Staghorn - Color change

C

commandertekki

[I'm just starting out and I was just wondering about a frag that I just recently acquired. It was a blue/purple color acropore but it recently change over a couple of weeks to a green color acropore. I know its healthy because there is a ton of polyp extention at nite and day.

just wondering if this is a normal thing

Phillip]
 
[It's probably the light that you are supplying. Details about your lighting will probably get some specific answers from some of the light experts.]
 
[Yeah Phillip its totally normal to see sps change colors. And like Terry said its probably reflective of whatever light you have over the tank. Do you have metal halides over the tank or just vho?]
 
[that I can definitely understand, but this one that I had was purpleish blue and is now becoming somethig like purplish blue base with green tips and polyps.

I do recognize brown and I feel for anyone who loses something like that... especially if you pay that much for it.

Phillip]
 
[Unfortunately, we as reefkeepers can not accuratelly and exactly duplicate lighting conditions in our reefs. Yes, the MH lights are the brightest and most like what you will find on the reef, but we can't even begin to imagine how high in the water column a specific piece was. Sadly, this is normal from my experience. If we could duplicate positioning, water movement, and lighting I imagine SPS would hold their origional colors for the life of the coral, but we can only guess and play around with the conditions in our tanks.]
 
@mmiller40 wrote:
[[I]@commandertekki wrote:[/I][quote="its so cool to see the acropore change color. said:
sometimes it is not so good wither. I have never been more depressed than watching an 80$ coloney turn brown...]"]
[Yeah thats always a bummer. Its usually because there are too many zoozanthelle growing in the corals tissue. Good coloration particluliarly with SPS corals is first about low nutrients levels so that zoozanthelle don't grow too numerous (they are actualy the brown color that develops)

The it seems to be about lighting, intensity and spectrum.

There may be some dietary issues as well.]
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@Reefette wrote:
[Unfortunately said:
[I am far from an exprt, but I have read alot about this from a number of different sources and I keep getting back to the idea that low nutrient water is the first key to succesfull coloration and maintenence. In high nutrient water they reproduce, they also can produce darker or light pigements from golden to brown depending on light levels. The zoozanthelle act like a mask dominating the color of the coral.


Here is a quote from Eric Boremann regarding the pigments we are typically concerned with:

"Finally, and most likely to be of interest to aquarists, are the light-related fluorescing proteins. Some corals produce these in response to high light and they act as photoprotective shields, such as some pink morphs of Pocillopora damicornis and some blue morphs of Acropora spp. Other corals produce them in response to living where the light is very low where the proteins act as photoreflectors, such as in Trachyphyllia geoffroyi, Cycloseris spp., and many faviids.
It has recently been found that some species seem to produce them for no currently known reason at all.

The fact that not every colony of a species responds the same in terms of fluorescing protein production under the same light conditions also suggests that there are specific genetic components invovled.

The overall coloration of corals is therefore a complex function of genetics, light-related fluorescing proteins, dietary derived or metabolically produced tissue and skeletal pigments, and their combination with the various hues of brown that mix into the palette in all corals with zooxanthellae (a function of both light and nutrients, primarily)."]
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[If you do not have enough light to provide the coral its required nutrients,(can not think of the right word that zoozanthelle provide corals) then they will multiply, to try and provide more nutrients, causing the coral to turn darker also. In high light, high nutrent levels why would the zoozanthelle multiply the coral would have suffient nutrients. And the coral controls the number and type of zoozanthelle.]
 
[Lucas,

Zooxanthellae provide nutrients to the coral in the form of nitrogen and reduced carbon sources. These are a result of photosynthesis and the algae need light and their own nutrient source to perform this function.

Zoozanthellae multiply in relationship to how much available light and nutrients there are. The way I understand it, the two work together with available nutrients (in the water column) being more of the limiting factor than light.

High nutrients with low light can result in the zooxanthellae to multiply and cause the coral to "brown".

In moderate to high nutrient conditions, high amounts of light can accelerate and intensify this "browning"

In low nutrient conditions the algae doesn't have a food source so high light conditions have less of a tendency to cause browning.]
 
[hmmm, all those big words and scientific data can be confusing to some people.

I like to think of the corals as plants and apply some of that logic to the "growing" of them. When they brown I assume something is wrong, like low nutrient levels or too much light. So I lower the coral or do a nice water change to add the nutirents in naturally with the nice fresh water and test for low levels of calcium etc. I have what I think are nice tanks with beautiful acros and a nice mix of other types of corals.

Generally I see a few things when importing corals for sale.

The corals that seem to do the best are colonys that are attached to rock. Small frags placed in holes in live rock never seem to live. Corals seem to like to be glued down or attached well to something.

Generally I start with lower light and move things towards light as they acclimate, always assuming too little light is better than burning.

Also placement is vital, one coral my be very agressive or sensitive to another type that is "downwind" or in this case "down current". Acros don't like the slime a leather may produce, as well as some frogspawns and torches produce toxins lethal to some acros.

I have noticed that some things do well in close proximity to like species. Goniopora likes to be crowded in close with others of the same family as do some frogspawns. Frogspawns of different colors, I like to think of them as "kissing cousins" can be placed closely together and tend to do better that way. So do some torches, and leathers.

Anyway, be conscientious of how corals are going to grow. Some that are placed above others may "blot out the sun" entirely in time, and leave no light for a smaller frag that may grow slower. So watch and learn. Pruning is also a good technique to learn and a good way to get frags from other DFWMAS members.]



Edited By FaithWarren on 1079934883
 
[
Zooxanthellae provide nutrients to the coral in the form of nitrogen and reduced carbon sources. These are a result of photosynthesis and the algae need light and their own nutrient source to perform this function. Zoozanthellae multiply in relationship to how much available light and nutrients there are. The way I understand it said:
From what I have ever learned or heard this is backwards. It all depends on a lot of things but generally if you put a sps coral into a tank with not enough light, I don't care what kind of nutirents are in the water it is going to turn brown. I will take any sps coral that is doing well in a low light tank and is brown, move it to a higher light tank and it will most always turn into lighter color with some kind of color. Some sps from deepwater and smaller polyps will never really get that good of color, nomatter what you do. But I personally buy them for their colors. I have moved my light up to where it is now 1900watts and not one of my sps has ever darkened up with the increase in light.]
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@Rick wrote:
[From what I have ever learned or heard this is backwards. It all depends on a lot of things but generally if you put a sps coral into a tank with not enough light said:
[I agree, there are multiple issues that affect coral coloration, the corals natural pigmentation (pigments produced by the coral regardless of zoozanthelle) are a result of diet, genetics and reactions to light (probably UV for the most part)

The browning of corals is a seperate issue because this is caused by zoozanthelle multiplying in the corals tissue. If you want to minimize/reduce the amount of zoozanthelle in a coral, then High amounts of light and very low nutrient levels are the ticket.

Lower light and very low nutrients should also work, but this con get confusing because what I consider low nutirent levels might not be what someone else considers low.

Look at it this way, zoozanthelle can multiply and grow at various light levels, but they can't do this if the nutrients aren't available. Right or wrong, I think of lighting as a catalyst and nutrients as the limiting factor.]
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@FaithWarren wrote:
[I like to think of the corals as plants and apply some of that logic to the "growing" of them. When they brown I assume something is wrong said:
[I'm not sure I would agree with you about thinking of corals as plants. Their basic metabolic needs are more closely related to animals. The zoozanthelle which do react like plants are simply boarders the host lets live with them as long as the energy it takes to keep them is less than the energy the coral receives in this relationship.

I think you have the browning issue backwards.]
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[i appreciate all the info you guys have on acropores. I assume my water condition is getting better because my stag has become tri-color now, blue, green and white and growing so fast. The browning that I saw early on is slowly changing to blue and green.
:D]
 
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