Bleached acro club.

[Doug]

Picture tri-colour came from a friends tank where it was in trouble. We moved it to mine several months ago to try save it. Recovered very well, growing both vertical & encrusting. Nice purple tips, green polyps.

Two days ago, I notice a tiny bit of bleaching starting. Today, the pic shows whats left.

[Doug]

The broken looking piece in the upper left, is where I cut off the bleached portion, to no avail.

[mark]

Hey can I join, think I got the entry fee.

Is about 7" across and was about the colour of the Halimeda. Started bleaching a couple of days after I replaced the MH bulb above it (same wattage and colour). At least I can make out the blue tips a little better now.

[Doug]

Not the best club to be in Mark but it has lots of members.

I never made any changes, thats whats so weird. Although in someone else,s thread about bleaching acro,s I said all one has to do is look at them the wrong way & they bleach. Guess thats what I did.

[Snappy]

To me, the first picture looks like RTN and not bleaching. The other picture from Mark is bleaching as there is still some PE and the acro for whatever reason has expelled it's zoaxanthelae. However, if put into a lower lighted area it may likely recover. Now on the other hand from what I can see in the picture, sorry Doug but yours looks like it is likely toast.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Snappy

To me, the first picture looks like RTN and not bleaching. The other picture from Mark is bleaching as there is still some PE and the acro for whatever reason has expelled it's zoaxanthelae. However, if put into a lower lighted area it may likely recover. Now on the other hand from what I can see in the picture, sorry Doug but yours looks like it is likely toast.

I must say, I agree with all of that. I figured it was toast, as there is no polyp extension. Thought RTN started in the lower portions ?

[mark]

Originally Posted by Snappy

. if put into a lower lighted area it may likely recover.

Can't really move it down so put a piece of egg-crating across the Eurobrace over it along with 5 sheets of window screen. Think that will help and if so how long should I leave the screen in place (it's also blocking the light for some Frogspawn and a Cup coral?

[Snappy]

Originally Posted by Doug

I must say, I agree with all of that. I figured it was toast, as there is no polyp extension. Thought RTN started in the lower portions ?

Rapid Tissue Necrosis often starts at the bottom but not always.

Can't really move it down so put a piece of egg-crating across the Eurobrace over it along with 5 sheets of window screen. Think that will help and if so how long should I leave the screen in place (it's also blocking the light for some Frogspawn and a Cup coral?

Mark,
My understanding of the idea is lower light (but not dark) triggers the coral to let zoaxanthelae production increase, since these host algae are not as efficient in feeding the coral in those conditions more are required to do the same job. Basically the coral feeds off the carbohydrates produced during photosynthesis, when the light is bright they produce more food than the coral needs so the unnecessary zoax get expelled. Now that said there are 3 types of zoax that produce at different rates in different spectrums and give different colours. Long story short, give the coral time to get some colour back, it will most likely be brown, and when the coral turns brown and healthy start giving it more light so it can get it's other colours back. It might take awhile. Good random flow is the most important. Now all that said, I have had several acros bleach and I just left them with no light changes and they eventually came back to full colour. Now that I said all that jibberish I would just leave it and it will probably come back fine. I see there is colour at the bottom so it should be ok. The best advise I can give is don't listen to me, I'm no expert.

[Skimmerking]

my poor TRI color i cant see it being low light where the other SPS are doign great too

[i have crabs]

fun like that is why sometimes i dont care that im about 90% softies in my reef but i guess a bleached acro is still cooler than 10 different pink softies