acan's losing tissue

[shawne]

Looking for where to start. I have a maroon acan, and a green acan that are slowly losing tissue. The maroon has totally deflated and is losing color, while the green still has all color and still puffed up just losing tissue. This makes no sense because the other two acans are just fine, and all other corals seem just fine. Not sure what to think.

 

[pwhitby]

Acans are very susceptible to alkalinity swings- at least in my experience. What is your current alk. For best growth, they really like an Alk no higher than 9.

Are you feeding them at all?

P.

 

[shawne]

That might be it, my alk got way low for some reason, around a 7. Yes target feed the tank twice a week. Have been working on getting the alk back up slowly its around an 8 right now.

 

[MBryant]

Mine was almost melted away and I dosed some iodine and now it's bigger and even more beautiful

 

[MBryant]

Also Paul is dead on with the alk. Mine did much better with it being around 9

 

[lauremf2002]

Also, dont know how you do your water top off and dosing but make sure not to hit them. I have noticed that they do not appreciate being hit with fresh water and/or additives. (The place where my sump water blows into the tank was pointed at them and I dose into my sump. I redirected the flow so it didnt hit them and they puffed back up)

 

[Glazner]

if you will call it an amazing albino acan you can sell it for lots of money before it dies...ha

 

[shawne]

Hey Glazner I have the most amazing albino acan's!! I will cut you a deal 2 for 1! only $100, I will bring em to the meeting tonight for you!

 

[Lightsluvr]

if you will call it an amazing albino acan you can sell it for lots of money before it dies...ha

I had two nice colonies of "albino acans" while I was dosing the tank heavily with Magnesium. (supposed to get rid of byropsis - don't believe it!)

After I stopped that silly Mg experiment, they colored back up and forgave me...

LL

 

[Glazner]

LOL, I am fortunate/unfortunate to already have some amazing albino Acans.....

 

[lauremf2002]

Well mine are doing it again too... I guess Ill check my alk!

 

[shawne]

i dosed with kent iodide, pushing alk back up, and hoping for the best. it might just be the led's but i dont get why nothing else would be having a hard time. i have a large finger leather, duncans, purple and green pavona, green favia, green star polyps, button polyps, a few asst zoa colonies, toad stool, frog spawn, birds nest, monti's, trumpet corals, pulsing xenia, i have a ton of stuff in there that is doing very very well, just these two acan's having problems.... and to boot the other two acan frags are doing fine.

 

[jimmy_beaner]

I'm glad you posted... I have some DIY LEDs that I mounted into my Biocube 29 hood (the PC version). I got 3 frags of acans and mounted them at different places in the tank. One of them completely deflated and receded awful, another is trying to decide if it wants to go completely or stay half way and the third looks great. This took around 2-2.5 weeks under the LEDs. I had thought it possible they just were getting too much light from the LEDs so I dimmed them back and cut the photoperiod down. I haven't seen further recession yet, I'm taking daily pictures to try to see any changes. My alk is at 9, other parameters are spot on as well.

 

[shawne]

mine are all on the sand bed, as were most of my corals when i placed the leds in the canopy, slowly went up with my dimmers, and am still at only about 70%. they are all still on the sand bed and have moved other corals up and mounted them. keep me posted if you figure anything out i can try myself!! thanks jimmy.

 

[jimmy_beaner]

mine are all on the sand bed, as were most of my corals when i placed the leds in the canopy, slowly went up with my dimmers, and am still at only about 70%. they are all still on the sand bed and have moved other corals up and mounted them. keep me posted if you figure anything out i can try myself!! thanks jimmy.

I'm taking daily pictures and I think I'll start an acan recovery thread so we can collect some of the knowledge that is out there about keeping these things happy and how to get them back to being healthy. My worst of colony showed some inflation last night! I was very very excited as I haven't seen anything but deflated recession from it for a week. What if you put them in the shade a little? I figured out my highest colony was the worst off, the next worst off was the next highest and the best stayed near the sand.

 

[Glazner]

Shawne your LED's are way brighter than mine. I had to move my acans to the edge of my tank so they were not getting direct lighting. I know you took par measurements of your LED's Do you know what the Par was of your previous set up?

 

[shawne]

Shawne your LED's are way brighter than mine. I had to move my acans to the edge of my tank so they were not getting direct lighting. I know you took par measurements of your LED's Do you know what the Par was of your previous set up?

I think it was around 39 at the sand bed before. The Green acan is showing great recovery, and the redish one has 2 of 7 polyps coming back, I dosed with the Iodide and raised the alk to 10 over the last couple weeks.

 

[kingfisherflesh]

Good to hear that they are recovering...the culprits for me were always too much flow...and peppermint shrimp eating them.

 

[Glazner]

for a supposedly "easy" coral to grow....I have heck keeping them. And if I keep them I then have trouble keeping their color...

 

[kingfisherflesh]

This is impressive because from what I hear and know...acans are completely color proof.

Your lighting might be changing the color?