ORA Brown Planet

israel.kendall

israel.kendall

Padawan Reefer
Someone gave me this browned out Red Planet frag about a month ago so I figured I'd make a thread here to document it's growth and how it colors up. I love watching corals color up and grow, hopefully some others out there will enjoy my thread as well.

I'm about 5 months into reefing, have had pavona and a couple of birdsnests for a little while, but this is my first Acropora sp (along with a sarmentosa I got the same day). Since it's a tabling Acro I thought I'd mount it sideways and see how it does. Hopefully it turns out ok.

Does it look like it's doing well? Any comments or advice are welcome!

Pic maybe a day or two after I got it, Jan 28:

_MG_7478.jpg


Feb 10 (polyps were retracted due to turkey basting rocks):

_MG_7519.jpg


Feb 23:

_MG_7748.jpg
 
It may need a little more light. I'd expect to see start seeing the neon pink ridges (growth tips) on the verticals after a few weeks. As you can't I'd raise it up a bit. Looks health though. Mine has white polyps, are you certain its a red planet?
 
chuckreef said:
It may need a little more light. I'd expect to see start seeing the neon pink ridges (growth tips) on the verticals after a few weeks. As you can't I'd raise it up a bit. Looks health though. Mine has white polyps, are you certain its a red planet?
Click to expand...

I'm not certain its a red planet, but I was told it is. I'm no expert, but I've looked at a lot of pics and have not seen a red planet with white polyps. Do you have a pic of yours? I thought the Red planet was known mostly for its green base and red polyps, though I know the color varies.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
 
Looks like could be RP to me. RP is greener in lower light and redder / pinker in high light. Grown in "medium+" light, one can get a nice red table with green base. Growing branch tips can often have white coralites.

When freshly fragged, RP can also encrust / puddle a while before finally sending forth vertical growth.
 
nice. I already see new branch growth. must be the flow:)
Ime, red planets are easy corals. they dont require lots of light and they color up fast
 
Once this one gets big enough I'd like to put pieces in different areas of the tank to see how the grow.

Brian, yeah I think I've got the flow going well on this one!

This thing is growing rather quickly compared to my sarmentosa frag, which seems to be not growing or encrusting at all. It's color is getting nice tho.
 
I don't have a pic handy (I'm lurking on RC while at work; shame on me.)
However, mine looks just like this (see link), but has more red than green tissue overall. The ployps are white and unique in that they have one tentacle longer than the rest and often just that one long one is visible in the lighttime.
http://justmyreef.com/2009/03/06/ora-red-planet-table-acropora-sp/

I think yours could be a red planet, but I'm not sure either. For mine, the hot pink/red "ridges" on the coralites first turned red for mine as I raised it up. About half way up the tank (12 inches from the bottom), I saw the red pink forming, I riased it another three inches and its mostly red now at about nine inches from the surface, with T5s another 7 to eight inches above that. Mine is encrusted like yours is now, so its staying put.

Chuck



israel.kendall said:
I'm not certain its a red planet, but I was told it is. I'm no expert, but I've looked at a lot of pics and have not seen a red planet with white polyps. Do you have a pic of yours? I thought the Red planet was known mostly for its green base and red polyps, though I know the color varies.

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
chuckreef said:
I don't have a pic handy (I'm lurking on RC while at work; shame on me.)
However, mine looks just like this (see link), but has more red than green tissue overall. The ployps are white and unique in that they have one tentacle longer than the rest and often just that one long one is visible in the lighttime.
http://justmyreef.com/2009/03/06/ora-red-planet-table-acropora-sp/

I think yours could be a red planet, but I'm not sure either. For mine, the hot pink/red "ridges" on the coralites first turned red for mine as I raised it up. About half way up the tank (12 inches from the bottom), I saw the red pink forming, I riased it another three inches and its mostly red now at about nine inches from the surface, with T5s another 7 to eight inches above that. Mine is encrusted like yours is now, so its staying put.

Chuck
Click to expand...

I do have that clear/white tentacle in the center of my polyps, just really hard to see because the entire polyps extend on mine. The clear tentacle is about twice the length of the normal polyps. I kind of wish the polyps didn't extend so much so I could see the color beneath them.

I "think" I do see some pink coloration forming at the tips of some of the new growth. Will have to wait a week or so to see what it does and if that is really pink forming or just a trick of my eyes.

By the way, mine is roughly 8-9 inches beneath 4x54w T5 bulbs.
 
rrpefeb21.jpg

repfeb21.jpg


Some polyp images for you to compare. Also my RP was initially all green and the base remains a dark green.
 
Your ORA RPT looks like its making a rapid recovery.

I've had a bit of trouble with mine and for a while it looked a lot worse than your starting picture.

My ORA RPT when I bought it in August, 2009:

picture.php



Here it is in March, 2010. This was when it was at it's most stunning.

picture.php



It was doing the best out of all my SPS's and I started bragging about it on a 'show me your RPT' thread here on RC. Right after that it started fading and browned out. Served me right, I guess, but I couldn't figure out what happened. My parameters were all good and my other SPS's were doing fine.

It turned a pale tan color, with no PE for MONTHS. I fragged it onto a few plugs and put them in different areas of my tank, but no growth or change for a long time. I don't have any photos of it during that time, I was too bummed to take a picture and I really didn't expect it to recover.
FINALLY, about a month or two ago, the different frags all started to get some PE and a little green to the base, even a reddish hue to some areas. Here is one of the frag plugs in the foreground.

picture.php


It is no where near the beauty it was, and it's recovery is very slow, but I am very pleased to see it making a come back. I wish I knew what happened to it.

I think yours is showing great improvement and wish you luck with it. When healthy, this is one of the most stunning SPS I have seen.
 
Thanks for the replies,

Gyr, hopefully yours continues it's recovery! If you take any updated pics, feel free to post them here if you'd like, I wouldn't mind seeing how it's doing.

As for mine, it is still growing and coloring up. I'm noticing pink in the tips, but it's just a slight tinge of pink so it's hard to catch with the camera. Also, something is up with my pictures, they are greener than this, but I'm losing some color when I upload to the web. This doesn't make sense as I'm in web color mode in photoshop.

Anyways, here is a new pic from today. If you look closely you might see some slight hints of pink, especially at the top center where it's encrusting. I tapped the glass to make the polyps recede for the pic so as to see the tips better, I'm actually getting a ton of polyp extension on this guy.

_MG_7939.jpg
 
israel.kendall,
That's some impressive improvment since the Feb 23rd photo. It may just be a slightly different angle, but I see several new growth tips on this most recent photo. They definitely have a new pink hue to them, as well as the area of new encrustation.
Looks like everything is going well. Keep us posted.
Kurt
 
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