the over 30 heads it is now.
How were the duncans kept before they went in to your system? More specifically what lighting, and where in the tank were they placed?;)
 

advanwoerden

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Hi guys, sorry it took me a while to respond. Phosphates are around .1 ppm, nitrates are 0, alk is 9, calc is 420, pH is 8.1. Basically, water parameters are not the issue. My LEDs are pretty bright (avg 350 par in the center of my tank) so I moved them to the back corner which gets around 150 par and low flow, but still no improvement. The color is still bright, no receding and the polyps open up, the only issue is the "skirts" don't extend. I'm leaving them there for a week or so and then moving them under the ledge to see how they react to almost no light. I've been target feeding them 2-3x per week with cyclopeez/phytomax, but doesn't seem to help.
 

zagnut

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ny state usa
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hi i have a duncan in my 3 gal pico and it seems to be doing very well.my lighting is not very strong and i use a penguin 100 bio wheel filter with some chemi-pure elite.sometimes it takes time for new occupants to become acclimated to your system.
 

xvinny631x

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moriches
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i have my duncans 8 inches under a 250 mh and they are fine... i dont think lighting is an issue. The more lighting i give them the more polyp extension i get.. i also have a well stocked system with high nitrates and they arent bothered.. Hope this helps
 

advanwoerden

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still no improvement after a week, so I moved them under the rock ledge. Pics under actinic
 

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jck16

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Queens
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Maybe you can try feeding it PE mysis instead of Cyclopeez? I usually can get a feeding response from my duncans when I wave a cube over them. If it doesn't work though after a couple attempts, I wouldn't be persistent.

Mine are directly 2 feet below a 150W MH so maybe they'll also appreciate a little less light too although they still need a gentle steady flow. Hopefully they'll come out soon...they don't look fully out but at least some of them are out.
 

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