The brown Cap I got from SrLumey did that Fred, It bleached out even under compacts.... now, anyone that knows Steve, knows he's got some serious lighting... So I figured that they should go higher up in the tank and under a little longer photo period....
They slowly bleached out in about 2 months, and that seems to be what's going one here...and I'd buy that. Now. to diagnose this, I took one frag downstairs to the shroom system, where lighting is about 1/3 that of upstairs, and I saw color return (or start to return) in about 3-5 weeks. I then moved them both upstairs again, this time tucking them under an outcropping. The seem to be on the mend and have colored up very well.
I moved one of these new cals down and sorta under a shelf when I left 10 days ago, when I came home, it seemes to be whiter that I left. I will move 1 downstairs again, and see what happens.
I am most worried about this because Jon brought me back an awesome red/orange Capricornious from GoPack a few weeks ago, and it is the largest size that I have had to date. Everyone that has these type of corals reports decent growth rates, and since my frags have been small, growth has been... slow... Caps grow only onthe outer edges... and only then with certain edge cells. The fags I got from Steve last turkey day were about the size of a quarter. since they were from the "inside" of the leaf that they were fraged from, it took a few extra months to begin to grow. I saw growth by Valentines day. Now, almost a year later, they have boubled in size, but are only the size of a 50 cent peice.
I was and still am very excited about the Cap frags from JohnS from late this summer, mostly because the frags from him were much larger, and contained about 10-15 times the edge area as those from Steve. Remember, more edge, more growth. The ones from John were about 1/2 the size of the palm or your hand and had these edge cells.
The frag from Gopack already has edge GROWTH all the way around it, and is about the size of your palm, and the fingers to the first knuckle. Being round, I estimate that it has 2 times the edge potential as bothe the frags from Johns combined.
Perhaps there is a "shock and recovery" period that follows these corals. John was runing nearly the same light as me, yet, I am experiencing a "bleaching..." Why?
J
Sorry, I meant for this reply to be short.
