Donut coral question

[Ruth]

I have had a donut coral for about 8 or 9 months. When I first got it the color was bleached out a bit and was kind of light lime green and pink. I put it on the sandbed of my 230 and over the next few months it did very well - the coral grew, was constantly expanded, and the color changed to a darker green and more of a salmon color. I noticed that about a month ago it was no longer expanding very much and didn't know what was going on until I saw my hippo tank picking at it. I kept watching and sure enough he was there everytime this coral tried to expand. I removed the coral and put it in my 24g nano. For the first week it was fine - expanding again and color good. About a week ago I noticed long black strings coming out of one of it's mouths - a lot of them. I thought the coral was a goner but as soon as it expelled these strings it seems to be just fine. Fully expanded - color good - mouths closed except when eating and feeder tentacles coming out at night. Any ideas? What were those long black threads?

[OCDP]

A long shot... but was your donut coral possibly expelling waste? (pooping) Can't they do this? I have seen my pearl bubble that I used to have do this.. not sure if this applies to Donut corals though.

Just a thought

[christyf5]

Have you been feeding it? It could be poop

Another thing, due to the lighting change from high to low light it could be expelling zooxanthellae as they no longer need as many to process the lesser amount of light its getting.

Hope that helps
Christy

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I also find that my donut likes to be fed frequently compared to some other LPS. Seems like every time I feed my fish, the feeding tentacles stick out too.

I too think it was probably poop if you've been feeding it.

Anthony

[Ruth]

I have never target fed this coral but I imagine it could have gotten some of the fishes food. The light change could definately be a reason - it went from the bottom 36" or so below a 400w and PC actinics to about 16" below a 175W with VHO actinics. The thing about the strings is that they were so large - I'd say about 5-6" long and about as big around as parcel string and there were probably 8-10 that came out. With so much material I was sure the coral was gone but nope - it's hanging in there and looking good now.

[christyf5]

Maybe it was constipated

[Ruth]

So it was the exlax in the 24? Now why didn't I think of that? Poor guy - think of the pain it was in. Hehe.