Coral Problems

[maveri9720]

Hi all. I just recently noticed my birdsnest has a problem at it's base. I checked out the rest of my corals and noticed this one piece has almost the entire backside ate up.

Can anyone tell me what's going on here and what I need to do?

Dips, frag rest of it, etc???

Thanks.

P.S. Sorry the pics aren't the greatest, but I'm in a hurry and need to get to work soon.
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[flyingarmy]

I had the same issue with my birds nest. I just frag'd off the dying part and the rest kept on growing. I don't know if it is a natural progression of the coral or if it's a problem, but it's doing great now and it didn't spread!

 

[slayer]

sps coral die off especially at the base is common if it recieves no light. As the frag grows and spreads outwards, more so like on a birdsnest it will start to shade out the base from the lights above..Hence because of the lack of light that part of the coral will die. If you use metal halides..ie a fixed light source, the light beams down in one direction, it cannot go around the growing coral and get to its base. I would imagine that this problem would be less so on a system with t5's or cf's. What do you use? If you do use metal halides and you did not want die off at the bases, decrease the distance between halides, or buy a moving light track, that moves a light source from one end of the tank to the other over a set time period,,,ie kinda like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west..This way as the direct light source moves (ie metal halide bulb), as it passes over the top of the coral, and past it, the diagonal ambient light from the bulb will hit the base of the coral at an angle...or you could simply place the coral so that it is not directly under a bulb but off to its side, so it catches the diagonal rays...

from the pictures, it looks like the whole back side maybe facing away from a bulb??

 

[simon_kruger]

Frag it and if it breaks into to pieces. I'll take one ;-)

 

[george]

Simon.Kruger;31727 wrote: Frag it and if it breaks into to pieces. I'll take one ;-)

Agreed. I'd say that you're better off fragging at least a piece or two in case whatever it is takes over the whole coral.

 

[maveri9720]

slayer77;31726 wrote: sps coral die off especially at the base is common if it recieves no light. As the frag grows and spreads outwards, more so like on a birdsnest it will start to shade out the base from the lights above..Hence because of the lack of light that part of the coral will die. If you use metal halides..ie a fixed light source, the light beams down in one direction, it cannot go around the growing coral and get to its base. I would imagine that this problem would be less so on a system with t5's or cf's. What do you use? If you do use metal halides and you did not want die off at the bases, decrease the distance between halides, or buy a moving light track, that moves a light source from one end of the tank to the other over a set time period,,,ie kinda like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west..This way as the direct light source moves (ie metal halide bulb), as it passes over the top of the coral, and past it, the diagonal ambient light from the bulb will hit the base of the coral at an angle...or you could simply place the coral so that it is not directly under a bulb but off to its side, so it catches the diagonal rays...

from the pictures, it looks like the whole back side maybe facing away from a bulb??

I thought maybe the birdsnest was getting bigger and possibly shading the base, but I thought it was still getting plenty of indirect light, seeing as how it is at the top of my tank and directly underneath the MH. And yes, I am using MH's.

But the other coral is actually leaning forward a bit and shouldn't be shaded at all in the back. I am at work now, so I can't go confirm if it is actually in shade or not, but I am almost positive it isn't

I was thinking that this might be some kind of disease or something, but I have almost zero knowledge of coral disease and diagnosis.

 

[kappaknight]

This is happening on one of my birdsnests as well; I'm not too worried about it.