Acropora Problem

[SURETRACK]

I could so with some advice, I purchase a pinky coloured Acropora about 6 weeks ago everthing was fine until about 1 week ago where one of the branches died off. Now the surrounding ones have retracted and look a purple colour. Any idea what I am doing wrong ?

Lighting 150w Metal Halide for 8hrs a day
Feeding with marine snow once a week
I only have a basic test kit

Ammonia NH3/NH+4 = 0ppm
Nitrite No2 = 0ppm
Saltwater PH = 8.2
Nitrate No-3 = 5ppm

Salt 1.022
Temp 25.3

The tenticals start of by turning purple and then they dissapear as you can see from the photos the rest of it looks fine. It is not next to any other corals

 

[Ben1]

What are you other parameter?

CA, Alk, pH, N03, P04, Mg would be good to start with. Has the acro lost tissue so you can see its bare skeleton or does it still have the tissue but the tissue turned white?

Welcome to RDO!

 

[mg]

my be to close to ather agresive coral?

 

[SURETRACK]

I only have a basic test kit

Ammonia NH3/NH+4 = 0ppm
Nitrite No2 = 0ppm
Saltwater PH = 8.2
Nitrate No-3 = 5ppm

Salt 1.022
Temp 25.3

The tenticals start of by turning purple and then they dissapear as you can see from the photos the rest of it looks fine. It is not next to any other corals
[/img]c:\camera\New Folder\acor.jpg

 

[Ben1]

Looks like a branching torch not an arcopora. Those types of LPS are very prone to infections, and can die fast from them.


It looks healthy besides the one branch, if it gets worse I would snap the dead branch off and make sure the coral is getting decent flow. I would also increase my salinity a bit.

Mainly you need to find out your alk and CA levels, otherwise I can't help.

 

[Anonymous]

First off, I would raise the SG to 1.025-026 over the course of a week or two as most corals prefer that range. It doesn't look like an acro to me, either but like Ben said a torch coral that has bleached.

 

[SURETRACK]

Thanks for the advice, snapped off the branch that was purple and my branching torch coral now looks ok for now !

Increase salinity to 1.025 and going to buy a better test kit this weekend

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice, snapped off the branch that was purple and my branching torch coral now looks ok for now !

Increase salinity to 1.025 and going to buy a better test kit this weekend

SLOWLY raise the salinity!!!!! Going too fast may shock the animals and make things worse!


Good Luck!

 

[SnowManSnow]

<-- I had a torch do the same thing. About 3 heads died off. I did weekly water changes for month... tried to keep things as stable as possible, and it has been fine ever since.

I'm thinking it may have jsut been the initial shock of being in a new environment... best explanation I have for what happend.

B

 

[Ben1]

Try to get good ca/alk kits like salifert.