what is happening to this frag?

wells284

New member
I had had this acro frag for about a month now I think. It was on my frag rack acclimating to the light for 2 weeks or so and then I moved it to its home. It has been perfectly fine, and starting to encrust the frag plug, I came home 2 nights ago to see it like this, and it was fine the night before. Alk is 8.0 Calc 460 mag. 1420 Nitrates 2.5. I have not changed anything to the tank, and all my other frags are encrusting and showing no problems.

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The frag was about half way up on the rockwork medium-heavy flow, and 2X 250 watt lighting. I moved it to the sand bed last night and today all the spots that have the brown algae looking stuff have polyp extension(except the very top brown pieces) and it is looking less brown on the tips.

I am curious what caused this since it is only one one side of the frag. Is it not getting enough flow from the right side?

thanks in advance
 
Looks to me like it was not ready for prime time. Leave it down on the sand bed until it heals, then try again.
 
If it was exposed to high flow on that one side it may have lost some tissue and now algae is growing on the exposed skeleton. I did something similar to a frag recently, but the algae did not take hold as quickly.
 
Was the side that died exposed to more light?

Maybe a little bit. The rock it is on is slightly angled, so the right side would be a little higher because of the slant

I would have thought that the lights would have effected it really soon after I moved it, and not a couple of weeks later. Could reduced lighting have caused it? I have had my radiums for almost a year now and I have been waiting for my LFS to get them back and stock so that I can replace them. But I dont think the par would have just dropped suddenly over night.
 
Are you sure of the parameters you listed? And if so, are you sure they've been stable that way? The reason I ask is that each time I've seen that on a frag, it's been caused by an alk swing. Stabilizing the alk has always allowed the coral to heal, in my experience.
 
I have a pot of gold acro that did the same thing. the top died and covered in algae, but the rest is looking healthy. My guess is it will heal in time.
 
Are you sure of the parameters you listed? And if so, are you sure they've been stable that way? The reason I ask is that each time I've seen that on a frag, it's been caused by an alk swing. Stabilizing the alk has always allowed the coral to heal, in my experience.

I am pretty positive. I use a doser to dose everything and it all measured the same as it did last Tuesday when I tested API last.

The only other thing I can think of is the tank has been getting up to around 80.5* since it has been getting a lot more hot out. Usually tank is around 78.5-79.5
 
not getting any better. heres a shot from today. I think I am going to frag off the top 1/3 of it since it looks like its dying. the left side of the frag still seems to be doing fine with polyp extension. The right side of the frag only has a couple spots with polyp extension. Is it basically a lost cause since the right side is mostly gone with no tissue? Its kind of hard to frag off the good peices when the whole right side is bad

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you can't really tell from my crappy pics, but the whole right side is 90% white.. there are a couple spots with purplish tissue and some polyp extension. The left side is looking good. the base is also starting to recede a bit.
 
do you have any type of diatoms on your rock or sand bed? sometimes the diatoms will smother the coral starting on the edges and take over
 
I would leave it alone monitor your Alk.
My Miami Orchid colony did this about 3 months ago no other SPS did thou.
3 weeks later its back to normal and it was the tips 3 of them about 2 to 3 inches of them.
 
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