Advice? Discussion: Millepora: 'not fuzzy' syndrome

I have never had a Millie get fuzzy in my tank either. They're colors stay good. But upward growth is slow and there is only a little polyp extension. (Mine encrust fairly quick, but don't really branch out)

I'd be interested to hear what others have to say as well.

 

Same here. Mine encrust and good colors but very little polyp extension or branching.

 

How's the flow on them?

 

In one of our tanks they are very fuzzy (like a caterpillar!) and great growth. In the other tank they have decent PE but not nearly like the other and slower growth. I wish i knew what the difference is....we do dose sponge power in the tank with good extension/growth but I can't say that is the difference...

 

I have two frags of the same mother colony in different spots. One is in high flow high light and the other med flow med light. Theyve both encrusted. Below is a pic from several months ago. It still looks like this except more green and the base has encrusted onto the rock and the branches grew about 1/8 of an inch. The polyps still look pretty much like that.

 

Is there a difference in lighting? And just out of curiosity have you seen this milli in someone elses tank? Ive seen a few that dont have a ton of extension, i always had better luck with prostratas having better bushy extension

 

I had similar issue when using LEDs
Switched back to halides & badabing

 

This looks almost like a spongode. Instead of milli,but I could be mistaken.

 

I have some questions that I'm curious to know from you guys:

1. When you bought the milli(s), did the frag(s) have the full polyp extension or were the polyps retracted (partial or fully)?
2. Did the milli(s) ever show the full/long poylp extension after you placed it in the tank?
3. If you have more than 1 milli, do any show the long polyp extension?
4. Was/Were the milli(s)you purchased from the same reefer/vendor/retailer?
5. When the lights are off, does the milli(s) get full/long extension?

At this point, I will say that if the milli(s) doesn't show full polyp extension or just partial/short extension, the milli is not happy. Good growth will occur when it is in feeding/uptake mode(ie. happy with polyps fully extended).
Milli's and other SPS's will grow when their polyps are out a little but the growth will be very slow as their uptake is inhibited. Flow is very important but there are other factors involved also, IMO. Good thread guys!

 

I wish I had the answer to this one also!! I get good color and great growth, but very little polyp extension on my SPS acros. My cali tort grows super fast, but has never had polyp extension. My milli's have minimal polyp extension.

 

You could be right it isnt a milli. I dont really know. I dont think its a spongodes though as Ive seen those unless this is some odd variant of it.

 

No extension whatsoever? The piece I got from you back in March was the same way in my tank for the first few months. I haven't seen much vertical growth from it, however the tort was quick to encrust yet never showed anything as far as extension was concerned. That is until early June when I began to increase light intensity on my reefbreeder. For some reason I had been keeping percentages around 60/40 and am now around 80/50 and rising. Sometime between that transition I began seeing sporadic, white/translucent polyps, and for the last month have gotten consistent green extension 24/7.

 

I have a few millaporas and they are very particular in placement and everything else. I have a sunset that is really hairy and 6 inches away my rainbow milli has very little polop extension. I know anytime I have moved my sunset it takes a few months to get back to what it was. I know phosphate levels, alkalinity. Calcium and magnesium stability are extremely important. And once you find a good spot and leave it alone it will take off and pe will get there. All this assuming you don't have coral pests or angle fish picking at them.