Ponape Birdnest Turning White? Help?

[duganderson]

I just added a 2.5 inch Ponape Birdnest frag with multiple branches to my 28 g. nano cube (stock CF lights) three days ago. I have 7 SPS (red planet, purple monti digi, neon green birdnest, green monti digi, monti setosa, pink birdnest and bird of paradise) that are all healthy, growing, and doing well (except the pink birdnest that has colorful polyps but branches that are close to white) and a few LPS, softies, macros and 2 small rbta.

I added this Ponape frag to the middle of the tank (moderate to moderate/low light) for one day and noticed it turning white in spots so I put it in the bottom front of this tank. It started with pretty good color but has turned about ½ white. The white seems to be initially coming from the base but now moving down from some of the the tips too). I acclimated this coral like all of my other SPS.

Any tips on what to do?

The location of the coral right now has low light (since I thought it may be bleaching) but pretty poor flow.

 

[Reefer1225]

Most birdsnests are pretty hardy. What are your water paramater's , I would check that first. I would keep the frag in low ligh for now until it recovers, if it was in fact bleached and not RTN/STN.

 

[duganderson]

Most birdsnests are pretty hardy. What are your water paramater's , I would check that first. I would keep the frag in low ligh for now until it recovers, if it was in fact bleached and not RTN/STN.

salinity 1.025
Temp 79
CA 400
KH 9
Phophate less than 0.05
Nitrate less than .2-.4
Mag 1300

Are Rapid Tissue Necrosis or Slow TN likely to get passed onto other corals in my tank?

 

[Reefer1225]

Your Parameters are on point. I don't think RTN/STN is like a bacterial infection that can spread, but I am no expert. I see RTN/STN when there are parameter swings (esp. alk) and my water quality is not on par, and it will affect multiple corals OR if you have a pest like red bugs or AEFW, which will affect most acros. So, your birdsnest frag is probably just light shocked and bleached. Keep it on the sandbed and see how it does after a week or so. Hopefully it bounces back. Good luck.

 

[duganderson]

I read about RTN and panicked and just removed that frag. Sadly, I don't have a quarentine tank but I don't think that frag was going to make it anyway.

It just did not seem like it was worth the risk of infecting other things.