Brown acros too much light or not enough

[kevin_e]

hi there.

just thought id throw in my 2 cents for what its worth with my recent experience with bleaching and browning.

firstly while in fiji on one of the smaller islands there coral reef were bleaching and as it turned out this was due to silt coming from down river making the water murky so that light was unable to reach the coral effectively and this lack of light was bleaching the reef. perhaps the zooxanthellae was being expelled under the stress which lead to bleaching which lead to death

on my 4ft ive been running 4x 54w t5s and have had great growth in my sps and other corals and just the other day i was playing around with some metal halides i had lying around and decided to stick em over me tank to see how they looked
i had them running for 2 hours and silly me i didnt put the glass plate diffuser on the halide which i believe filters out the harmful uv spectrum
to my shock the next day my sps had partially turned brown and many other corals had been effected quite dramatically.
basically they got a sunburn much like we do if we spend too much time at the beach ... well an aussie beach.

from this i can assume that too much light seemed to drive out the zooxanthellae turning the coral brown
and too little light as in the fiji reef also leads to bleaching but do not know weather corals browned before bleaching in that case so no real conclusion can be formed due to too many unknown variables like water quality ect.

i also beleive as the tempratures are heating up in the oceans this is also bleaching corals on many reefs globally

the only solid conclusion i seem to be able to come to is that corals under stress for extended periods of time weather too much or too little light or poor water conditions or extreme temperatures will experience both browning and bleaching resulting in death.

personally i think we know too little about these animals to make absolute conclusions

just my thoughts but i could be off and always willing to listen to others experiences.

Typical response would be to bring in more zooanthelle to address the limited light.

It's more likely high temperatures, other industrial/agricultural pollutants or even sunscreen (yes, it's a real problem in tourists areas) were the cause of bleaching, not suspended silt.

 

[jninternational]

My brown acropora bleaching

My brown acropora bleaching

Last night local aquarium guy came and measured the light intensity in my tank. He increased cool white to 40% to 100%. My brown Acropora bleaching at the left side and few below. I set back to 40%. I have aqua illumination hydra 26. My light parameters cool white: 40; Violet 60; Red and green zero. Royal blue and Deep blue are at 83 & 87. UV 80. 8 AM to 8PM, the ramp at 10 AM to 6 PM. Phosphates = 0.05; Alkalinity 8; SG= 35; Ca = 420 Mg = 1350. Nitrates and Nitrites = 0. I believe sudden light change caused bleaching. Any suggestions from our community members?

 

[sonic]

Last night local aquarium guy came and measured the light intensity in my tank. He increased cool white to 40% to 100%. My brown Acropora bleaching at the left side and few below. I set back to 40%. I have aqua illumination hydra 26. My light parameters cool white: 40; Violet 60; Red and green zero. Royal blue and Deep blue are at 83 & 87. UV 80. 8 AM to 8PM, the ramp at 10 AM to 6 PM. Phosphates = 0.05; Alkalinity 8; SG= 35; Ca = 420 Mg = 1350. Nitrates and Nitrites = 0. I believe sudden light change caused bleaching. Any suggestions from our community members?

Going from 40% to 100% in a day will most definitely cause bleaching. Don't know what he was thinking but he should have gradually increased the intensity, over a few days, like 10% / day. I would also bump up your reds/greens some, being at 0 isn't helping with growth / color, unless of course you are doing it for aesthetic purposes.

 

[sixpackgarage]

amazing seeing those acros just growing right out of the water..

I'm a newb (to SPS), but just wanted to add to the thread. I have an acro that completely browned out after a flatworm exit treatment from the toxins the flatworms release (yes, I used carbon and did a water change). There is also some STN going on now, and there was no PE at night as I normally see. Now there is PE at night again, so I think the coral will recover. I'm sure there are other variables that definitely can cause browning, but in my case it appears to have been caused by the flatworm toxin.. so chemical in nature. I tend to believe that lighting would not be the issue that would cause browning.

 

[reefwiser]

List of Articles to read thru:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...ved=0ahUKEwiz2o_U4_LKAhVJWSYKHWVnAlIQgQMIGjAA

 

[kcinnick]

Best way to get and keep colored acro's is to get in country aquacultured pieces that DON'T go through LA or get from someone who brings in direct transhipments and it is from collection point to tank in 2-3 days.

Brown is OK, I have never seen an acro stay brown other than a nice cream and chocolate coloration. Brown just means it is recovering/acclimating.

Surest way to make a brown acro is to put it in LA seawater.

 

[gdemos]

Best way to get and keep colored acro's is to get in country aquacultured pieces that DON'T go through LA or get from someone who brings in direct transhipments and it is from collection point to tank in 2-3 days.

Brown is OK, I have never seen an acro stay brown other than a nice cream and chocolate coloration. Brown just means it is recovering/acclimating.

Surest way to make a brown acro is to put it in LA seawater.

funny. well I've had both LA aus imports and trans ship (say Aussie-Chicago if that's what youre referring to). Some LA brightened right up (more common aus pieces like a blue tenius, green stag) Some browned out and stayed brown (for me millies, Rosaria) Some TN'd (Rosaria mostly). I've had the trans-ships come in looking awesome, bright, PE. Same goes, some brighten up more, some TN, some brown.

we are after all dealing with a lot of changes from GBR or Maldives or wherever, to your tank at home. give them the best chance they have to succeed and hope for the best. I generally don't like moving pieces around too much in the tank (light or flow level specific) but clearly finding the sweet spot would be better than not finding it! but moving around too much means more acclimation.

the brownies I hold out for hope, the TN's I try to save or toss, and the ones that recover/improve I stay the course.

i'm no acro doctor but I do believe that good genes and good care makes all the difference

 

[karimwassef]

Not sure were real world is, but in my little world I can't say that I've ever experienced a coral turning brown from too much light. I've had my share that went bleach white from too much light. They never took the time to turn brown first they just go straight to white.



I would like to see the some of these photoinhibition is turning corals brown articles as well. Can someone post a link to one of these "my tank is so overlit its brown" articles.

Even this whole photoinhibition hype seems a little overated to me. Even if your corals have reached this magical "saturation point" of light for the day, they can still handle quite a bit more without being harmed can't they?
IME once they are properly acclimated, SPS can handle a ton of light.




Can't say that I've ever seen SPS browned out from 6,500K bulbs. In fact I've seen plenty of tanks with 6,500K bulbs with great colors. They might grow a slightly different color under different color temps, but IME not much. They just appear a different color under different color lighting.



+1

This has been my experience as well.



So let's try it this way.

Here are some shots of my SPS that are all the way to the top of my waterline. When I shut off my main pump, my water level drops and plenty of my SPS (and even a Galaxia, an LPS)are sticking up out of the water. Some of them 2".
These corals are below (4)400w MH and (4)Seashine Plasmas all so close together that the reflectors literally touch each other. My Lumenbright reflectors are 8" above my waterline. I've got 20K Radiums, 12k Reeflux, and 6.5K Plasmas (they might even be 5.5K). Beeming down on these corals 9 hours a day.

If I getting any of this feared "photoinhibition", I honestly can't see it.

I don't see anything turning brown from all this "overlighting" either.
The only thing turning brown are the shaded branches and corals underneath this canopy that aren't getting enough light.

As a matter of fact, the ones at the top, getting all that photoinhibition, seem to grow the fastest everytime IME.

Blue stag, out of the water, 8" under a 400w 12K.

Oregon Tort, out of the water, 8" under a 20K 400w Radium.

I know this thread is 4 years old, but is this tank still up? It's gorgeous!

 

[jd371]

I know this thread is 4 years old, but is this tank still up? It's gorgeous!

I was doing a search on browning and I agree....stunning tank!