SPS Acropora belaching?

[jbpig]

Today after comming home and looking at my tank I noticed my Acro at the base where it was glued to a rock with aquarium putty is now white. the rest of the acro looks fine and polyps are extended. Could the use of the putty have caused this? Its been in the tank for 3 weeks now and today is the first day I have noticed this. I would have thought that if the putty was bad I should have seen signs of this earlier. Right now it is 3/4 of the way up in my tank under 2X250 20K's. Should I move it down a bit or leave it alone?

TIA

 

[Unarce]

I've never used putty before, but some die-off occurs where tissue comes in contact with either putty or cyanoacrylate gel. At any case, it might be a good idea to cover the bleached area with more putty or gel if it appears to be WBD. If it starts to spread, than you'll need to remove it to avoid a chain-reaction with your other SPS. You can save the colony by fragging off the infected portion and than treating it with Lugol's Solution.

 

[jbpig]

so should I watch it a few more days or take immediate action? How should I 'cut' the bad part off?

 

[Unarce]

To be honest, it depends on the situation. If it were my tank, I'd remove that piece right away because I wouldn't want to put any of my rare pieces at risk.

Don't be so alarmed if it's just bleaching and not tissue loss. It may recover on its own. If it's tissue loss (SDR or RTN), than remove it right away. You don't want to rely on the other corals slime to fight off the diseased tissue that's floating around.

If it's at a spot that's difficult to remove or break off, you'll have to resort to fragging if you want to save what's left.

 

[jbpig]

Ok I fragged off the top good portion that was still nice and blue. I placed in on the bottom in the sand. It should get sufficient likght for a few days there running the 250's. Should I have used a gel superglue instead of the putty? I gouldnt find a place it stayed upright that is why I puttied it to a rock. Thanks!

 

[Unarce]

Was this a new piece that you introduced recently? I used to buy dying wild caught pieces from LFS for a couple of bucks and frag them this way. Frags always have a higher rate of survival.

I'd imagine that putty is easier to work with large pieces underwater, but I don't know of any difference in how it effects corals. Since I only introduce frags into my system, I've only used the superglue gel.

A Lugol's (iodine) bath would also help as an extra precaution. Some argue that iodine doesn't do jack, but I've never had a reoccurance whenever I took this extra step.

 

[jbpig]

Ya the frag is new..about 3 weeks old. It was doing just fine until this afternoon. It was never in the LFS tank. I was there when it came in and got it then. Hopefully all will be fine thanks!

 

[Unarce]

Yeah, it would have been in a very weakened state. Best of luck.

 

[jbpig]

But why did it take 3 weeks? I figured that once I got over the 1st week I was ok..........This was my 1st SPS so I am learning with these......They are adicting!

 

[Unarce]

Not with SPS. Some people will spend several days just acclimating them to their lights. It could take several weeks for it to completely settle in it's new surroundings. You'll experience slow-growth during this period. Once you see increased polyp extension and growth, than you'll know things are as they should be.