Is my acro ok?
 

I was fragging my acro colony today and notice that its base has turned brown. I believe it might be due to it not receiving direct light. Will the brown spread to the rest of my acro? Or will it slowly heal? I know I'm still a noob lol

First answer would yes light. But possible po4 also.




Try switching to halides jk;)

Id say not getting direct light due to overshadows of the top growth. Not ganna spread unless your coral shadow spreads.

Oops forgot to post a pic. Ya the colony bends at the base causing no direct light. Here's a pic of it out of the tank. http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...psfe9aa84a.jpg

Are you referring to the very bottom portion of the coral, from the pic looks about the lowest half inch where it attaches to the rock?

If so, that's not brown, that's just dead. The tissue has receded up from the base. Is the coral growing at the tips? It's possible for it to recover, but tissue recession like that is usually caused by something that irritates the coral near where it attaches to the rock, which could be a) not enough light, though IME the tissue just gets really dark and doesn't recede like that for that reason alone b) something on the rock is annoying to coral. Certain kinds of algae can do that as well if they grow around the base. Aiptasia can do that to a coral as well.

Generally if the coral is in good health it should recover assuming you can isolate what is causing the tissue recession and remedy it.

What are you parameters?

I should add, have you ever checked for acropora eating flatworms? The one coral in my tank that was affected by them did exactly that at the base before I figured out what was going on.

Overall, that coral looks like it's in pretty rough shape. Got a pic of it in the water? Maybe it will look better, but the tips of most of the corallites look bad..

Here's a pic of it in water. Looks like its doing nice and growing well.

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5f988157.jpg

What should I do about the receeding?

How do I check for the flatworm? Should I just put the whole colony in Revive coral dip?

Ok, that looks better :)

If it were me, I'd cut the bottom dead area off, re-mount it with some epoxy and hope it encrusts again.

Would I have to cut past the dead part into living tissue?

Yes, just above the dead area.

There is no aiptasa or algae around my acro so what else that I can do to see what the problem is before I start cutting off my colony's base?

At this point it doesn't matter. It won't grow back. Cut the dead off, re-utty it into place and let it encrust the putty. It's not a lot, and it's dead skeleton.

+1. Not sure why corals do this, but once the base has died they never seem to re-encrust over it. The second you cut them at living tissue and re-mount them... Plating explosion.

I will frag off the base tomorrow and give the colony a revive dip before I epoxy it. Should I coral dip the that piece of live rock as well to get rid of w.e causing the recession?

No, not really a concern. It just receded at it's base, they do that sometimes.

Hey aquattro I followed ur advice and fragged off the base. I was actually quite sad after doing so cuz it was almost 2" that had to be thrown away.

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...psd49818ef.jpg

I also have another concern for a different acro. It to had very bad recession and rot all over its top half since i got i so I fragged it off as well. But there's a lot of this white stuff near its base that seems to kinda resemble feather dusters with only 2 antennas comin out of each white tube. Is this normal? Should I manually remove each one? Also what type if acro is this? It has 2 tones purple/blue

Don't be too sad, it should grow that much more on top :) I had a similar issue with a large purple stag, I had to cut off about a pound of skeleton :)

I wouldn't worry about the little critters growing off the base, I've had these too, just little worm guys.
No real way to tell what type of acro it is, just some sort of stag.

Oops forgot to post a pic http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/...ps8ae6d3d3.jpg

Ahhh... The joys of keeping acros. If I had a dollar for everytime an sps piece receded..... I'd still be $1000's in the hole:sad: