torch coral semi bleaching

[saltwaterpicaso]

water is good have had this for a few months now as soon as i put it in the tank the next day the center was instantly bleached but still comes out and doesnt appear to be dying the rest of it seems good with a few other tentatcles that are semi bleached. i have this in the middle of my tank with meadium flow. the lights are 3w bridgelux led. do you think the light is cousing this should i move it lower in the tank all the other corals are fine and show no signs that the light is two bright. i spot feed it zooplanktos L every other week.

 

[mr86mister]

Are any of the LED's shining directly down on the center of it?

 

[Capt_Cully]

LEDS can be pretty intense as they don't have the best diffusion over surface area. It's worse the closer something is to the light source. This is just my opinion based on my experience using LEDs. Corals definitely do better after being acclimated SLOWLY to LEDs.

I would definitely move it down and even shade it if you can.

What type of lights were over the torch before you put it in its current location?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I tend to agree it might be LEDs

I tend to agree it might be LEDs

water problem would affect ALL the polyps...

 

[davidpesce]

Any chance you have a glass top on the tank? I had a similar experience with the LEDs when some of the evap water formed a droplet on the glass top. It was refracting the light perfectly onto a coral.

I now shake the glass tops every now and again to get the evap water off them. I've also been thinking of switching to a mesh top to avoid this all together.

 

[pascal32]

ive seen euphelia bleach like this from a rapid lighting intensity change. being that you mentioned having LEDs sounds like the folks above are onto something. I had an orange torch which was under sensitive to changing lights. The piece would turn white like this - moving to lower light in a few months it would recover.

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

I will move it to the bottom of the tank and see what it does. I just noticed some of the polyps look great and others look translucent. I would of though by now being under the same light for so long it would of gotten better. I do have glass tops. No water on them just salt every now and then. I have other corals up higher than this including some shrooms and they never had a problem with the light. I'm just stumped I like this coral and don't want it to die

 

[mr86mister]

Great idea. We don't want that coral to die either. If everything else is looking good I would try to take a look and see if the LED's are focused right in that spot. That may be the issue. LED's with tighter optics(smaller optic) have the chance to "spot bleach" areas of corals where the remaining colony may look fine. Hope that helps.

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

I noticed when I moved it at the bottom of the skeleton there is an opening with some type of flesh sticking out it. Is this normal. Also it's. Not really spot bleached just some polyps look great and some loom translucent.