pigments bleach in hydno

[anthias_949]

i have a big green branching hyndnophora, well it was green. after i changed the MH bulb, it bleached of it's color (not zoothanthalae) and only gained a little of it back. i did change the bulb from a 12K 175w to a 20K 175w, and without very propper acclimation(i didn't change it, the person who was taking care of my tank did and they put it directly on a 8 hour lighting regiment with no breaks). i thought that corals got greater pigmentation with higher kelvin and stronger bulbs. was i wrong or is there something else at play here?

 

[Anthony Calfo]

yep... the zooxanthellae simply need to recover. That will take time. The coral needs fed... badly! And heavily in the interim.

Please do try to target feed a small amount daily. Very fine zooplankton substitutes (DTs oyster eggs, Cyclop-eeze... perhaps Golden Pearls, Boyd zooplankton crumble, etc). Add some thawed pack juice or a squeezd piece of shrimp to the aquarium fifteen minutes before target feeding to stimulate a feeding response.

Your coral is largely starving to death without the brown zoox.

After they return and it is stronger/healthier... indeed you may see fluorescing proteins (FPs) return pending light quality. Do see my article in next months reefkeeping.com e-zine (Nov 2005... after the 5th of the month) on this very topic.

best regards,

Anthony

 

[anthias_949]

he's still nice and brown, but that's it. he used to be bright green, but now he's just brown with just a little bit of green tinge.

 

[mungus]

Is it possible to keep these under a 150 hqi 14K giessman bulb Reef w reef optics III reflector? I have a friend I can get a frag from but I don't want to take it if I don't have enough light.
(sorry didn't mean to hijack)
TIA

Brian

 

[DonW]

i have a big green branching hyndnophora, well it was green. after i changed the MH bulb, it bleached of it's color (not zoothanthalae) and only gained a little of it back. i did change the bulb from a 12K 175w to a 20K 175w, and without very propper acclimation(i didn't change it, the person who was taking care of my tank did and they put it directly on a 8 hour lighting regiment with no breaks). i thought that corals got greater pigmentation with higher kelvin and stronger bulbs. was i wrong or is there something else at play here?

Switching from 12k to 20K you may have lost the intensity of the light. Try raising the coral up. Hydnophora are light loving coral.

Don

 

[big t]

browned out would be a better way to describe your corals condition, i would give it some time and srr if it dosnt color back up, if not then start moving it up in the water column

 

[Anthony Calfo]

any of these lights is fine... the bluer/lower PAR lighst will simply require that you target feed the Hydno more (organismal feeding)