Dark UV light to rule out bleached corals

[DrHarryLopez]

I have some colonies which i bought from someone that seemed as if it has lost its color or bleached.

I always thought that corals that begin to bleached due to tissue necrosis or recession usually go fast, but these were half bleached and half with color.

My theory was that maybe it wasnt getting any light in the particular area of the coral.

In any event my LEDs has a dimmer for each of the three color spectrums. Using the dark UV 1W leds only I noticed the bleached areas of my corals actaully had tissue and small polpyp extensions!

My Corals are ALIVE!

Any thoughts on this? anyone had experience?

 

[fishywoo]

So they were bleaching when you got them? If so I am going to say the improved conditions of "Your tank" helped the coral to survive. I have had occassions with Sps where my doser has stopped working in my tank. I will see signs of bleaching realise the problem fix it and the corals repair themselves. I think some corals are more sturdier then people think. Just my thoughts....

 

[drjayroc413]

Wassup bro, u can always cut in half or something and send it my way jajajajajaj

 

[ming]

A bleached coral is still alive, but it lost most/all of its color and symbiotic algae. A bleached coral can still show polyp extension, but not necessarily. It may still show a slight color under the UV light as you mentioned.

When a SPS has RTN/STN, after the flesh falls off, that part of the coral is dead and will not fluoresce. If some other part of the coral is still alive, it can regrow over the dead part though.

 

[Chris Jury]

Bleaching is a large reduction in the density of zooxanthellae and/or chlorophyll from the zoox. Often corals lose a lot of their other pigments during the process and as a result their tissues appear clear/transluscent, allowing one to see the white skeleton underneath. A bleached coral is alive, but due to one or more particular kinds of stress the symbiotic algae have been seriously compromised.

A dead coral is, well, dead. When the tissue dies the skeleton is left. Bleaching is not death though and death is not bleaching. Bleaching may lead to coral death, but many corals can recover from bleaching if the stress that caused it wasn't too bad and conditions during recovery are good.

cj

 

[seldin]

Bleached corals, can occur from a number of water conditions, lighting, water quality, etc.

For me, when a coral bleaches, I have had these outcomes:

1) Sometimes bleached coral, comes back to full color.
2) Sometimes, only new growth comes back to full color.
3) Sometimes they die.

And since these are SPS, damage can occur very quickly, but repair can take a long time ( months)... Not fair, but that's life.

From what I understand, just having a reef tank, with good conditions, and not special lighting should be fine. As normal acclomation, you place new corals on bottom of tank and then raise them in time...

Hope this helps.

 

[Wes]

Yes like already mentioned bleaching and tissue necrosis are 2 different things.


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