Echino Bleaching

[Stixbaraca]

I am having some trouble with one my oldest Echinophyllia. It is slowly starting to bleach out. There is no tissue recession, but the pigments are bleaching out slowly around the polyps. The weird thing is...none of my other lords, micros, or other LPS corals are having any problems. I did not recently change any lighting or placement of this coral. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[ReefMonger]

If its Echino Aspera welcome to the club. Just about every one of mine have started to do that. Havent found a cure yet. Okiebones had the same problem. either they are really low light or missing some kind of trace element

 

[Underwaterparadise]

I have had a couple do this as well for no reason. 2 of them I had for a few months and they were doing great. Both of those 2 eventually lost a lot of tissue but luckily they were big colonies and are starting to come back now

 

[Justin74]

Put me in line as well. Just a frag has been slow receding and is completely bleached now. Seemed to like the light I was giving it, but I thought I was giving it too much flow at the time and wanted to see if it liked a low flow low light area, no such luck and thats when it started to go down hill. Ive since tried giving it more direct light trying not to shock it by too much too soon, but its looking pretty bleak The other morphs look fine . Wondering if the tank may not have been rich enough in nutrients?Not sure as it really never opened since I got it, but appeared to slowly grow over the three or more months I had it untill I encountered this mystery over the course of a couple weeks.

-Justin

 

[Stixbaraca]

It just doesn't make sense. Mine flourished for such a long time. I never moved it or changed anything.

 

[ReefMonger]

Same here. I had one for almost a year and now is nothing more than a skeleton. Another was growing awesome. Now just a little tissue is left.

 

[oddballs]

i own a lfs in tulsa were okiebones lives he and i were talking about this about 6 or 7 months ago and i would love to figure this one out!!i have a customer that has one doing really great?

 

[RandyO]

I have some Echinophyllia, most likely aspera that I grew from frags back in 2001. I've personally never experienced this, but a friend of mine with the same morphs did. He asked me to save his echinos so I told him to bring them over. They were solid white. No pigment left in them. I wasn't very optimistic they would make it. It's been about 3 months now and one is fully colored back up. The other didn't get a good spot to recover, but now that I've given it a little more light, it's coming around too.
I think my buddy really abused his stuff. He brought me lords with polyps hanging off the skeleton., and bleaching.

Just thought I would add my 2 cents. I don't think they are all headed for a bleached future. There must be some sort of trigger.

The only echino I'd had bleach was a wild colony that's a little light sensitive. It's come back a few times.

 

[zeppelin]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7615198#post7615198 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RandyO
The only echino I'd had bleach was a wild colony that's a little light sensitive. It's come back a few times.

Same here. I have a green/pink eyes echino that likes lower light. Found that out when it started to bleach. Its back now, low in the tank, and away from directly under the light.

 

[All Delight]

Zep and Randy,

When you say low light, is this in reference to MH lighting?

I just bought on echinophyilla and I have a 24 gallon nano cube with 72 watt pc lighting. I placed my Echino about 4 inches below the surface of the water.

 

[zeppelin]

Yes, I am referring to MH. Most of my chalice love it under MH or bright T-5s.

 

[Stixbaraca]

Mine is about 12 inches under 2 96w PC tubes. Here is a pic from a few months ago when it was doing great...and one from a few minutes ago! The third pic is what it looked like when I got it...and nursed it back from.

 

[RandyO]

Now that I see those pictures, it reminds me of an Echino I did have bleach. I have a morph very similar to that. It was doing great under my 2 96w pc's. But when I moved it into my main tank, under bright halides, it started to bleach. I put it back under the pc's and it slowly recovered.

Sorry, forgot about that one.

All Delight,
Low light can still be halides. I have a 50 gallon tank with a single halide over it, and I keep some echinos on the bottom, in a far corner. I'd say that's low light.
Where the coral is placed in the tank has a large effect on how much light it's getting.

 

[zeppelin]

Ya, by low light in my tank (300 gal) I mean about 3/4 of the way to the bottom. About 18-20" down. Thats under a 400 watt 20K XM MH in a Lumenarc.

How's it been goin' Randy.

 

[eclecticvibe]

I've had the same problem with a strawberry echino. It did great for the longest time, and now it's bleaching. I'm going to leave it be for a while and hope it recovers unless someone else knows a better solution!

 

[DonavonsReef]

I don't think you can generalize about the light placement of these corals. I have some enchinopora & enchinolphylia that do great under direct M/H as a matter of fact I never knew how colorfull they were untill I placed them higher up in the tank. I have personally never had one of these bleach but depending on where they were collected on the reef, there in lies your answer. Deeper water = lower light, shallow water = brighter light JMO.

 

[JenDub]

what are your calcium, strontium & magnesium levels? Your salinity?