I'm having trouble with my Elegant (pink tip) and one of my suspicions is the lighting. The tank is a 75G (48x24x16) lit by 4 96W PC's (2 daylights, 2 blues).
When i first introduced the elegant about two weeks ago I placed it a litte more than half way up in the tank. After a couple days I noticed white string like emissions starting to cover sections of the soft body.
After a bunch of research I discovered a reference in Delbeek's book about Acontia Filaments with this description:
"Sometimes a stressed coral may appear to be covered with fine white strings. These are its digestive filaments that can be ejected externally for defensive purposes....super saturation of oxygen, as can occur from too strong illumination will also stimulate ejection..."
So I moved it down a bit and sure enough in a day, the string "dry up". But now it wont expand at all, remaining mostly withdrawn and rather unhealthy looking... alomost like there isnt enough light.
So now I'm confused... I only moved it down about 2" - 3". There isnt much "in between" to try for...
Another cause of this problem can be noxious compounds in the water. I'm testing for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate (all 0.0), Alk (10), PH (8.0), Iodine (.02... too low), Ca (400), and phospate (0). What else could it be?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
John
When i first introduced the elegant about two weeks ago I placed it a litte more than half way up in the tank. After a couple days I noticed white string like emissions starting to cover sections of the soft body.
After a bunch of research I discovered a reference in Delbeek's book about Acontia Filaments with this description:
"Sometimes a stressed coral may appear to be covered with fine white strings. These are its digestive filaments that can be ejected externally for defensive purposes....super saturation of oxygen, as can occur from too strong illumination will also stimulate ejection..."
So I moved it down a bit and sure enough in a day, the string "dry up". But now it wont expand at all, remaining mostly withdrawn and rather unhealthy looking... alomost like there isnt enough light.
So now I'm confused... I only moved it down about 2" - 3". There isnt much "in between" to try for...
Another cause of this problem can be noxious compounds in the water. I'm testing for Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate (all 0.0), Alk (10), PH (8.0), Iodine (.02... too low), Ca (400), and phospate (0). What else could it be?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
John