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View Full Version : Do soft corals bleach?!


kris_willard
08-11-2004, 06:19 AM
Is it normal for a soft coral to bleach? I bought this blueish purple leather two days ago and yesterday it was looking great the poylups were thinking of starting to come out and everything. I got it from the LFS for dirt cheap cuz it is very small. The lfs had it in a 70gal tank with 2 NO florescents right on the substrate so i dont think it had much light. I moved it into my 5.5gal with 56watts of PC. It did great for t he first full day and over night it lost most of its colors. All the other corals in my tank are doing awesome. Im not sure which type of leather this is but i believe it is some type of finger leather. Any help is welcome!
Thanks,
Kris

MitchM
08-12-2004, 01:50 PM
Theoretically, I would say that soft corals could bleach.
Soft corals have many other defense mechanisms available to them though, and they can often change their appearance dramatically when water and/or light conditions change.
Give it a couple of days.
I hope it wasn't a dyed coral.
Keep us posted.

Mitch

kris_willard
08-12-2004, 05:08 PM
Well i dont think it was dyed as it was at the LFS for about 2 months before i bought it. My lighting in my tank isabout 100x brighter then the light at the lfsso thats the only thing i can think of. I will keep you posted. I move it into an overhang and fed it some dt's so hopefullly that helps.

MitchM
08-12-2004, 05:58 PM
Oops, yeah, that is an extreme change....
Acclimating corals to new lighting is very important. While it's all shrivelled up though, there's no point feeding DT's. Wait until it's opened up again.
2 months in an underlit tank will probably have weakened it quite a bit.

Mitch

kris_willard
08-12-2004, 06:25 PM
Its not shrivled up just turned white...at least no more shrivvled then when i bought it.