delicate acro issues

[dave_atl]

Hey guys,

looking for some tips on stopping this acro from rtn'ing. over the past year or so, any minor maintenance I make in the tank causes part of it to rtn. a water change, changing 50% of my carbon, running UV, not doing anything... whatever. As far as I know it is a Acro. carolina, when I bought the frag (unmounted) it was white with light blue tips, but it has darkened up some. It continues to grow, but as you can see from the pics, there is tissue loss underneath. It usually happens overnight and sometimes it grows back, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe a bacteria issue? I usually run my UV a few days a month. all params OK (ph, calc, alk, orp, nitr, phos) I've tried moving it around, right now it gets a lot of light and a lot of current.

 

[Unarce]

How has it done when placed lower with less flow? IIRC, A. caroliniana is a deepwater species, known to inhabit reef slopes.

 

[dave_atl]

Yeah, I know it has lower light requirements, but it did the same thing when sitting in the sand (low light and low current) and then at mid level (medium light and low current). the only difference is the density of the new growth. I forgot to mention my lighting is 3x250 10k mh, and 2x160vho actinic. The coral is directly below one of the MH's. What is strange is that the tissue loss is not where it gets the most light or current, that is why I initially kept moving it to higher and higher light/ water movement areas.

 

[Ben1]

very nice looking piece. I would say it isnt getting enough flow inside the branchs underneath.

Stability is the key but small changes like partial carbon changes shouldnt effect anything.

 

[dave_atl]

that's what I first thought, but it now gets a bunch of current from tunze stream on a seaswirl.

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder if these deepwater acros really need to be placed lower down in all tanks? If your lighting is at the bluer end of the spectrum maybe not. I had a similar speciment that actually did better higher up (I have 20K Megachromes). Unfortunately it fell victim to an anemone (never buying one again), but it was doing well until then...