Sick Coral??? Not sure - Finally real pictures added

[ogden10]

Hey everyone I am new to reef tanks, with alot of fish experience. I am not certain what is going on with my Leather coral. Looked great yesterday and today it is smooth with no extensions and large green spots on it!

I have pictures but I can not normally figure out how to size them down.

Huh well I have pictures from yesterday and today but I can not resize them at home without Photoshop. If anyone can help I will mail them the pictures.

Here are the pictures

picture one 4 days ago
picture two 3 days ago
picture three 2 days ago
picture 4 now (in next post)

[ogden10]

As the night goes on it is getting more and more neon green and less and less brownish that it used to be.... I sure hope it is not dying, but it is still standing up...really weird.

[30_gallon_guy]

its just closed up

[ogden10]

I have seen it closed up before and it has never changed colors. Normally it just gets smooth instead of the little nubbie tentacles sticking out, but it has never changed from brown to green before. In fact I have never seen one green at all.

This is what it used to look like, now it is completely smooth and neon green, even when the lights are on. If anyone can help me with the pictures I can post them.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/p...cfm?pCatId=753

[ogden10]

I forgot to mention that I just did a water change yesterday. 5 gallons on a 55 gallon tank. Temo was 1 degree of and I added it on the other side of the tank from the coral. I had not done a change in a while and though I would for the trace elements, even thought the levels were fine. By the way I have 260 watts of light on this 55 so there is plenty of light.

[ogden10]

ok here are some pictures that should help everyone

Healthy Coral
http://www.savepic.com/freepictureho...icture_207.jpg


Sick Coral
http://www.savepic.com/freepictureho...g=IMG_0635.jpg

Please let me know if anyone knows what is going on

[ogden10]

Anybody???? The coral is now completely green, but seems to still be standing up real strong, not slumping over like I would think it would be if it was dying?

Did anyone look at the pictures have any ideas?

All I got when I tried the links was a bunch of garble....

ÿØÿÃ*ÿØÿÃ*!ÿØÿÃ*!E.'.EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

If you are unable to resize the images below the 250 kb limit required for your gallery, e-mail them to me and I will do it for you. I will not be able to do so until I get home from work though...

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

Steve thanks for telling me.... I was wondering why no one was answering me. The weird thing is the links were working just fine for me from home, but not at work for me either.

Where can I email the pics to you at

[ogden10]

Maybe try these links

Health coral
http://www.savepic.com/freepictureho...icture_207.jpg

Sick Coral
http://www.savepic.com/freepictureho...g=IMG_0635.jpg

These are working for me now???

They work for you because they are stored in your computers cache. Still not working (for me anyway). You can e-mail them to me at my username @aquariumadvice.com

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

ok steve, thanks again. i think i figured it out, but they are cool pictures of the progression of the coral and I am sure that someone will have some insight for me.

I have mailed them to you now

thanks again

Sent them back for you to post (upload) here with some possible insight. You can add that here if you wish also and respond to where possible...

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

Steve tells me the coral has gone "dormant" what does this mean. As I mentioned I am new to reef and corals. Is there anything I should be doing or just wait til it feels like sticking the polyps back out. The guy at the LFS tells me that since I just increased me light basically double that the coral is prob going to its true color and I just did not have enough light for it to do this before, and he did not have it in as much light at the store. He says just give it some time and it will be fine, but stay green, posibly have brown polyps though.....

Corals are interesting, I hope it gets easier from here on out.

Originally Posted by ogden10

Steve tells me the coral has gone "dormant" what does this mean

In essence, hybernating...

The guy at the LFS tells me that since I just increased me light basically double that the coral is prob going to its true color and I just did not have enough light for it to do this before, and he did not have it in as much light at the store. He says just give it some time and it will be fine, but stay green, posibly have brown polyps though......

He's partially correct, if the lighting has been dramatically increased in any way without acclimating the tank to it gradually, the corals go into "light shock". It's quite important when you do something like that to gradually increase the intensity so the animals can adjust slowly. As far as the green color, not too likely there I'm afraid. That is moreso a result of the stress reaction. It proper color should be a creamy/ecru mabye with a hint of yellow.

If the coral retracted relative to the new light, you'll just have to wait it out. It can takes a few days to several weeks for soft corals of this type to "rebound" after being stressed. It will look sickly in the meantime but you shouldn't be too concerned about losing it.

If you just upgraded the lights within the last few days, reduce the photoperiod to about 2½-3 hrs/day. Every few days after increase by ½ hr/day and after about 2 weeks you should get back to the full photoperiod This will greatly reduce the stress and allow the corals to readjust.

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

As always thanks for the info... I guess that makes perfect sense, I just did not think about it before changing my lights. I had only had the coral in there for like 2 days and decided that I really had only the bare minumin for lighting in there (about 2 watts per gallon at that time), I upgraded it thinking that I would help the coral and instead freaked it out. Talk about you backfired plan. Anyway, the guy at LFS told me that now I have enough light that I should be able to do any coral I want in there. Do you agree? There is now 260 watts in a 55 gallon, so almost 5 watts per gallon.

Originally Posted by ogden10

Anyway, the guy at LFS told me that now I have enough light that I should be able to do any coral I want in there. Do you agree? There is now 260 watts in a 55 gallon, so almost 5 watts per gallon.

Really depends on the depth from light to substrate but you will be able to keep a good many types of corals. I wouldnt go as far to say "anything" though, certain acropora/clam species will still do best with MH. That said though there are still a wide variety of SPS that you can keep. I would however start out with some easier scleractinian species like LPS before moving onto SPS.

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

Any specific suggestions? I like frogspawn, and also anything that has a really good bright color to liven up the tank, but am open to suggestions of things that would be easy and hearty.

Depends on what other kinds of corals spark your interest. Keep in mind that coral like frogspawn, ancora, trumpet and torch have sweepers and will require a fair amount of growing/living space. If that's what you want I see no problem with it though. If you have a sand then brain and plate corals can be quite colorful with reds, green, oranges and so on.

If the tank has matured close to a year, stable and you have a decent grasp on chemistry, no reason not to try some species of montipora. They are a great starting SPS, especially if tank raised. Very hardy and quite forgiving of the odd mistake.

Cheers
Steve

[ogden10]

Thanks for the advice.... This tank has been up and running for about a year and a half. Just made the decision to make it a reef instead of another FOWLR tank. I am very familiar with the working of these tanks, just have alot to learn regarding reef and corals.