question about first acropora

[dido]

I purchased my first acropora about 5 days ago. It did nothing until tonight. All of a sudden, there are fine white threads about half an inch long coming out of the polyps. Is this a good sign or is it a sign of emminent doom?

The acro is a fairly dark green. I didn't want to risk anything very colorfull on my first try. It is about 4 inches across. I'm hoping that it will be a smashing success. How will I know when it is acclimated or not?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Anonymous]

If the "threads" disappeared when the light comes on, then they are probably feeding tenticles, and there is nothing to worry about. Any pic?

 

[Len]

I think it's feeding tentacales as well. It's neither a good or bad sign, just a natural behavior

 

[dido]

The threads were out during the evening when the first half of the lights were off for the night. No, I don't have a picture of it yet. My digital camera doesn't have a macro function and is too low of a resolution to enlarge the picture very much. I'll give it a try later today to see if I can get reasonable results to post. Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Easy way to test for feeding tenticles is to put an expensive/rare acropora right next to it, and let the "threads" touch the new coral. If the new coral started to look very bad, and die, it is usual feeding tentacles.

 

[SnowManSnow]

A lot of time photosynthetic corals "hermatic" (isnt that the right term?) will expell threads of zooalgae to make room for a different strand that is more liking to your lighting setup. Thats what the Sprung man says anyhow. Normally these strands are brown and stringy.

I've actually seen this on my bird's nest coral (when I first got the thing).

Just my 2cents

B

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, but "fine white threads about 1/2 inch long" are more likely to be tentacles.

 

[fishfanatic2]

A lot of time photosynthetic corals "hermatic" (isnt that the right term?) will expell threads of zooalgae to make room for a different strand that is more liking to your lighting setup. Thats what the Sprung man says anyhow. Normally these strands are brown and stringy.

I've actually seen this on my bird's nest coral (when I first got the thing).

Just my 2cents

B

True, but zooanxthellae are colored, hence the colors in the coral.

 

[Anonymous]

zoo is universally brown, I think.

 

[fishfanatic2]

What I meant. :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Interesting - I never saw any such thing when I used to keep acros.

 

[Anonymous]

some are more aggressive than the other. You have friendly acrops, maybe.

A. millipora usually send out these nasty feeder at night, for example.

 

[SnowManSnow]

If you have a galaxia, those guys are pretty aggressive too... the threads I've seen that are hunter tenticles always have a sort of bulb at the end... may just be my stuff though