color fade on frogspawn

[Milez803]

anyone know why color faded from my frogspawn, when i first bought it home..its was a bit green...over a period of time, the frogspawn turn brownish.. i was wondering if it was due to the weak lighting system, i'm only currently using power compact lights..plan to switch to HM soon..if anyone got tips to bring the natural color back..feel free to drop some tips..thanks

 

[Fishead77]

anyone know why color faded from my frogspawn, when i first bought it home..its was a bit green...over a period of time, the frogspawn turn brownish.. i was wondering if it was due to the weak lighting system, i'm only currently using power compact lights..plan to switch to HM soon..if anyone got tips to bring the natural color back..feel free to drop some tips..thanks

Lighting would be my guess. Any change in lighting will change the color of the corals. What kind of lighting do you have?

 

[theJ]

how long has it been fading, and what kind of lights did it come from? Frogspawn will eject zooanthellae if it doesnt need it, and thats where the color comes from. zooanthellae brings the green color, but is also the brown color you see, so theres still enough algae to color it, it might just be adjusting to your lights still.

I could watch mine expell its zooanthellae every so often, it got a little brown, but after a couple months its SUPER green again. How much PC light are you pushing? I got 234w of t5 on my 58g

 

[Jan]

Tagging along on this one.

I just noticed my frogspawn had faded from bright green to a light greenish-translucent look. Almost transparent. I have it 2/3 of the way towards the bottom of a 24" tank, under MH lighting 175 watt 15K. Is this a sign of bad-health? Other than the color it looks healthy. (I have total 458 MH/actinics on my 120 gallon tank.)

 

[theJ]

Jan, how long have you had it in the tank? also, do ou know what kind of lighting it came from?

 

[Jan]

Oops. Mixing up my coral problem threads here..


OK, the frogspawn came from a tank with MH 250's in it. I've had it about 3 weeks and it just started looking pale/translucent within the past few days. I did move it prior to this, because it wasn't extending its polyps and I thought it might be irritated by a too close coral. After being moved it extended its polyps very much, looking much happier. THen I noticed the color fade about 4 days later.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Another thing to look at besides lighting is temperature. Milez description of green to brown sounds more like lighting adaptation. Jan...yours..with the lightening and translucent look, sounds more like temp issues. Just a thought

 

[Jan]

Hmm, that's intersting. My thermometer reads a fair constant 76F. Is that too low?

 

[Milez803]

thanks guys..i just bought the frogspawn back from the pet store.....i'm using only 2x55 or 65 watts bulb..nothing strong..trying to change my lighting system soon to MH...thanks guys

 

[theJ]

Milez, definately give it some more time, and enjoy watching the frogspawn actively adjust to its new surroundings!

Jan, I keep mine at 78, but your temp sounds decent. Hows the flow in that area? They like less, non linear flow. They come from lagoonish type areas, and are in deeperish waters. hows the rest of your tank doing?

 

[Jan]

I've got the frogspawn in a med-low flow at the moment and it seems to like it. The rest of the tank is doing well, except for some pest majanos and a leather in the middle that's had it's tentacles retracted for a few days.

I've got the actinics only on right now and the frogspawn does not not translucent in this light. I'll make a point to study it tomorrow under the halides.

 

[barrierreefcf]

Jan...76F should be fine. Its common to see corals lighten before bleaching. The temp when you would see this is usually 82-84F. Its gotta be something else...

 

[Jan]

What color should the tentacles of a fully extended frogspawn be? Not the tips, but the middle part? And should they be totally opaque? (assuming they're not one of those special transparent frogspawns...I saw a photo of one of those and I literally could not see the tentacles at all!)

 

[theJ]

http://thejerrod.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=12&pos=102 (click to zoom)

thats an old pic, only a couple days after I got it so that doesnt really count I guess. I will grab a new pic tomorrow night and we can check out the differences

 

[theJ]

Jan, heres a couple shots of mine. Really a bad angle, you have to see it from the top to really see the greens pop out, but look at yours from the same angle to get my perspective:

http://thejerrod.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=12&pos=107
http://thejerrod.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=12&pos=109
http://thejerrod.com/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=12&pos=111

oh yea click the image to zoom in too

 

[Jan]

Great shots. Yours is definitely greener and plumper than mine, but mine doesn't look like it's dying or anything. Just not as happy as yours. Do you feed yours? (with what?)

 

[theJ]

yea I do actually, it seems to like mysis very well, and i feed it around twice a week now. I used to feed it about 3 times a week, but ive heard thats quite a lot :/ It eats up every scrap (that the shrimp doesnt steal though and seems pretty happy.

 

[Jan]

So...how does that work? Do you feed the mysis whole or in a slurry of some kind? Is it a target feed with a turkey baster?

 

[theJ]

i target feed them whole. Its probably a better idea to mix em up a little and kinda break them up into smaller chunks if possible. Sometimes the frogspawn will expell pieces too large to eat, or doesnt like for whatever reason. Not really that big of a deal but the expunged pieces can get cought up in chaeto or your rocks and stuff, they look gross. Im sure they will rot too if something doesnt eat the little balls which could cause some issues in the future with nitrates and stuff. It seems to be able to eat larger pieces that it used to and doesnt expell much these days. maybe it had to get used to mysis.

Do you feed yours anything? If you start feeding, you will have to dial it in for whatever your frogspawn feels like. Im no expert though, take what I say with a grain of salt

 

[Jan]

I feed my corals twice a week with 1 pump of Liquid Life Bioplankton. Mix it with SW and pour it in the tank. I like to think that the corals like it.