Acro Ballooning, Swelling, Blistering=odd calcification....

[SaveOurReefs]

I used to have the same prob! ...

I emailed Eric Borneman about it and this is what he said at the time...

"That tissue bubbling is fairly common, and I do not know what causes it
but anecdotally seems to occur with those using strong lights, maybe
particularly a UV compnent. It usually resolves itself, and coral tissue
naturally bubbles up during calcification but in spaces so small as to
be microscopic - I suspect something is happening that causes a
malfunction of these small pockets normally anchored by cellular anchors
called desmosomes and causes multiple areas to release."

At the time I had the colony no more than 8" below a 400 watter, its been under a 250 since and the problem never came back.

 

[Michael Mota]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8196855#post8196855 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SaveOurReefs
I used to have the same prob! ...

I emailed Eric Borneman about it and this is what he said at the time...

"That tissue bubbling is fairly common, and I do not know what causes it
but anecdotally seems to occur with those using strong lights, maybe
particularly a UV compnent. It usually resolves itself, and coral tissue
naturally bubbles up during calcification but in spaces so small as to
be microscopic - I suspect something is happening that causes a
malfunction of these small pockets normally anchored by cellular anchors
called desmosomes and causes multiple areas to release."

At the time I had the colony no more than 8" below a 400 watter, its been under a 250 since and the problem never came back.

Thank you for the help, most of my corals are about 10" under the water line and the lighting is 250. I noticed this when I changed the bulbs to the new ushio10k, i was using esv 10k before. not saying that is the problem, heck could be hundreds of other things. Thank you
Mike

 

[oddballs]

my tubs mystic blue colony that i grew from a frag and my true echinata(yow right )that i payed a arm and a leg for both have a smal area on them thats like this.they are both about 6 to 8 inches away from 2 250 watt single ended halides all the rest of my frags or colonys of acros never bubble up at all and have great color and nice growth rates?

 

[Stoney Mahony]

I have an ORA miami orchid frag that is doing the same thing. It has about 4 branches and on every tip, the purple part is balloned up. It's not "melting" like some others see, it's just balloned up. I thought it looked wierd for a little over a month so I poked one of the tips (I know..sounds stupid) and sure enough it was like a little balloon. It still grows fine so I left it alone. Ill snap some pics /macros later today.

 

[Psionicdragon]

Anyone ever figure out a cure for this? Lost two corals already due to balloning.

 

[Kip]

when i cleaned out and re-set up my frag tank the afflicted corals were moved to different areas of flow (more passive and not as direct) and the problem went away. I dunno if this was a direct result or if something else changed, but the blistering went away and the coral is experiencing normal growth* and color.

* .... i dont know if the calcification under the acro tissue has returned to normal or not, but i'd assume something has normalized as far as skeletal growth.