why is my birds nest doing this???

[Monster00101]

I have a birds nest i bought as a frag. it is about the size of a baseball now. The polyps are fully extended and it looks great. The under side branches are white with no flesh. is this normal? Water is spot on and all my other sps look great.

 

[gary faulkner]

Sounds like a normal Birdnest to me. I have several and they all do this. And mine will never encrust, just grows up and out.

HTH

 

[Monster00101]

there has been alot of growth up and out with no encrusting just like u said. Thanks for the reasurance.

 

[Allmost]

hey, how is the flow around it ?

underside being white is somewhat normal, but not having tissue isnt. IMHO

 

[Monster00101]

the flow is decent. the polyps move a bit. when i had it in more flow the polyps never came out that far. now they stick way out. I never knew they came out that far until i moved it to where it is now.

 

[allsps40]

Yep sound normal to me too. I have had one that I grew from a 1 inch frag into a softball sized colony. The base and inner part have long since died, not enough light/flow that deep in the branches. My colony is quite healthy and a fast grower despite this. If the dead areas are getting larger and spreading then I would worry. See good PE and healthy, a little brown right now but getting it green back.

 

[gary faulkner]

Yep sound normal to me too. I have had one that I grew from a 1 inch frag into a softball sized colony. The base and inner part have long since died, not enough light/flow that deep in the branches. My colony is quite healthy and a fast grower despite this. If the dead areas are getting larger and spreading then I would worry. See good PE and healthy, a little brown right now but getting it green back.

Exactly what mine do when getting larger.

 

[mutateddogbone]

what you can do to get the BN to partially encrust some of its branches, is to turn it on its side a bit and let the lower branches touch another piece of rock. as it gets larger, the main trunk of the coral will get thicker but it well never actually send out a large encrusting base. as far as inner bleaching, like others have said it is normal. one way to help prevent or slow it down is taking a turkey baster and blowing out the inside of the colony a couple times a week to push all the trapped waste out. you will be very surprised how much crud flies out of there when you do this.

 

[allsps40]

Mine encrusted pretty well on its own. When a branch grew and touched the rock the BN would just keep growing, encrusting on to the rock. I have a branch that just started doing this a few weeks a go. I have found that changing the flow patterns will cause BN to change its growth.

 

[mike_cmu04]

Mine does the same thing also. The bottom is white but it still has tissue.