Do your Birdsnest Corals Die at the Core?

[Trenton Henderson]

I know it’s not uncommon to have birdsnest lose tissue and polyps near the base/core due to lack of flow/light. My 4-5 inch diameter green birdsnest has a small dead region in the innermost region. It’s receiving 200-250 PAR of diffused light from 2 Kessil A360s and 2 AI Blade Coral Grows and plenty of flow as it sits in the collision zone between my two alternating MP40s. The thing grows like a weed!

Anyone else have this issue with their dense birdsnests?

 

[DanyL]

Honestly, it’s not as common as you might think it is, and it might not even be dead tissue.

I’ve grown huge colonies of Serietapora of many different kinds, many times over and over again, as well as kept hundreds of large dense “frags” over the years (between 1/2 to 1 of your size), as well as other similarly dense corals (Stylos, Pocelophoras, etc) - I only seen actual dead tissue from the lack of light/flow probably just 2 to 3 times.

Usually what you see as white a color inside the dense coral is actually a living tissue, which when exposed to adequate light will get its color back after a few weeks.
A simple way to determine this is wether the white tissue turns dark in color, or algae starts growing on it.

The reason why the tissue can survive with almost no light is because it’s a colony - what these polys doesn’t get, the others will and provide them the required energy to survive.

Lack of flow on the other hand, can indeed cause the tissue to die, which in some situations requires you to position them in a better location, or add more flow, or if the colony is big enough - to break it down and start over with a small frag.

 

[Dburr1014]

I know it’s not uncommon to have birdsnest lose tissue and polyps near the base/core due to lack of flow/light. My 4-5 inch diameter green birdsnest has a small dead region in the innermost region. It’s receiving 200-250 PAR of diffused light from 2 Kessil A360s and 2 AI Blade Coral Grows and plenty of flow as it sits in the collision zone between my two alternating MP40s. The thing grows like a weed!

Anyone else have this issue with their dense birdsnests?

Yup, I had to frag.
Funny thing though, my springeri live in it and it keeps it healthy. I think they help it shed waste.

 

[FUNGI]

yes......

 

[Lavey29]

Yes the shaded out portions bleach but are not dead coral.

 

[Trenton Henderson]

Very interesting! That makes sense, as the inside has remained a pristine white for a long time! And I have seen it regain color when I remove some of the shading branches!

 

[Trenton Henderson]

Can I see anyone’s example of white tissue that you say isn’t dead on your own coral so that I can compare?

Thanks!

 

[Dburr1014]

Yes

 

[Trenton Henderson]

So, update on this:

My birds nest appears to be having an STN issue. There are random tufts of tissue flapping in the flow.

Chemically, there has been no changes, except my calcium dosing head stopped working and dropped my calcium from 430 ppm to 410 ppm, though I don’t know the duration. It had to have been within 4 days or less though. I test weekly for everything, and Alkalinity, Phosphate, and Nitrate seemed in good health, but I checked Alkalinity again to make sure (it was fine). Additionally, a couple weeks ago, I was cleaning and bumped the small colony off from where I glued it, so I had to reattach it (I don’t have any places that it can sit without adhesive), so perhaps I was a little rough with it there?

Anyway, the only other tank-wide issue I can notice is that my Yellow-Tip Austera has a little bit of tissue thinning/color loss on the light side of a few new corallites towards the bottom of the frag. Lighting has not been altered in a long time.

I would send pictures, but the lights are too blue. I can post them later this afternoon.

Any ideas? Could this be two isolated incidents, or is something bigger at play? Water change is scheduled for tomorrow.

 

[Dburr1014]

Tissue blowing off is different than stn.

Is there a powerhead directed at it?

Mine will implode in the center because the flow is lacking as it grows. I just installed gyres 6 weeks ago and it's been improving.
Recent pic



Older pic

 

[Trenton Henderson]

Tissue blowing off is different than stn.

Is there a powerhead directed at it?

Mine will implode in the center because the flow is lacking as it grows. I just installed gyres 6 weeks ago and it's been improving.
Recent pic



Older pic

It doesn’t look too dissimilar to yours in the middle, but there are random spots on the branches where I can see skeleton through the tissue and it appears to be separating. Flow is strong there, but indirect and very turbulent. It’s in the center of my tank.

 

[kevgib67]