Exposing SPS during water change
 

I have a new SPS (Purple Cross) coral that I placed on top of my highest live rock, in order to maximize its lighting intensity. However, I noticed that during a water change, part of it is exposed for a period of time (about 15 minutes) until I can refill the tank with the new water.

Is this a problem? Will the coral suffer? One option is to bath the exposed coral manually with water every few minutes while it is exposed.

Most SPS will do just fine as they are exposed for many hours during low tide, that being said there are countless SPS species out there and many of them are regarded as deep water species so this might not be true.

Make sure you don't have a window open (at least during the winter) while doing this, I did it once and ended up having a dead coraline line all the way around my tank!

No problems at all..i had dozens half exposed for at least a 1/2 hour one time,zero problems.Look what happens in nature

When I transport larger colonies, I leave them fully exposed in rubber maid tubs. One large stag was out of water for an hour, no problems. The purple cross is fine, although I do have one colony that gets a bit ticked off being exposed. No damage, just lots of slime. Make sure you don't have a hot light directly over it.

I did this once and cooked a volunteer pocillipora colony

Thanks, everyone for the responses. I have Radions, so the light shouldn't be too hot, plus I have a plexi cover. I knew the occasional exposure would be OK, but wasn't sure about regular exposure with each water change. Sounds like I needn't worry, though.

Now I just need work on getting this Purple Cross to turn purple, instead of plain brown...

good luck! Mine is the poorest colored coral in my tank. If it wasn't too big to cut out, I'd throw it away :)

I've heard that from others, too, so not overly optimistic with mine, but we'll see. I've only had it a few days, so way too early to tell. That's why I stuck it on top, though, so hoping the higher light intensity will help.

This is not the first time I've heard that people have trouble getting the Purple cross to color nicely, but it really surprises me. It was always one of the easiest corals to grow in my tank, and it was a real show piece. I didn't do anything special, just good water quality... at times not so perfect :redface:

I wouldn't put it too high up, it needs room to grow. If it gets happy it will be massive.

An old picture, it's the purple (blue) coral on the left.

http://www.canreef.com/ftotm/oct10/i...t%20Centre.jpg

Rob, you and Denis seem to have no problem. Mine grows great, just not a lot of color. I am comparing mine to Jamie's original piece, and it's not even comparable!