Anyone know what this is?

[eww]

Being new to this hobby still (I think we will be for years to come) I don't know what to make of this?

We have had this coral in our possession for 18+ months and it has always done well and grown rapidly no matter what the conditions when it was in our old tank. We moved it from our 70 gal reef to our 34 gal cube back in August. The cube had been set up in our house since June of this year and for quite a while with the previous owner. When we bought it and moved it here it was only down for a couple of hours as he lived close by. We left about 3-4" of water in the bottom of the tank to keep the sand covered and reused all of the original water when we set it back up. We did not experience much of anything of a cycle doing it all this way. The lighting is a 150W MH with an unknown age Phoenix 14k bulb. The lighting cycle is 11 hours every day. We just changed the bulb today to a new Phoenix 14k bulb so we know how old it is now but have no idea about the old one that we just took out. I have noticed these white spots slowly increasing in number and getting larger. The polyps seem to be extended even though they are within the white flesh area. Is this STN? Water parameters are:

Temp 77
Sal 1.0265
Mag 1300
Cal 400
Alk 8.0 dkh
PH 8.1

All test kits are Elos and current

We do a 5 gallon water change every 2 weeks. We run Chemi-Pure Elite which we just changed about 2-3 weeks ago so it is a fresh batch. There is no skimmer on the system and only 1 occ. clown fish in the tank. There are 2 sexy shrimp and 1 emerald crab along with a handful of snails for the CUC. The rest of the corals are mainly zoa's and a couple of LPS (duncans and scoli)

Here is a pic of the placement in the tank (right side about 2/3 of the way up from the bottom)

 

[Sasquatch]

coral banding comes to mind?

 

[jrgilles]

Hey eric, is that a frag of the yellow birdsnest I had in my tank? If so, I'd love to hit you up for a frag back. Had some tank issues 6 or 8 months ago and it bleached out and died.

rob

 

[eww]

Yes Rob it is. It has grown a bit since then and I'd be happy to clip a piece off for you.

 

[eww]

I've never heard of coral banding. What is it? BTW these white areas are only on the top. They do not show up on the underside. I forgot to mention that on the OP.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I assume areas that used to be shaded by other branches are now fully exposed and bleaching. Nothing to sweat, should even out as gets used to new angles and illumination

 

[eww]

It wasn't really shaded where it was before and in looking at where the white places are there are none of its own branches that would have shaded these spots. I was wondering about bleaching from a change in lighting as well. I just thought it would be all over, not in spots.

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[jrgilles]

Good luck. Hope it lives. Mine got pretty big before it started bleaching. Tried to frag it but none of the frags survived. Glad it is still living on

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[eww]

I will let you know when we have a frag for you Rob. I think we may have one in the frag tank now. I will take a look when we get home.

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[kevinpo]

Hello,
It looks like it is receiving too much light and over time the whole coral will get very light colored. I prefer the darker color due to the contrasting polyp color. I have mine placed at the bottom of the tank (39" from the halide). The frags that are 26" from the halide are light colored like the one in your picture is starting to be.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[eww]

I guess we will need to move it then since we just changed the bulb and the lighting will be even more intense now. Hopefully that will "fix" it.

 

[jrgilles]

Thanks eric! No rush, can pass it off next time we get together. Let me know if you are heading up through seattle or hitting up barrier and I can meet you. Thanks a ton!