acro question
 

every couple days i find this white fluff on my acro colony, it's not the polyps or anything and the coral has it's full color but it kinda irritating as i always have to baste him. i don't understand why this happens as he's in a high flow area, anyone have this problem

Could it be that someone is bumping into the coral? (like a fish?) A coral responds like that when it has been scraped or rubbed.

never thought of that, as a matter of fact there is a chromis thats always bobbing around the colony, and a digi frag directly under him

do you find the white fluffy stuff on the digitatta?
if you do it could be a nudibranch they are small white and have frills on their back sometimes are harder to see because they can be small as 1/20 the size of a grain of rice look up monti eating nudibranch's on google images and compare it to yours, Why I say this is because you say it comes back even after you blow it off.

just took the colony and frag, and as i thought the digi frag is clean, maybe it's just food that gets caught in between the polyps, brine shrimp maybe, is it common for food to always get caught in acros? it's absolutely driving me nuts cause i always think it's dead polyps! but it's in between the polyps

Here is a reference pic for you to see what Monti eating Nudi's look like..so you know what to look for when buying... HOWEVER they have very very very small eggs that can be easily missed...

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c212/Chaloupa/MEN.jpg

OR ... is this what you are seeing? I had this happen (still do) and was told by a fellow reefer that the coral was stressed.....not sure if this helps...but thought I would try
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...a/Acrofrag.jpg

yikes, I've never seen that before and I've had some pretty stressed out corals in my day.

Is that what your diagnosis would have been Greg? It's what I was told several months ago.....but who knows how correct it was....what do you think (sorry to have sort of un-intentionally hijacked the thread!)

sorry for the delayed response guys, internet was down, yup thats pretty much what it looks like and in big numbers, i'm just glad it's not a nudi! so i gather it's from the chromis always bobbing around him? absolutely freaks me out as i think it's dead polyps sometimes! but same general formation as that pic chaloupa, but smaller though. or could it be a natural defense mechanism because of being annoyed by neighbouring corals?

well today both corals look great, no more fluff on the colony:mrgreen:, thanks again for the pics for comparison, it's a relief to know it's nothing more than stress thats triggering it.