Hi everyone,
Super newbie here with my first post, so please don’t savage me too badly. I have a 2 gallon “pico” tank which is actually a former jellyfish tank. Jellyfish were actually my first saltwater animals. Decided to experiment with an empty tank and so here I am. It’s been up and running for about 6 months now with ups and downs but things seem to be leveling out at the moment. Only two corals in the tank - a Ricordea florida and a photosynthetic gorgonian, Antillogorgia (Pseudoterogorgia) elisabethae. I first noticed the red stuff a couple months ago. Scraped it off assuming it was bad, then didn’t see anything until a few weeks ago. Decided to be optimistic and assume it was the beginning of new growth, but as it’s gotten bigger it certainly doesn’t look to be part of the gorgonian. The gorg has experienced receding tissues at the tips of and bases of the main branches, with some hair algae growth occurring in those places that I regularly remove. This red stuff is something different, and has only appeared on the central branch so far emerging from areas of living tissue. Also seems to be a red coating on some of denuded parts of twigs that aren’t completely bare, but not on the main areas of tissue recession. It was for those reasons I thought it might be related to new growth at first (which someone suggested), but the largest protrusions aren’t beginning to resemble branches or turn purple. Instead, they look like tiny plating/encrusting structures, kind of tongue-shaped. They do not brush off easily, the one time I removed them I scraped some of the tissue away with them (which I’m pretty sure contributed to the receding). So what could it be? I’m thinking maybe some sort of algae, or could it be some sort of encrusting critter? Is it sapping the gorg’s ability to regenerate? How should I go about removing it? I was hoping it might be able to reclaim areas of tissue loss. Or could it actually be new growth of some sort? It’s not showing up anywhere else in the tank.
In hindsight I should have started with an easier gorg like bipinnata, as elisabethae is apparently more difficult. It is getting what I think is decent flow, lighting is Kessil A80 which I currently have at max. So any ideas? Other advice about keeping gorgs is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Super newbie here with my first post, so please don’t savage me too badly. I have a 2 gallon “pico” tank which is actually a former jellyfish tank. Jellyfish were actually my first saltwater animals. Decided to experiment with an empty tank and so here I am. It’s been up and running for about 6 months now with ups and downs but things seem to be leveling out at the moment. Only two corals in the tank - a Ricordea florida and a photosynthetic gorgonian, Antillogorgia (Pseudoterogorgia) elisabethae. I first noticed the red stuff a couple months ago. Scraped it off assuming it was bad, then didn’t see anything until a few weeks ago. Decided to be optimistic and assume it was the beginning of new growth, but as it’s gotten bigger it certainly doesn’t look to be part of the gorgonian. The gorg has experienced receding tissues at the tips of and bases of the main branches, with some hair algae growth occurring in those places that I regularly remove. This red stuff is something different, and has only appeared on the central branch so far emerging from areas of living tissue. Also seems to be a red coating on some of denuded parts of twigs that aren’t completely bare, but not on the main areas of tissue recession. It was for those reasons I thought it might be related to new growth at first (which someone suggested), but the largest protrusions aren’t beginning to resemble branches or turn purple. Instead, they look like tiny plating/encrusting structures, kind of tongue-shaped. They do not brush off easily, the one time I removed them I scraped some of the tissue away with them (which I’m pretty sure contributed to the receding). So what could it be? I’m thinking maybe some sort of algae, or could it be some sort of encrusting critter? Is it sapping the gorg’s ability to regenerate? How should I go about removing it? I was hoping it might be able to reclaim areas of tissue loss. Or could it actually be new growth of some sort? It’s not showing up anywhere else in the tank.
In hindsight I should have started with an easier gorg like bipinnata, as elisabethae is apparently more difficult. It is getting what I think is decent flow, lighting is Kessil A80 which I currently have at max. So any ideas? Other advice about keeping gorgs is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
