Acan Tissue Concerns For A Newbit

Connie Price · Feb 17, 2019

Hi all,
This is my first post although I've been reading all I can from you guys for months! (And thanks for sharing all the good info for those of us who ARE new....your conversations have been invaluable to me.)
My concern is this beautiful acan colony I purchased a couple of months ago. Beautiful teal blue from Australia and I sure wish I had taken a photo the first day I had it. (A regular practice for me now for comparison purposes.) I did a horrible thing and dropped this beauty not once but twice; it bounced off the live rock and fell into the sand. I'm a short girl who thought she needed a really tall 150 gallon tank, never realizing I would never be able to reach the lower half to adjust things. After the first fall (ugh) I saw a bit of tissue damage where the neon green pops thru....but that's all. Second fall wasn't quite as harsh, I don't think because I didn't notice any additional neon green areas in the coral.
Fast forward a month or so later and I'm super concerned. I'm not sure if I'm directly responsible for the appearance change in this guy or if I'm indirectly at fault thru lighting, water conditions, etc. (Both are my fault....regardless.)
The photo that's rather blue is one taken a couple of weeks after I got the coral and after the first fall. At this particular time it was in a lower portion of my tank, good flow and I kept mostly blue lights on....very little white light. Then I began noticing what I thought was tissue recession in the dark edges surrounding the polyps. I checked them out and the dark areas are not skeleton or rock.....the dark areas are soft and tissue-like just as the polyps. I monitored it carefully and although it's gotten a bit worse, the change has been very gradual. I decided to move it up in the tank on a great ledge right in the middle where it could get more light from the T5 I have on for about 6-8 hours a day (still keeping all LED lights on blue, no white light from them at all.)
Spoke to LFS, they suggested I use the white light from the LED's as it may not be getting enough light, which I began yesterday (Saturday).
I've searched every place I know of to find something similar to help narrow down the problem; is it too little light? too much light? damage from my clumsiness? or some sort of dreaded disease/bacteria/fungus?
Now for the parameters:
I have a 150 gallon TALL aquarium (not short chick friendly);
One T5 - 6-8 hours per day
3 LED lights - 2 remain blue, one is now in "white light" mode same hours as T5;
Water changed every 2 weeks - rain or shine;
Salinity: 1.025;
Nitrates: 10PPM;
Ammonia: 0;
Calcium: 420;
Alk: 8.2;
Magnesium: 1300;
All fishies are reef safe;
Acan sits all by himself, no neighboring threats from other corals (which are awesome).
Please help a newbie.....I know you guys have something to offer! Thank you!!

Retro Reefer · Feb 17, 2019

Nitrates are a little high.. do you feed it? What kind of LED’s are you running? One t5 on a tall 150 is not going to do much.

BTW.. welcome to the forum!

Connie Price · Feb 17, 2019

Yes, all of my corals are spot fed twice a week. I rotate and/or mix together Reef Chili, MicroVert and BeneReef for spot feeding, and the tank gets 2 cubes of frozen mysis shrimp daily for all of the fish.
LED's are a mix of 2 Fluval Marine (one I use now for the extra white light but these sad things are mostly for decorative lighting) and an old dinosaur LED that is massive....I can't remember the brand name. I keep it on blue but could entertain using the white LED feature from it, just afraid it may be too much. I had two T5's....broke one of the fixtures and haven't replaced it. The object of my game was to have the two T5's and the LED's for blue light. Life kind of got in the way and I haven't replaced the fixture I broke when I was trying to adjust it inside the hood.
I'm just at a loss on the lighting being an issue. So many conflicting stories about what is best for acan corals; some swear put them at the bottom for low lighting, some swear that they need much stronger lighting closer to the top of the tank. Don't want to lose this guy....not only is it gorgeous, it wasn't cheap! LOL!
As for the nitrates, that number has just come up in the last week or so when I began feeding a bit more after adding more fish. Previously it was always below 10ppm and the acan was having issues with the lower numbers as well.

kichimark · Feb 17, 2019

Hello and welcome to the board

. Your coral is a favia and as mentioned earlier, one t-5 light over the tank is going to be a little low. Your parameters are spot on and don't worry about the nitrates at 10ppm since that would not be an issue. I would see how the coral does with you increasing the LED intensity but also, how is the flow? Is it in an area with too much flow?

Retro Reefer · Feb 17, 2019

IMO acans are not necessarily low light corals but they do seem to be quite adaptable to different lighting.. I have a few new Acan frags that are growing fast in med-high lighting at about 150-170 par. I would say you don’t have enough light intensity under that single t5 and those fluvals

Here is one of my Acan frags under approximately 160 par, it grew 15 heads in 4 months.

Connie Price · Feb 17, 2019

Thank you, kichimark...I've said a million times it looked more like a favia, but was sold to me as an acan. Having that newbie feeling makes a person sometimes feel uncomfortable when questioning a person with much more experience....maybe he meant to say favia and had acan on his mind. At any rate, thanks for the clarification.
The flow in the area where this guy sits is very moderate but not direct. In the latest photo you'll see a couple of bits of pellet food that had yet to get blown away but the polyps are much deeper now. Usually the shrimp beat the flow to the punch when it comes to food!

Retro Reefer, I have some pretty little frags similar to yours sitting in the sand. They're growing beautifully....each have polyps popping up all around the main frag piece. So awesome to see them grow! I'm so jealous of yours, the colors are just gorgeous and is well on it's way to becoming a show stopper!