Cabbage Coral turning brown

[KyleC]

Hey,

Anyone know why my cabbage coral is turning brown? It was bright green only a few days ago. It's also started to spread out more. Polyps are extended and it just shed last week. Shrimp will be removed, I'm only after feeding my puffer.

 

[KyleC]

Hey,

Anyone know why my cabbage coral is turning brown? It was bright green only a few days ago. It's also started to spread out more. Polyps are extended and it just shed last week. Shrimp will be removed, I'm only after feeding my puffer.

View attachment 3074540

There is an aptasia behind it, which it has had for a while now. Maybe it'd starting to irritate it?

 

[John Bolden]

Levels and how old is your tank. What other corals and fish?

 

[John Bolden]

There is an aptasia behind it, which it has had for a while now. Maybe it'd starting to irritate it?

Aptasia will sting and stress any coral remove it immediately that is your issue.

 

[John Bolden]

This is what I use https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-aiptasia-x.html

 

[KyleC]

Levels and how old is your tank. What other corals and fish?

Fairly new to this hobby. Tabk initially setup for one year, moved house 2 weeks ago. Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate all 0. Salinity 0.025. pH is a little low but has been for 2 weeks.

Have porcupine puffer, bkue chromis, hermits, cerith snails, filter feeder starfish, live rocks, and a few other corals.

 

[KyleC]

Aptasia will sting and stress any coral remove it immediately that is your issue.

Thought it was. I'll manually remove it. Waiting to move puffer to hospital tank (ich) then going to introduce some peppermint shrimp

 

[KyleC]

This is what I use https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/red-sea-aiptasia-x.html

Will get some of this too for the larger Aiptasia

 

[John Bolden]

Thought it was. I'll manually remove it. Waiting to move puffer to hospital tank (ich) then going to introduce some peppermint shrimp

You can remove it now it will spore and make more. Peppermint shrimp are hit and miss with aptasia but the aptasia x works for me.

 

[KyleC]

Tank is already overrun with them unfortunately. While it's practical to individually target larger ones, there are so many smaller ones everywhere that I'm praying the shrimp will take care of

 

[John Bolden]

Tank is already overrun with them unfortunately. While it's practical to individually target larger ones, there are so many smaller ones everywhere that I'm praying the shrimp will take care of

ORA file fish that will eat aptasia will eat them.

 

[KyleC]

ORA file fish that will eat aptasia will eat them.

Have to let the tank go fallow for 76 days for ich to die off or I would get a filefish. Just need something in the meantime.

 

[John Bolden]

Have to let the tank go fallow for 76 days for ich to die off or I would get a filefish. Just need something in the meantime.

I would just get the aptasia x IMO. File fish from ORA are semi reliable but pepermint is very hit and miss and wont eat it unless hungry.

 

[nothing_fancy]

I agree that the aiptasia needs to go and I second aiptasia X. I had an outbreak of them early on and it was very bad. Hitting them with aiptasia X regularly. Cleared up in a month or so. I didn't have any issues with them causing corals to brown out though and they were everywhere. Aiptasia on the coral isn't helping but you might look into your stability and your lighting. I had a couple corals go brown early on and come back when my parameters were stable for some months. Maybe duck the white portion of your light settings down a bit and then don't touch the light for a couple months. Same with parameters, if you aren't dosing something to keep your dKh stable you could look into that. I stopped having issues with loss of color when I was able to get all my major elements stable/ stuck with a consistent lighting schedule.

 

[John Bolden]

I agree that the aiptasia needs to go and I second aiptasia X. I had an outbreak of them early on and it was very bad. Hitting them with aiptasia X regularly. Cleared up in a month or so. I didn't have any issues with them causing corals to brown out though and they were everywhere. Aiptasia on the coral isn't helping but you might look into your stability and your lighting. I had a couple corals go brown early on and come back when my parameters were stable for some months. Maybe duck the white portion of your light settings down a bit and then don't touch the light for a couple months. Same with parameters, if you aren't dosing something to keep your dKh stable you could look into that. I stopped having issues with loss of color when I was able to get all my major elements stable/ stuck with a consistent lighting schedule.

I agree with the lighting and levels.

 

[KyleC]

Hey sorry just seeing these replies. I plugged the holes with the Aiptasia for now. I moved it up to just below mid level in the tank to see if that helped, polyps extended. Must be the other parameters that I've not tested for yet. Going to LFS today so will get them to test for me.

Got a peppermint shrimp, well, think it is lol he just hides (natural I know), saw him yesterday missing half a leg! Only have a chromis and hermits, wonder what could have nipped him? Chromis did annoy him when he first went in. Getting more peppermints today.

 

[Mikedawg]

I've experienced something similar a while back and think, in my case, color change was due to acclimation stress. Shed a few times and then returned to neon green color altho you don't see that very well in this pic. BTW, mine seems to thrive in medium light.
Good luck.

 

[KyleC]

It shed 2 weeks ago yea. During which the polyps were retracted, since then the polyps are fully opened, and the ciral seems to spread out. It seems happy other than the browning.

Acclimation stress seems possible...I'll keep an eye on it for now.